Sometimes, a movie comes out that gets a lot of bad press ahead of release, which can lead to review bombing to the point that a movie is doomed to fail. Review bombing is a practice where a large group of individuals in a coordinated effort, or simply because enough people get angry about a movie being released, where the movie gets an overwhelming number of reviews with awful ratings, such as one star. Now, while people are free to express their opinions, the issue is that many of these review-bombing reviews come from people who have never seen the film, potentially reviewing it before its release, but always with the lowest scores possible to try and drag down a тιтle.

I don’t think everyone has to love every movie, but movies need to be really bad to deserve one star. And more than that, attacking a film because it has some ideas or messages that you don’t personally agree with seems like a wild idea to me. It has an impact on the people making these movies, who spend countless hours working hard to create something they love and are proud of, only to have a large group of people attack it based on rumors instead of its actual content.

10

Snow White

OK, so, I get that this is a hard sell as the first movie on this list. Largely because lots of the issues people have with the movie are legitimate. The casting was controversial, with Rachel Zegler playing the role of a young woman who is literally defined by her name as being Snow White. On top of that, Zegler expressing political opinions and highlighting issues with the classic film did not earn her favor with either the audience or the team behind the scenes.

However, despite this, there is a clear lack of understanding in the reviews that gave this movie the lowest possible score. And there is a lot worth praising. The music, which is part of the core of this movie and the original, is incredible, with Zegler’s spectacular voice helping to shape the soundtrack. On top of that, the visuals, the color, and the bright nature of the movie are all wonderful, and a lot of work went into developing these details that should surely drive the score up from the bottom to at least a point or two higher.

9

Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi

When a franchise becomes a cultural movement, defining generations and influencing so much of other sci-fi and storytelling, the bar is set pretty high. And Star Wars is a perfect example of this phenomenon. The original trilogy became a huge hit, and when the prequel trilogy came out, it became a victim of earlier success, but it ultimately landed well enough with fans.

The same can’t be said for the sequel trilogy, and as the sequel movies were being released, the fanbase became increasingly frustrated with the new direction. To the point that The Last Jedi was review bombed to a high degree, while the critical reception of the film was generally more favorable. It’s no secret how pᴀssionate the Star Wars fanbase can be, but unfortunately, due to their staunch ideas of what these movies and shows need to be, the franchise suffers when they get creative.

8

Captain Marvel

Another huge franchise, the MCU, has increasingly become the target of review bombing. However, it all seems to have started with Captain Marvel in 2019. This one was weird. And unfortunately, it highlights misogyny and general aggression to change and development in the fanbase of the MCU, because early in the marketing for Captain Marvel, Brie Larson, the star of the film, became the subject of a lot of hate online.

Rumors of her being at odds with the cast, discussion of her intense political views, and distortions of opinions appear to have incited the fanbase to intensely dislike and target the Captain Marvel star. While the movie still managed to cross the $1 billion mark at the box office, in a time when Marvel was putting out billion-dollar hit after billion-dollar hit, the damage was done, and things only got worse for the MCU, and particularly the Captain Marvel sequel, The Marvels.

7

Lightyear

It’s clear that a trend exists with Disney, and its sub-brands being a particular target of review bombing, and that continues with the release of Lightyear. Now, fans were a little unsure how to react to news of a Toy Story spin-off which would drastically alter the canon of the series. But, for the most part, a movie about the character who inspired the Buzz Lightyear toy was actually kind of exciting.

However, when it became well known that the story would contain a homoSєxual couple, people immediately turned against the film. Now, the actual character in question does not play a huge role, and the scenes are largely discreet and innocent, but it appears that the idea of having this in a kids’ movie was repugnant to a lot of people. Instead of simply choosing not to see it, many people took to the online review boards and tore into the movie.

6

Bros

Outside of the Disney family, but sticking with the theme of an LGBTQ+ story, Bros was another target of review bombing. Despite coming out in 2022, well into an era where love is love, and many people seem to recognize that simple idea, a comedy movie purely about two gay men, was too much for some with sensitive sensibilities. So, in a fit of rage about the idea of such a movie, people targeted the film and bombarded review boards with negative reviews.

