The problem of review bombing on sites such as Rotten Tomatoes and IMBd is not a new problem. From people taking issues with LGBTQ+ inclusion, race-swapping of characters or even the departure of a star due to creative differences a la The Witcher, there are many reasons that people slam various movies and TV shows other than the production actually being bad. Now, The Little Mermaid has seen many foreign sites calling out “unusual distribution” of reviews and warned audiences to make their own mind up about what to read into them.
The Little Mermaid suffered a fair amount of backlash for its casting of Halle Bailey in the title role, but as trailers and clips from the movie started to appear online, it became clear that her portrayal of the character was more that justification of her casting. It seems, though, that there are still plenty of people who have issues with the movie that extend beyond a critique of the film itself. In response to these reviews, sites have taken the move to counter these with warnings to those using their site to gauge whether to see the film or not.
The rare move has been seen on IMBd around the world, where a statement reads:
“Our rating mechanism has detected unusual voting activity on this title. To preserve the reliability of our rating system, an alternate weighting calculation has been applied. Although we accept and consider all votes received by users, not all votes have the same impact (or ‘weight’) on the final rating. When unusual voting activity is detected, an alternate weighting calculation may be applied in order to preserve the reliability of our system.”
AlloCiné, a French site, put out a similar and even more direct note, despite some of their more reputable critics also slamming the movie with 1 star ratings. Their site read:
“We are currently observing an unusual distribution of scores which demands the need for caution. We encourage you to make up your own mind about the film.”
The Little Mermaid’s Box Office Has Overcome Mixed Critic Reviews.
Despite critics being split over Disney’s live-action take on The Little Mermaid, audiences have made the film one of the biggest movies of the year after just three days on release. The film has also gained much higher ratings from the majority of audience reviews, at least in the first wave. Having hit around 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, The Little Mermaid has continued to hold that rating while critic reviews slipped to around 67%, making the movie another example of critics and audiences not being on the same page about what makes good cinema.
Heading into a school break period, it is likely that The Little Mermaid will continue to dominate the box office in the coming week and that could see the film very quickly charge up the chart to fight it out with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Fast X to be the second highest grossing movie of 2023.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
