Paddington 2, the greatest film of all time, is no longer the greatest film of all time. This is per The Hollywood Reporter, which notes that Paul King’s 2017 film—which had its greatest film of all time honors conferred on it by Rotten Tomatoes, the sole arbiter of true movie justice—has now had said title just as swiftly rescinded. This, after a new review was added to the film’s RT profile, dropping it from 100 percent certified Fresh (the freshest, and thus, best, that a film can be) to a tawdry 99 percent, just like that old stinker Citizen Kane.
Said review was penned by critic Eddie Harrison, who recently posted his (genuinely blistering) thoughts on the film to his blog, film-authority.com, after previously panning it for BBC Radio shortly after the movie’s release. We don’t want to put words into Harrison’s mouth, but he seems to have honestly disliked the film, comparing it negatively to the original Paddington books and TV series, and describing Ben Whishaw’s vocal performance as sounding “like a member of some indie-pop band coming down from an agonising ketamine high.” He also describes Paddington himself as both having “evil, beady eyes and ratty fur,” and being “over-confident, snide and sullen,” so this isn’t really one of those reviews that walks the grim line between Fresh and Rotten.
And thus, was the Kingdom Of Paddington 2 rendered as to ashes. On the other hand, this is obviously great news for Toy Story 2, which has just become—as the film with the most critic reviews to maintain a 100 percent Fresh rating—the undisputed greatest film of all time. At least, until someone finds a review where someone said it isn’t, at which point we’ll chuck that into the shitter, too. That’s just data. You can’t argue with data.
106 Comments
We should probably just dump film criticism altogether at this point. It had a good run, but people are clearly too fucking stupid and would clearly prefer it if we went back to the pre-Cahiers days where nearly every review was just a studio handjob. In the meantime, here’s a variable review for the next Disney franchise:Witnessing (in the religious sense) [Film] was a life altering experience. The story was emotional, the action was enjoyable, well-choreographed, and brilliantly lit. [Film] had moments of almost shocking hilarity. [Film] will make everyone who views it a better person for it. But not you. [Film] won’t change your life, because you already know you love [Film]. Everyone else can tell you love [Film], too. It’s what makes you so smart, good looking, and popular. It’s not clear whether you chose to hitch your wagon to [Film] or if [Film] decided to hitch its wagon to you. These chicken and egg questions don’t really matter. What matters is that you are validated through [Film].
Why are you on this site if you seem to hate film criticism?
I didn’t say I did hate it?
I mean, it really comes across like you do
Which is why I said people are only going to be happy if we go back to 70 years ago when film criticism was more or less a glorified advertisement?
You don’t have to answer stupid questions posed by low-key trolls (or anyone really). I haven’t referred to RT in years; it’s like checking ebay or Amazon for my wardrobe decisions.
Does anyone really care about RT besides critics and studios?
You don’t have to go back 70 years. Even in the early 2000s before social media was a thing there were press junkets where studios wined and dined critics from minor local papers and the critics knew that if they wanted this good treatment to continue, they had to write a glowing review. That way the studio could always a quote to use in ads even it was from The Pigsville Tribune. These junkets still exist to some level, but both with the bankruptcy of so many small newspapers and the shift to social media over print journalism they aren’t as big a deal.
If you want a good example of modern(ish) “please let me go to another one of these, I’ll say anything you want!” reviews, google Ant Man & the Wasp and the phrase “pallet cleanser”. “Somehow” you will get at least a page of results.
“Palate cleanser.” For pallets, you just need a scrub brush and warm soapy water. https://www.wikihow.com/Clean-Wood-Pallets
Right you are, and I was aware that was an error I might make before I posted and I still made it!
Oh, I thought it was your point that these so-called “critics” can’t even spell “palate” right, Willoughby Stain!
Afraid not
You’re a good sport.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association begs to differ.
flopped jokes evoke the most palpable awkwardness a comment section can achieve, don’t they? if it helps, I thought it was funny
It’s adorable that you seem to think it isn’t now. Look at any marvel/dc/starwars movie. Before the movie is out, all the reviews are raving about how great it is, return to form, etc. Then, when the general public has seen it, and knows it’s shit, suddenly the tone changes.
That just seems so divorced from reality
This site does film criticism?
Not like they used to.
Same as the rest of us, for the Great Job, Internets!
“We should probably just dump film criticism altogether at this point”Just lemme grab that baby before you dump the tub. I can get a few bucks for it.
/read as Review’s Forrest MacNeil
Sounds a bit harsh. Anyway, I’m sure there’s at least one critic with a grudge against Pixar who can take Toy Story 2 down a peg. What comes next on the list?
That’s undoubtedly what’s going to happen. Some disgruntled Film Twitterer or Letterboxder is going to publish a review somewhere to bring it down for the petty kudos.
Please. Toy Story 2 is good, but Paddington 2 is better.
