8 Reasons Why Fans And Critics Can’t Agree On Superhero Films

A critic posts a negative review of Batman V Superman: fans rage. A fan posts an angry response to the negative review: a critic barely notices.

I'm generalising here, of course. Most people writing about film, especially online, are clued into the fan community (and, as I said in the intro, form part of it), but there's no avoiding that this "divide" is, outside of a few thinkpieces (hello there), a one way conflict.

This is sociologically down to the degrees of separation from the art itself; critics are responding to the film, the fans are responding to the critics responding to the film. You're going to see delayed involvement as you go along. Also consider that for the fans there's a bigger point to prove, because they're fighting upwards against negativity; even though they may be targeted for being wrong, the critical body is still held on a pedestal (when, being totally honest, it perhaps shouldn't be).

Some of that's justified - a RottenTomatoes score carries a lot of weight, especially when viewing a film's impact in retrospect - but a lot of it comes from simple confidence of opinion; based on my experience, the reason critics don't care about detractors is a confidence and openness about what they say, happy to discuss but equally sure of their stance. That's an divide in ethos that is only going to get torn open when you start dealing with overwhelming passion.