Desolation of Smaug predictions

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It appears not.

Another more minor positive review was added however (from "We Got This Covered"), raising the score to 77%.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Up to 78% with the addition of the Movie Nation review. Still no TIME or the other missing positive reviews, but also no NY Post (the first negative review that didn't go up right away).

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Up to 79% with the addition of the Film.com review, which also makes it 6 for 6 with top critics (although that one was by far the worst of the six that are up there now, and actually lowered the average rating from 7.4 to 7.3).

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Down to 76% with the addition of the mixed Oregonian review as rotten. But a slew of missing positive reviews from RT critics (plus the one negative one from the NY Post).

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And, continuing the rollercoaster ride, back up to 77% with the seventh positive top critic from Time Out New York (however there is a very negative review from Tom Long of the Detroit News who is a top critic, which will break the streak when it gets posted).

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Through 30 reviews, DoS has only one less rotten review than AUJ had, although the reviews overall have been better. I still think it will come out with a significantly higher score, but that is by no means guaranteed at this point.

ETA: However, of those 30, in both cases seven are top critics and DoS is all fresh, whereas AUJ had 4 rotten.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The Film.com was changed to rotten, lowering the total to percentage to 73. But four new positive ones, including two more top critics, raise it back to 76.

Still no TIME.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Up to 78%, but I'm not quite sure why. It appears that there are two new positive top critics, but they are not showing on the list.

Edit: TIME (finally) and Radio Times and Newsday.

(It would be at 81% if they hadn't changed the Film.com.)

[Smaug's voice]

How many positives are missing right now?
And 1 negative? From NY post.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I've lost track. The only one I was really tracking was the TIME.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The 3 star Cinema Blend review was added raising the average percentage to 79%, and lowering the average rating to 7.2.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Three new positive reviews (including one top critic) has it back at 80 (actually just below 81, at 80.48780487804878).

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Down to 79 with a negative review from the Ooh Tray.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Down to 77 with the Reelviews review rated as rotten (it could have gone either way).

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yet another borderline review from The List rated as rotten, but still at 77%.

They also now have a consensus listed: "While still slightly hamstrung by "middle chapter" narrative problems and its formidable length, The Desolation of Smaug represents a more confident, exciting second chapter for the Hobbit series."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It seemed to me that almost all of the borderline reviews are being listed as rotten (with one even being changed from fresh to rotten). So I thought I would do an experiment, and compare DoS's average ratings with other recent movies (from the list of top rentals) with fairly similar tomatometer scores. The results are telling.

DoS currently has a 76% tomatometer score, with the average rating holding at 7.2.

Fast and Furious 6, is 70% and 6.2,

Monsters University, 78%, 6.8

Despicable Me 2, 75%, 6.7

The Wolverine, 69%, 6.3

The Heat, 66%, 6.2

Pacific Rim, 72%, 6.7

And perhaps most telling:

The Conjuring, 87%, 7.2

There you have it. All of those films have much lower average ratings in relation to their tomatometer scores than DoS. And The Conjuring, which has the same exact average rating, has a tomatometer score fully 11 percentage points higher than DoS. That is pretty compelling.

ETA: Even more telling, the film Saving Mr. Banks, which is due to be released the same day as DoS, is currently at 84%, 7 percentage points above DoS, even though its average rating is 6.9, 0.3 lowered than that of DoS!

[Dave_LF]

Are both the fresh/rotten determinations and the numeric ratings provided by the reviewers themselves?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I don't believe so. I believe it is RT that determines it.

Another rotten one is now up, dropping the score to 75%.

Edit: The NY Post diatribe.

[Dave_LF]

Well, whoever's doing the rating, the implication seems to be that he/she/they has some sort of prejudice against this sort of movie, and the quality therefore has to be that much higher in order to elicit a "fresh" rating.

[yovargas]

Comparing the RT score to the avg is a fairly useless exercise. It is theoretically possible for a movie with an avg of 51 to have 100% on RT. It's not uncommon for RT to be 10-20 points higher than the actual avg.