'Venom' Is a Smash Hit With Audiences on Rotten Tomatoes Despite Negative Critic Reviews

Critics and audiences don't always agree on the merits of a film, with Venom being the latest movie to hit theaters that draws drastically different reactions from the two groups. The film's critical score currently sits at 30 percent positive on Rotten Tomatoes, though its audience score claims 89 percent "liked" it.

The critical score is comprised of 138 reviews currently, while the audience score tabulated more than 8,000 scores. By these standards, the film is considered "Rotten," which the site describes, "When less than 60% of reviews for a movie or TV show are positive, a green splat is displayed to indicate its Rotten status." The calculations for the audience score are described, "When at least 60% of users give a movie or TV show a star rating of 3.5 or higher, a full popcorn bucket is displayed to indicate its Fresh status."

Another interesting piece of data regarding Venom's success is that it took in a reported $10 million in opening night previews, setting a record for the month of October. The film will surely go on to top the box office, though how large of a haul it will take in is difficult to deduce at this point.

This is far from the only time that critics and audiences haven't seen eye to eye, with last year's Star Wars: The Last Jedi seeing diverging opinions in an opposite way. While the critical score is calculated at 91 percent positive, only 45 percent of audiences gave the film a positive score.

A trend among reviews for the film is that Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock/Venom is the most successful element of the endeavor, though almost everything else is a confusing mess that never finds its tonal footing.

The site's critical consensus reads, "Venom's first standalone movie turns out to be like the comics character in all the wrong ways - chaotic, noisy, and in desperate need of a stronger attachment to Spider-Man."

Over at Variety, Owen Gleiberman describes, "Venom is a textbook case of a comic-book film that's unexciting in its ho-hum competence, and even its visual-effects bravura."

ScreenCrush's Matt Singer notes, "You could almost convince me the messy tone was part of some genius master plan to make a movie that matched its title character's disjointed temperament. Almost."

Venom is in theaters now.

Are you surprised that Venom is connecting with audiences and not with critics? Let us know in the comments below!

[H/T Rotten Tomatoes]