Peter Pan & Wendy (Live-Action)

[Patricier21]

62%???? Way too much.

So, in the critics' opinion, Peter Pan & Wendy was better than Aladdin, Maleficent and The Lion King?! What the actual f**k? Even Alice Through the Looking Glass was more interesting than this.

As much as I agree that through the Looking Glass is more interesting (not to mention a severely underrated movie that’s actually quite good and Aladdin and overall the lion King are better than this, I would say the exact opposite for the audience score being 11% being way too low. Seriously, maybe you all just have to high expectations and or are blinded by hatred and bias, eh?

[Mooky]

RT system is inherently flawed -- the fresh/rotten percentage tells nothing of the movie's objective quality, the percentage is just the aggregate of positive/negative reviews. RT is not even consistent with review classification, sometimes a 2.5/5 review is counted towards rotten, sometimes towards fresh, without the actual critic's input or preference. It's basically a popularity contest presented as a grading system. I suggest reading actual, nuanced reviews on RT for a better idea what a movie is like, or sticking to reviews by a film critic with whose assessments you usually agree with or whose writing style you like, providing there is one. I, for example, love reading reviews by Tim Brayton over at alternateending.com, even though I don't always agree with them.

If you still prefer a grading system, then Metacritic is a much better choice than RT because they actually use weighted average for their grading, i.e. a review from a renowned film critic or publication (say rogerebert.com) holds more weight than some random YouTuber with a big mouth and a big following (*cough* Grace Randolph *cough*), as it should.

And because lists are fun, here are these:

Live-action / photorealistic animation remakes and similar fantasy movies in order of release (M - Metascore, U - user score):
The Jungle Book (1994) - 63 (M), 6.1 (U)
101 Dalmatians (1996) - 49 (M), 6.1 (U)
102 Dalmatians (2000) - 35 (M), 5.0 (U)
Alice in Wonderland (2010) - 53 (M), 5.9 (U)
The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010) - 46 (M), 6.2 (U)
Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) - 44 (M), 6.1 (U)
Maleficent (2014) - 56 (M), 6.8 (U)
Cinderella (2015) - 67 (M), 7.4 (U)
The Jungle Book (2016) - 77 (M), 7.5 (U)
Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) - 34 (M), 5.9 (U)
Pete's Dragon (2016) - 71 (M), 6.7 (U)
Beauty and the Beast (2017) - 65 (M), 6.6 (U)
Christopher Robin (2018) - 60 (M), 7.5 (U)
Mary Poppins Returns (2018) - 66 (M), 6.6 (U)
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018) - 39 (M), 4.8 (U)
Dumbo (2019) - 51 (M), 5.7 (U)
Aladdin (2019) - 53 (M), 6.6 (U)
The Lion King (2019) - 55 (M), 6.5 (U)
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019) - 43 (M), 6.3 (U)
Lady and the Tramp (2019) - 48 (M), 6.1 (U)
Mulan (2020) - 66 (M), 2.9 (U)
Cruella (2021) - 59 (M), 7.1 (U)
Pinocchio (2022) - 38 (M), 2.2 (U)
Peter Pan & Wendy (2023) - 61 (M), 1.2 (U)

Best-to-worst - Metascore:
The Jungle Book (2016) - 77
Pete's Dragon (2016) - 71
----------
Cinderella (2015) - 67
Mulan (2020) - 66
Beauty and the Beast (2017) - 65
The Jungle Book (1994) - 63
Peter Pan & Wendy (2023) - 61
Christopher Robin (2018) - 60
----------
Cruella (2021) - 59
Maleficent (2014) - 56
The Lion King (2019) - 55
Alice in Wonderland (2010) - 53
Aladdin (2019) - 53
Dumbo (2019) - 51
----------
101 Dalmatians (1996) - 49
Lady and the Tramp (2019) - 48
The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010) - 46
Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) - 44
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019) - 43
----------
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018) - 39
Pinocchio (2022) - 38
102 Dalmatians (2000) - 35
Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) - 34

Best-to-worst - user score:
The Jungle Book (2016) - 7.5
Christopher Robin (2018) - 7.5
Cinderella (2015) - 7.4
Cruella (2021) - 7.1
----------
Maleficent (2014) - 6.8
Pete's Dragon (2016) - 6.7
Beauty and the Beast (2017) - 6.6
Mary Poppins Returns (2018) - 6.6
Aladdin (2019) - 6.6
The Lion King (2019) - 6.5
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019) - 6.3
The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010) - 6.2
The Jungle Book (1994) - 6.1
101 Dalmatians (1996) - 6.1
Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) - 6.1
Lady and the Tramp (2019) - 6.1
----------
Alice in Wonderland (2010) - 5.9
Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) - 5.9
Dumbo (2019) - 5.7
102 Dalmatians (2000) - 5.0
----------
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018) - 4.8
----------
Mulan (2020) - 2.9
Pinocchio (2022) - 2.2
----------
Peter Pan & Wendy (2023) - 1.2

The point is, as with anything, the actual quality/level of enjoyment is somewhere in the middle. Don't be swayed by high critic scores and don't be discouraged by low audience scores. See any movie for what it is and form your own opinion on it. Even in scenarios where both audience and critics agree (The Jungle Book on the upper end, or Pinocchio on the lower end of the spectrum), it doesn't mean that you yourself will like/dislike a movie. I know my own list would look quite different to both of these.

[Disney's Divinity]

I also read Tim Brayton, he's the only film critic aside from, IDK, someone like Unshaved Mouse (I think that was the title of the blog?) that I've read consistently--although I read more than animated film reviews with Brayton--but even Brayton I have disagreed with before. I haven't read as much by him since he moved to alternateending.com from Antagony & Ecstasy because alternateending.com's setup is irksome for me to load.

I think the RottenTomatoes system is only useful because it makes it obvious when the critics (speaking of them in a general sense) are often out-of-step with the audience. It became noticeable to me when they took an obvious grudge out on TLK and Aladdin, when those films were doing extraordinarily well with audiences.