The thing is, Billy Eichner is a well-liked gay actor. Or at least, prior to this movie, he was popular. But having him star in a movie, next to another openly gay actor, and telling a story about the struggles of a gay couple was too much. It’s bizarre to think it was so poorly received, but evidently, some people weren’t ready.

5

Ghostbuster

Now, Ghostbusters was a huge hit in the 1980s. The original movies were immensely popular, and when a reboot was announced, it gained some traction. But, when it was announced that this would be a gender-bent version of the story, with four women starring in place of the original heroes, people were agitated by what appeared to be a needless change in the name of equality.

Admittedly, the movie was not nearly as good as the original, but for all those who did watch the 2016 version of Ghostbusters, it has a lot of fun moments, and the quirk of changing the gender makes it fun and silly. No, it doesn’t make sense as a sequel, and it’s much more comedy-focused than the original, but the level of hatred that it received was disproportionate to how the actual movie turned out.

4

The Suicide Squad

Suicide Squad by David Ayer had a lot that was worth critiquing. However, the studio decided to confuse the DCEU timeline further with a total reboot five years after the original. That was kind of a sequel and kind of not, is bizarre. And James Gunn moving over from the MCU after being dropped was received with some mixed feelings. However, die-hard David Ayer fans and those who wanted the vision of Zack Snyder to continue were less pleased about The Suicide Squad.

But the movie is undeniably great. Many of the other entries here are OK, or questionable to some degree, but The Suicide Squad was hilarious, dark, twisted, beautiful, and perfect, taking the comic book and making something great with it. But despite this, the movie got a lot of negative reviews thanks to the confusion, calamity, and mess made by the studios’ lack of a plan.

3

Black Panther

Unfortunately, when audiences perceive a studio to be “too woke” such as when they make more movies featuring diverse talent and exploring subjects that haven’t always held the spotlight in Hollywood, some audiences feel the need to punish them. Now, Black Panther is a character who has existed in comics since 1966, and Marvel has always been a company that pushes to have more inclusivity and progressive ideals.

But despite this, the idea of a movie centered on a Black superhero, with a predominantly Black cast due to the location that it’s set in, triggered some people. Black Panther was released in 2018, and it was undoubtedly a great superhero entry with the incredibly talented Chadwick Boseman leading the charge. I’ll concede that it did get disproportionate attention in the Academy Awards compared to other superhero movies, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t earn those awards, just that other superhero films deserve similar levels of recognition for technical brilliance.

2

Eternals

Moving swiftly on, another Marvel Studios entry that I feel gets a terribly disproportionately bad rep is Eternals. Yes, the movie was hyped like crazy with a star-studded cast and an Oscar-winning director, but the movie was fun and visually stunning in a lot of parts. But it did struggle to resolve how the heroes fit within the wider MCU, and there were some elements of the story that felt a little undercooked.

But with all of that said, this movie should not have been such a low earner, and received such abominable reviews. And it’s hard to not see a connection between the focus on diversity in this movie, the inclusion of an openly gay superhero, and not thinking that the same fanbase that freaked out about a movie starring Brie Larson and Black Panther a few years earlier had grown beyond those same issues by 2021. Eternals deserved more love for the storytelling, the visuals, the talented cast, and the set-up of some exciting elements for the future of the MCU.

1

The Promise

Finally, The Promise is a 2016 movie that deals with a sensitive part of the history during the last days of the Ottoman Empire. The movie had a target on its back from the moment it was announced. The movie stars Oscar Isaac, an incredible talent, and was written and directed by Terry George, who has created several incredible тιтles that were received much more positively.

However, due to the nature of the story, and the genocides that the story outlines, the movie was review bombed. Unfortunately, audiences formulate opinions on works like The Promise and all the above long before sitting down in a theater, and that can lead to unfair reviews that taint the films’ performance and unfairly target stories that don’t align with individual ideologies. Surely movies should be reviewed based on their merits, but when review bombing is a thing, that is not always the case.