…it would appear he doesn’t like at least parts of it, including the Rottentomatoes “averages”:
http://io9.com/david-cronenberg-says-rotten-tomatoes-is-wrecking-film-1677869612
I think he has a point in that nowadays just about anyone out there (including me!) can be a critic and, sometimes, some opinions appear (to put it kindly) ill informed.
Yet everyone, including Mr. Cronenberg, should remember what by now should be an obvious fact: Personal tastes in the arts (movies, music, books, stories, etc. etc.) are subjective. Just because someone inartfully states they found a film a failure because it was “boring” and/or conversely a success because the “effects were so cool” while offering few well reasoned facts as to why they liked/didn’t like a film doesn’t mean their personal opinion is wrong. Others may well like or dislike a film for the very same reasons.
Where I do agree with Mr. Cronenberg is in the fact that by aggregating critical scores we’re giving equal weight to well thought out reviews as well as those that, in his opinion, aren’t. Interestingly, he further notes that some well thought out critics that wouldn’t otherwise appear has done so thanks to the internet. This, to him, is more the exception rather than the rule.
For me, I like Rottentomatoes if only to get a general idea of where critics (all of them!) and, more interesting, audiences stand with regard to movies. I don’t tend to get too deeply into the reviews and only use the compendium score to get a general idea of how things fall. Then again, unlike Mr. Cronenberg, a very successful and a times challenging moviemaker, I clearly don’t dive as deeply into the individual reviews as he does.
Like many modern things, it is the way things are. Perhaps these aggregate opinions are harmful in the long run if they influence studios to the point that they delude the quality of film. But it seems to me there have always been good and bad works out there and you can look long and hard to find what personally works for you.
Anyway, I’ll close on this, a list of 25 movies that critics loathed yet audiences loved, brought to you by (who else!?) Rottentomatoes: