Legally Blonde: Red, White, and Blonde, The Jungle Book 2, National Treasure, Richie Rich, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas. The sole thing that ties these five films together is that they have a higher Rotten Tomatoes score than Jonathan Eusebio’s 2025 directorial debut Love Hurts. For those who don’t know how a Rotten Tomatoes score works, films are given a percentage on the “Tomatometer,” 100 percent being the best (Toy Story, Toy Story 2, The Terminator), and 0 percent being the worst (The Nutcracker in 3D, Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol). The Tomatometer number is based on the proportion of positive reviews from certified movie critics. A film with less than a 60 percent is considered “rotten,” a film with 60-80 percent is considered “fresh,” and a film with an 80-100 percent is considered “certified fresh.”
Personally, I do not allow a movie’s Rotten Tomato score to hold weight in my opinion of the film. On the contrary, I very often enjoy the films that critics deem “rotten.” For example, two of my favorite 2024 releases are Lisa Frankenstein, which has 52 percent, and Y2K, which has 43 percent. These two films share many similarities. Both are satirical comedies, both are campy (aesthetic and sensibility that regards something as appealing or amusing because of its heightened level of artifice, affectation, and exaggeration), and both are simply made for fun. My enjoyment of films with scores just as these made me much more excited when I saw Love Hurts was given a score of 18 percent.
Love Hurts is a film set on Valentine’s Day, and follows ex-hit man-turned-realtor Marvin Gable (Ke Huy Quan) as his former partner-in-crime (Ariana DeBose) comes back out from hiding and drags him back into the life he used to live. Critics have negative things to say about nearly every aspect of the film (aside from the casting, because we can all agree that Ke Huy Quan is incredible). The majority of these criticisms are of the writing of the film itself. One critic review simply stated, “Ouchie.”
In my opinion, this was an incredibly fun film. I laughed at the jokes, I enjoyed the cinematography, and I thoroughly enjoyed the runtime of 83 minutes (bring back short movies!). To me, it was incredibly clear that this was a comedic film, straight from the get-go. I feel like many people who have negative things to say about this film are simply taking it too seriously.
This is my biggest gripe with film critics. There is so much pressure for movies to be perfect, and more often than not the critics rating these “rotten” movies are not the target audience. A prime example of this at work came with the release of Five Nights at Freddy’s in 2023. This is a film adaptation of the video game series of the same name, and throughout the production it was constantly reinforced that the film was solely for the fans. Now I’m going to go out on a limb and say that these film critics did not grow up playing this scary computer game. They are very clearly not the target audience. Knowing this, it makes a lot of sense that Five Nights at Freddy’s received a Rotten Tomatoes score of 32 percent, despite the widespread success and satisfaction that came with its release.
Another issue is that many people today fail to see that not every movie has to be a masterpiece. It is perfectly okay for a movie to just be fun. Many movies that receive low scores are comedies or satirical films. They should not be taken so seriously because the entire point is that these are not serious movies. Two great examples of these unserious films are Not Another Teen Movie and Scary Movie. Neither of these are “bad movies,” and a majority of the negative comments about these movies are about how crude, extravagant, and stupid they are. That is quite literally the entire point of these movies.
That is what Love Hurts was. Love Hurts was nothing more than a funny movie, made to make you laugh and forget about your troubles. I mean, how seriously can you take a movie where the bad guys put the main character in a refrigerator, and proceed to pick up said refrigerator and throw it across the room?
You may be thinking to yourself, “If I can’t listen to film critics, how do I know if a movie is good?” While Rotten Tomatoes has the film critic Tomatometer, they also have a Popcornmeter. This works the same way as the Tomatometer, except the percentage given is based on the proportion of positive reviews from audience members. The Popcornmeter is a much more accurate representation of how the target audience feels about a film. The aforementioned Five Nights at Freddy’s that received 32 percent on the Tomatometer received 86 percent on the Popcornmeter.
Love Hurts received a 61 percent on the Popcornmeter, which I believe is a much better portrayal. This movie isn’t incredible or groundbreaking by any means, it’s just a funny movie.
Am I saying that you should also love this movie? Not at all. That’s the beauty of film, there is something for everyone. Some people, like myself, enjoy watching these silly, unserious movies. Other people prefer more serious, dramatic films. Neither opinion is wrong or bad. While many films deemed the “best” or “worst” have a large community of people also backing that decision, at the end of the day what makes a movie good or bad is still subjective. Not every movie needs to be Interstellar.
