Summer Movies So Far, According to Rotten Tomatoes

Have I mentioned before how much I love Rotten Tomatoes? For those of you living in a cave, it's a site that aggregrates all movie reviews online (from legitimate sources, of course) and gives each review a thumbs up (fresh tomato) or a thumbs down (rotten tomato). Then it gives the movie a percentage of good reviews. The site does this for reviewers in general, and then has a special "tomatometer" for "the cream of the crop," i.e. the big-name reviewers from the important papers and online mags.

The general critics usually reflect the quality of the film's populist attributes: its slickness, its production values, its ability to maintain a good story arc and hold the attention, its drama and excitement ... basically its "entertainment" value. The top critics tend to reflect the quality of the film's craft and literary virtues: visual narrative skill, character and theme development, historical and topical awareness, depth and potential for longevity ... more on the side of its "artistic" value.

If you get a higher general than top critic rating, you're looking at a blockbuster. If you get a higher top critic than general rating, you're looking at an arthouse or indie flick. And if both ratings are equally high, you're looking at a masterpiece.

The result is essentially a democratic reading of each film, and is remarkably accurate. Where one of your favorite critics might sometimes fail you wildly, rottentomatoes.com usually predicts pretty accurately how you'll feel about a film. It's one of the few human successes of the internet.

Anyway, it's time to take a look at what Rotten Tomatoes says about the blockbusters of the first half of the summer season:

• Kung Fu Panda, which I saw last night, gets 88% in general and 75% from the top critics. This strikes me as just. On the surface the film is slick, beautifully made, never drags, and satisfies. But on second thought, there are places where characters are wasted, important questions are left unanswered, and opportunities are ignored.

• The Incredible Hulk, which I've seen, gets 68% in general and 59% from top critics. Its primary virtue is that it's nowhere near as bad as the Ang Lee/ Eric Banal version. Not a great recommendation.

• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which I've seen, gets 77/61, general/top. Again, accurate. I really enjoyed it, but it was stupid.

• The Happening, which I haven't seen and ain't gonna, gets 18/13, which only means that everybody hates it. I have to say that, bad as he can be, Shyamalan is the only filmmaker for whom Rotten Tomatoes is truly inaccurate. This is because Shyamalan is actively hostile to critics, so they are overly, and egotistically, harsh towards him. They also just plain don't get him. But he truly is just plain bad sometimes and I suspect this is one of those times.

• Hancock gets an even 36/36, which I find fascinating. I'm still going to see it, although I might end up waiting for the DVD release.

• Wanted, starring a too-skinny, already pregnant, Angelina Jolie, looks like a lot of fun, and gets a respectable, if not confident, 72/76. I'm totally there.

• The Love Guru would be more accurately titled The Loathe Guru, with its rating of 15% and 6%. I was certainly not going to see Mike Meyers in cheesy racial drag, and I'm glad to be validated.
  

• And, of course, this summer's big success so far, Wall-E, gets a whopping 96/97! I'm definitely going to see it. The critical consensus has been very even: it starts out amazing, and then gets conventional and silly. So ... not a masterpiece, but a really good flick.

So what have you seen that's good so far this summer?