Paddington 2 is humankind’s crowning achievement.
Babe 2 is the best kid’s 2.
I loved Babe, but I’ve never seen the sequel.
Oh, my dude, how I envy you, because you get to watch Babe: Pig in the City for the first time. George Miller just produced the first one, but he sits in the director’s chair here. It’s practically a fifth Mad Max movie, and it fucking owns.
I hated Pig In The City when I saw it at the cinema as I was expecting another gentle, slow paced romp, and the opposite applied, though when I rewatched it earlier this year without any expectations I loved it to pieces, and now it’s one of my all time favourite films.
I remember finding it genuinely disturbing when I saw it as a kid. I’ve never felt able to go there again
Yeah it’s a real stunner – deep emotion (the raid sequence!), breathtaking visuals. And funny! (I especially love Glenne Headly’s voice work.) It’s a big reason Miller is one of my favorites.
I would easily pay US$1000 to have Babe: Pig in the City erased from my mind so I could see it again for the first time. It’s such a wild turn from the original, and it works in many good ways. The general art direction (“The City” is an amazing amalgamation of the greatest cities on Earth) and the action set-pieces are exquisite. That canal chase. The cat chorus. The crescendo scene of Micky Roony’s corpse-clown character alone would be a reason to watch. It is truly one of the greatest sequels ever made.
Shit, now I’m intrigued
Shit, now I’m intrigued
I think Toy Story 3 is better than Toy Story 2.
It is.
100% on RT doesn’t mean a film is good, it just means that it failed to annoy anyone.
There was like a string of movies with 99% on them that I remember not really caring for. Inside Out, Hell or High Water, I remember there being a third but I can’t really recall it right now.
Hell Or High Water is a modern classic!
Man it’s so rare these days that a movie comes along to make me go, “Oh
American cinema still exists as a meaningful artistic endeavour”, but that film did it.
Man…Hell or High Water is such a good movie.
2011’s The Muppets had a 99% for a long time, it’s down to a 95% now – still way, way too high.
Oh.
Yeah, if something gets a B– from every reviewer, RT will list it at 100%. To be fair, RT doesn’t hide this and does encourage you to read individual reviews, which is still the best way of establishing whether a movie is good or not.
I always thought that the best way to establish whether a movie is good or not would be to watch the movie, but I’m strange that way.
i spotted two from the same guy for different publications on one i looked at the other day. both perfect and both being counted. i don’t know if they’ve gotten lazy or just don’t know how to deal with the fractured landscape of film reviews these days, but they don’t seem to care
which means by Rian Johnson’s metric, it’s shit
You morons are still going on about it? You got your “perfect” Star Wars movie after that one. Eat it, choke on it.
They will never stop. They’re saltier than the Dead Sea.
oh no buddy, all the Star Wars movies are bad. Sorry to be unclear: I hate everything he’s done
That one was shit too.
The Paddington films are genuinely great, though. Here’s some more of Paul King’s work:https://youtu.be/X3s9RVg2STY
It’s almost like quality is based on personal preference and not hard data
Dammnit, now I feel like punching a flight attendant.
We all know the greatest movie of all time is Groundhog Day.
It used to be my favorite movie. Some things shifted since then.
It will be back to being your favorite movie tomorrow morning.
Phil?! Phil Connors?! I thought that was you!
“NED?!?!” *punch*
This is the correct answer
We all know the greatest movie of all time is Groundhog Day.
Your spelling of Gremlins 2: The New Batch started out fine, but then took a nosedive.
Come on Paddington 3!
Damn that critic sounds like a seriously miserable person.
The only writer that’s more insufferable that an opinions columnist is a film critic.
I don’t know.Food bloggers who post recipes but not before 8 long paragraphs of editorializing before they even get to what you were looking for.
I’d contend that those food bloggers have a MASSIVELY higher ratio of eventually providing something worthwhile to humanity- and they often have a button that jumps from the top of the article straight to the recipe.
Lol, fair.Thanks for the button heads up, I have totally been missing that.
Oh, I don’t know. What about internet article commenters?WINKYFACE
lol, I get more value out of what most of this comment section has to say about films than the reviewers (I have to exclude Katie Rife up front, I usually appreciate her reviews)
I’ve never found myself deeply disliking any of the reviewers. They’re all a little too fond of art house auteur frippery and Dowd can *sometimes* come off as contrarian but I don’t think he genuinely is. As often as I disagree with him I don’t generally feel he’s picking fights.
I acknowledge preference to or against film critics is completely based on personal tastes (much like reviewing films, despite what some of the critics portray themselves as :P).
