Rotten Tomatoes' Biggest Divides Between Audience And Critic Scores In The MCU Explained

In a 2019 interview with Empire, Martin Scorsese said of the MCU films, "I don't see them. I tried, you know? But that's not cinema. Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well-made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn't the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being." Scorsese's pal Francis Ford Coppola backed him up, stating to the Guardian, "He's right, because we expect to learn something from cinema, we expect to gain something, some enlightenment, some knowledge, some inspiration." 

Rotten Tomatoes (RT) has its detractors, too. With the lackluster critical response to the MCU's latest film, "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania," and discrepancies on RT widening between critical and audience reactions, questions about both the MCU and RT have once again been raised. Who are the Marvel films for, anyway? And is RT a fair system for rating them? RT has long been criticized for being too blunt of an instrument that squelches thorough, well-crafted reviews. With other review aggregators like Metacritic and Letterboxd gaining out there, is RT — with its simplistic representation of critical and audience consensus — in danger of becoming irrelevant? Let's take a deeper look into how the MCU has fared within this helpful, if flawed, rating system.

"Captain Marvel" may have been a film that critics were predisposed to enjoy, given it was directed by indie darlings Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, but their response (79%) was tepid at best. The London Standard's Matthew Norman crowed, "There's a new boss in town," the BBC's Caryn James found it "good enough to satisfy the series' built-in audience"; Mark Kermode thought it was "perfectly fine"; Mick LaSalle at the San Francisco Examiner lamented, "Good thing it's still March. 'Captain Marvel' would have made a weak start to the summer blockbuster season"; and, as Matthew Rozsa of Salon put it, "The breakout character may wind up being an adorable cat named Goose." Audiences (45%) were considerably less keen, put off by the film's confusing timeline, de-aging effects on Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury and Clark Gregg's Agent Colson, a lack of familiarity with the character, and, perhaps, an unhealthy dose of sexism. With 100K audience reviews (vs. 50K on gold-standard films from the same era, like "Endgame," "Infinity War," and "Black Panther"), only a single page of which is "verified," review bombing is apparently in effect. Verified audience member "Desmond B" wrote, "They completely emasculated the Nick Fury character to make Captain Marvel look good"; another, "metalmonk," claimed the film was "pointless pandering to a non-existing demographic"; and a couple anonymous reviewers claimed, "Brie Larson put too much of her own obtuse personality into the film" (how would anybody even know that?) and "Smug self righteous overpowered girl hits things a lot."

The first and only MCU film to receive an Oscar nomination for best picture, "Black Panther" sports a 17-point differential on RT, with critics (96%) appearing to prefer it far more than audiences (79%). Closer inspection exposes a couple shortcomings of the system: racist responses and reviews of the wrong film. "Overpraised due to an all-black cast," one reader wrote in September 2022; "Ethan J" missed the mark entirely, claiming, "I understand it's a Marvel film, but flying sea people that get around on whale back is a little bit too silly." Like "The Last Jedi" before it, and "Captain Marvel," "Black Panther" was subjected to review bombing by fringe groups due to the presence of characters of color. This phenomenon was caught by Rotten Tomatoes, which instituted changes in time for the sequel, "Wakanda Forever," but as mentioned, that didn't stop audiences from trashing that film; they just posted their reviews on the original.

Fortunately, on the strength of its reviews and performances, "Black Panther" became the third highest-grossing entry in the MCU ($700 million, and that's only the domestic box office). With a stellar ensemble led by the late Chadwick Boseman, a worthy villain in Michael B. Jordan's Killmonger, and crackling performances by Lupita Nyong'o, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Danai Gurira, Sterling K. Brown, and Angela Bassett, "Black Panther" lives up to the hype, with world-building unlike anything seen before in the cinematic universe.

