Since its inception back in 1998, Rotten Tomatoes has grown to become one of the biggest review aggregator sites in the world. In more recent times, though, the site has come under fire, with many proclaiming it as the architect of “the death of cinema and film criticism.” Our resident movie buff, Matt Donato, already tackled this issue in-depth recently, so I’m not going to get into the pros and cons of the famed Tomatometer.
What I am going to do is look at some of the instances where the RT approval score hasn’t told the full story. Naturally, this isn’t the site’s fault, since it can only aggregate what’s out there. It could be that several media outlets didn’t post reviews, or maybe the films just weren’t critical darlings. Whatever the case is, hindsight provides the best clarity here.
So, without further ado, here are 10 decent films with scores under 30% on Rotten Tomatoes. Remember though, this doesn’t mean the films in question are masterpieces by any means – only that the scores aren’t necessarily a fair reflection of the overall quality of the production.