The Thriller Now On Netflix Was Hated By Critics, Loved By Audiences
This year, Rotten Tomatoes launched a contentious new feature. The new Verified Hot audience label will pair with the Certified Fresh critics label. Certified Fresh films must achieve a Tomatometer score of 75% or higher, with five Top Critic reviews, and a minimum of 80 total reviews. Broadly, the designation indicates a film that has been critically successful. The new Verified Hot label applies to films with 500+ verified audience reviews and a total audience score of over 90%. Upon launch, over 200 films were Verified Hot, including, strangely, 2019’s Angel Has Fallen, which you can stream for free on Hulu now.
Check out a trailer and synopsis below:
Per Hulu: Secret Service Agent Mike Banning is framed for the attempted assassination of the President and must evade his own agency and the FBI as he tries to uncover the real threat.
Some critics have pushed back against the measure, arguing it further devalues the perspectives of professional critics, especially in an environment as uncontrolled as audience reviews. In that realm, select fans regularly inflate or decrease a given title’s total score with an inundation of reviews known colloquially as “review bombing.” From a critical perspective, Angel Has Fallen was a miss, with the Rotten Tomatoes consensus reading, “Cut from the same rough cloth as its predecessors, Angel Has Fallen rounds out a mostly forgettable action trilogy in fittingly mediocre fashion.”
Audiences felt differently. The Popcornmeter is the new audience score designation. The first entry in the series, Olympus Has Fallen, scored a 66% on the Popcornmeter, while its sequel, London Has Fallen, dipped to a Popcornmeter of 51%. Miraculously, Angel Has Fallen managed a remarkable 93% with over 10,000 verified rankings. Audiences really seem to love Angel Has Fallen. From my own personal perspective, I gave the first film a try while working at a movie theater. It didn’t really do much for me, as much as I like Gerard Butler, so I never bothered with the rest of the series. That audience score is a huge jump, however, so maybe now’s the time to finally try it out.
If you’re interested in Ric Roman Waugh’s capstone to the titular Has Fallen trilogy, you can catch it streaming free on Hulu now with a cable subscription. London Has Fallen is currently streaming free on Netflix. Unfortunately, Olympus Has Fallen, the first in the series, is only available to rent.
What do you think? Are you a fan of the trilogy? How did Angel Has Fallen wrap things for you? Let me know what you think over on Twitter @Chadiscollins.
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