"Black Widow" fared better than "Love and Thunder" in terms of critical and audience response. Critically, the film (which was delayed due to COVID-19) was deemed fresh at 79%, with audiences averaging out at 91% – a 12-point difference. The reason for the gap? Many critics complained that Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) wasn't a character crying out for a standalone film. Despite the presence of a buoyant Florence Pugh as Natasha's sister, Yelena Belova, Maya Phillips of the New York Times claimed the film "never feels more than just a footnote in the story, a detour that holds no weight in the larger MCU narrative, except to set up Yelena for a larger role in the future." Fans also fell for Yelena, but sensed her purpose as Phillips had; verified audience member Frederick C attested, "Lots of action with wry humor mixed in. Good for backstory... Obviously a large part of this movie was to introduce her adopted sister for the 'Hawkeye' series." Indeed, Pugh almost stole this film from Johansson, then almost walked off with "Hawkeye"; she is due to appear in the upcoming "Thunderbolts" with "Black Widow" characters Red Guardian (David Harbour) and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko). 

Given the ecstatic response to the original "Black Panther," it seems almost inevitable that the film's sequel might fall short, especially following the untimely passing of its star, Chadwick Boseman. And indeed, thanks to another overstuffed MCU plot and CGI-heavy final battle, and a certain amount of superhero fatigue, the film does not rise to the level of its predecessor (which would seem to explain the film's 84% response by critics). Still, there is much to admire in "Wakanda Forever," such as its legion of powerful female characters, led by Oscar nominee Angela Bassett, its inclusion of same-sex relationships, and incorporation of both Aztec and Mayan cultures as embodied by the character of Namor (Tenoch Huerta). Meanwhile, audience enthusiasm added up to a 94% score.  

Reviews that typify the schism include that of Kyle Smith in the Wall Street Journal, who opined, "After a spate of manic superhero blockbusters that ricocheted from one digital spectacle to another, this one takes its time with character and plot but doesn't develop either to any satisfying degree." Audiences rallied to the franchise's defense, with verified reviewer "Hampton" calling the film a "great cinematic experience" with "solid cross-cultural conflict and resolution story-line. Always cutting edge tech and positive images, ethics espoused by Black characters. Inspirational. Good prodigy seeding for sequel!" (Indeed, the film ends on a hopeful note that the Panther line will continue.)

The MCU's first and only film thus far with an Asian lead (Simu Liu), an Asian American director (Destin Daniel Cretton) and writer (David Callaham), "Shang Chi" might not have the astronomical box office numbers of "Black Panther" or "Avengers: Endgame," but it does have terrific RT averages from critics (91%) and audiences (98%).The film earns points for turning a stereotype from the comics into a believable character and injecting much-needed humor via Awkwafina's Katy and Benedict Wong's, er, Wong. It's also got some terrific fight scenes, and it finally justifies the existence of Ben Kingsley's Trevor Slattery from "Iron Man 3." Still, critics were turned off by the climactic battle, which succumbed to the MCU's tendency to go big or go home (in this case, an honest-to-goodness Kaiju fight). Oliver Jones, in the Observer, stated, "'Shang-Chi' certainly deserves credit as a groundbreaking step of representation in mega-budget filmmaking. You just desperately wish that the terrain it treads upon didn't feel so safe." For the most part, audiences didn't care, with verified reviewer "Damen H" crowing, "The best fight choreography in the entire MCU. Great intro for a really dope character."

It's hard to believe, but the $2 billion global box office smash "Avengers: Infinity War" only fetched an 85% critical score on RT, while audiences (at 92%) gobbled up this "more is more" Russo brothers' production, whose poster may feature the greatest number of characters ever shoehorned into a vertical rectangle. "Avengers: Infinity War" is, in many ways, the culmination of 19 films that had meticulously planted seeds (or is it stones?), and those who had eagerly followed along were richly rewarded as the threads came together. Puppet master Thanos finally steps out of the shadows, and Earth's mightiest heroes had their hands full, putting aside the differences that had arisen in "Civil War" (2016) to fight a cosmic threat that, at least in this film, gains the upper hand. The Russos make a number of audacious choices, with that bummer of an ending, and there's no question that the cast and creatives were firing on all cylinders. So which critics weren't impressed? Those honors go to Ben Sachs of the Chicago Reader, who complained, "With so many characters to cover, [the Russos] have no time to develop any of them, and the action set pieces are all by the numbers"; and The New Yorker's Anthony Lane, who opined, "At stake, as ever, is the fate of the universe. Why must it always be the universe? What's wrong with the fate of Hackensack?"