So I’m gonna make an argument I’ve made a few times before, almost always to rolled eyes. And I get why people roll their eyes at it. But that doesn’t, to my way of thinking, make it any less valid.When you consult with a lawyer, you’re getting their legal opinion. If you don’t feel comfortable with your doctor’s medical advice, do you go for a second fact? No, you get a second opinion. Car trouble? Get a mechanic’s opinion.Now obviously in the modern era any asshole with a blog can *call themselves* an “expert”. And it’s unfortunately true that film criticism has generally been taken up by too many of these “experts”. But film criticism IS an expertise. And proper film criticism is no less an informed opinion than a medical diagnosis. The stakes are obviously lower. The knowledge base of medicine is more intricate. They aren’t of equal social value. But both, when done *properly*, are informed.I don’t know the background of Cheezdick420 so if they post an argument about a movie I’m much less apt to take it seriously than A.A. Dowd, whose credentials I can actually look up. And I’m sorry but rare is the commenter whose response I find more compelling than the critic they think they’re pwning. (Which isn’t to say never, just rare.)
Well, all I can say with that analogy is, if I think my doctor’s opinion is that of a total twat’s, and I continually come back to said doctor, that looks really poorly on him and doesn’t reflect on me. ONE BIT.
Wanda:
I’m sorry about my brother. I know he’s insensitive. He’s had a hard life. Dad used to beat him up.
Ken: [muttering] Good.
And somewhere, Armond White gets his katana from the closet.
THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE
That critic has been very rude, and while I wish it wasn’t so, he needs a hard stare.
He clearly did it to tank Paddingtons score. I want a congressional inquiry!
Clearly, and it makes me stupidly angry! It’s just a fecking RT score but this guy being an asshole just pisses me off.
You’ll get one of those before they investigate Jan. 6.
Right! He reposted it, even though it had been previously published in a better publication. It seems this guy has a real grudge against Paddington – maybe it’s a Hugh Grant thing? Anyway, he seems angry about this film in a weirdly personal way.
it’s actually Dr. Strangelove but go nuts, philistines
Anyone else think we’ve reached the point where joking about a film’s RT score accurately measuring its worth is just as annoying as claiming unironically that a film’s RT score accurately measures its worth?
Interestingly enough, Paddington 2 also beat out the oldest moving story in history. The 65,000 year old tale of how Ugga Dunga saw a white deer while hunting, received 100 tomatoes – which Ugga ate that night.
Well, he isn’t wrong.“situations that this Paddington finds himself in are contrived and ridiculous; it simply shouldn’t happen to a bear.”
“And also, a bear in a hat? What’s that all about? Hope the writer got fired.”
People fall in love with total shit movies all the time. How else can you explain Forrest Gump? Right?Besides, everyone knows the greatest movie of all time is OBVIOUSLY Zootopia.
There are tonnes of films on RT with 100% ratings… I have no idea why Paddington 2 became the candidate for GOAT. IMHO it was nowhere near as good as the first one.
Well, at least people stopped tweeting their hate for Citizen Kane. That was a weird one.
I’ll be honest; ich bin ein Harrison. I just don’t get these films, the only thing separating them from the average “cartoon character goes live action” film as far as I can see is a progressive subtext and an inherited tea and crumpets cosiness. I mean at the end of the day it’s nice that people are rallying round some rather sweet films about a bear, but I agree the original animations were far more charming. At least he wasn’t voiced by James Corden I guess.
Beyond just being charming, they’re competently made, and avoid a lot of the tropes of lazy kids movies (pop music needle drops, Poochie-style catchphrase-regurgitating characters, hacky references for the adults in the audience).
I think there’s a lot of love from people who read the Paddington Bear books as children, and are just relieved that the movies don’t fuck up the spirit of them by casting Mike Meyers, Jim Carrey or James Corden as Paddington. I watched the first one and, while it was okay, I don’t get the incredible praise for either. OTOH, thanks to cultural osmosis (largely due to some Paddington fans who are writers I read, and the BBC 5’s film review show with Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lvdrj/episodes/downloads), I know Paddington loves marmalade and gives people a Hard Stare when he’s angry or upset at them.
I now know how my wife, who really doesn’t like Monty Python, can quote so many of their best-known lines.
Further to that, here’s Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo joking about how Paddington is more powerful than Superman!
The original animations being “far more charming” shouldn’t be a knock against the film though, should it? The film, on its own merits, should be judged.
Judging from the quotes, this reviewer is not somebody I would want to hang out with.
That’s true of most critics/bloggers, really.
I’ve never understood this super-high rating. Paddington 2 is by no means a bad film, but it’s barely half as good as the first one.
So wrong. Paddington 2 has Hugh Grant.
I’m sure once Armond White hears Toy Story 2 has a 100% RT rating, he’ll take care of it tout de suite.
He was the first cab off the ranks to take down Toy Story 3.
I feel the need to say I didn’t care for Paddington 2 or Citizen Kane. Rosebud is a sled, c’mon.
I feared this day was coming for a long time now.
Four years after-the-fact? This review was clearly posted as clickbait to break P2’s score, and should be disqualified on that basis.