Movie Rankings: Metacritic

This is part four in a series where I look at how various Internet sites have ranked movies that we have in our collection at home.  Part I was my reason for starting this series of articles, Part II looked at the rankings from IMDb, and Part III went into the ratings from Rotten Tomatoes.

Before I get into the movies themselves, I need to point out that Metacritic disappointed me quite a bit in which movies they did not have ratings for.  With most of the nine movies that I listed from Rotten Tomatoes, there were 24 additional films that simply did not exist on Metacritic's site.  Films like Dragonheart, Immortal Beloved, The Transformers: The Movie, and Monty Python's Meaning of Life.  To me, it definitely seemed like there were a number of foreign films missing like Ringu, The Ring Virus, Suicide Club, Rashomon, Uncovered, and Akira, as well as a some of the older films like Captain Blood, Yojimbo, and 13 Ghosts (not to be confused with the 2001 remake Thir13en Ghosts).  I felt that this did not alter the final results too much as I do not see Dragonheart or Suicide Club being in either the top or bottom five.  It just made me a little saddened to see a site as "comprehensive" as Metacritic missing so many movies for no apparent reason.  And it is not like these are obscure films either, as there is a page for the Japanese manga based film Uzumaki which is surely not as well known as Akira, or Immortal Beloved.

But anyway.

Top 5 Films (Hypothesized)

• Aliens (1986)
• Akira (1988)
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
• Seven Samurai (1954)
• Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

MetacriticTop 5 Films That I Own

• This is Spinal Tap (1984)                                                          [92]
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)                             [93]
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)      [94]
• Dr. Strangelove (1964)                                                               [97]
• Seven Samurai (1954)                                                               [98]

You know, I am kind of okay with these top five films.  And I am kind of okay with their order too.  Kind of.  I probably never would have put Monty Python and the Holy Grail or This is Spinal Tap this high on their list despite the fact that I love Holy Grail and I think Spinal Tap is hilarious, especially after the list from the previous two sites.  It was actually pretty refreshing to see comedies in three of the top five spots, because .  I think it is kind of like what films you would expect to win the Oscar for Best Picture.  A comedy, unless it is a heartfelt comedy, probably will not make the list.  Just look at the list of nominees and winners of the Oscars for Best Picture and you will find that comedies only dot the numerous other titles and rarely win at that. So it was nice to see the likes of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and This is Spinal Tap making the top 5.  Still not surprised about Return of the King being rated so high, but you all know what I have had to say about that movie. . .although I am thinking I should do a full on article why I feel like that is my least favorite of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. . . maybe. . .

But now onto the the poorly rated movies!

Bottom 5 Films (Hypothesized)

• Beowulf (2007)
• The Happening (2008)
• Jackhammer Massacre (2004)
• The Postman (1997)
• Waterworld (1995)

Metacritic Bottom 5 Films That I Own

• Silent Hill (2006)                [31]
• Legend (1985)                      [30]
• Thir13en Ghosts (2001)     [30]
• The Postman (1997)           [29]
• Tideland (2005)                  [26]

You know, this one surprised me too, but for the wrong reasons.  I can understand Silent Hill making the list because again, it is a movie based on a video game.  I thought it was better than a 31 because for me, as it worked well on its own and did not require previous knowledge about the game and I thought was one of the better adaptations to date.  I should note that when I saw the movie, I only had a small bit of information about the series and had not played any of the games yet.  But Legend!?  Really!?  I mean I guess if you do not like over-the-top high fantasy full of rhyming Dwarves, unicorns, swamp hags, and stories where good triumphs over evil.  Maybe the people reviewing the film had only seen it (and rated it) with Tangerine Dream's soundtrack and not the original score by Jerry Goldsmith?  But Gene Siskel calling the film not ". . .the least bit artful" is rubbish in my opinion.  This low rating I genuinely do not understand.  We already talked about Thir13en Ghosts, and The Postman so I will skip those and go to the equally baffling low Tideland.  Terry Gilliam films run the gamut from Tideland [26] to Monty Python and the Holy Grail [93] and everything in-between.  Even Conklederp was surprised and confused by the low rating.  "Way too disturbing for kids and too weird for most grown-ups."  "Tideland" is borderline unwatchable."  "The worst that can be said of the first two-thirds of "Tideland" is that it is tiresome."  "His latest effort is pointless and an excruciating bore."  Well, there are 12 more negative critic reviews that you can read if you want, but I think you get the point, one that is apparently lost on me because I really enjoyed Tideland.

So what is my take away from Metacritic?  I do appreciate the variation in not only the top 5 movies, but also that top 10 which include titles like King Kong (1933), Being John Malkovich (1999), and Alien (1979).  The bottom 10 also included (by now standards like) Your Highness, and The Happening, but also had UHF with a paltry low score of 32.  In the end though, I do not know if I see myself actively visiting Metacritic for all/any of my movie scoring needs, especially if they are not going to have ratings for 16% of the movies in our collection.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
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