Once upon a time, good reviews were a key method of convincing audiences to head down to their local multiplex and check out the latest high-profile movie, but those days have long since passed. In the age of franchise fare and marketable IP, name recognition is more than enough to secure box office success, while fans of the source material in question tend to be a lot more forgiving than critics.
It’s an endless debate that’s been brought into sharper focus than ever this year, with a number of big releases seeing huge discrepancies between the critical and audience consensus on Rotten Tomatoes. The Mortal Kombat reboot, Disney’s Jungle Cruise, Sony’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Marvel’s Eternals and Netflix’s Red Notice boast middling RT scores of 54%, 62%, 59%, 48% and 35%.
However, users have deemed those respective titles worthy of 86%, 92%, 84%, 80% and 92%, so it’s evident who enjoyed those movies more. We can now add Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City to that list, with reviews awarding the video game reboot a 29%, but audiences have bestowed a much more generous 60%.
Admittedly, the latter is very surprising when the film is effectively fan service aimed squarely at those familiar with the first two games, and we’ll be very curious to see if Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City manages to find any significant levels of success at a stacked box office this weekend.
