Friendo: “When will HE be addressing the middling Metacritic score (75%) for The Trial of the Chicago 7, especially given your recent comment that ‘any film with a Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic rating below 80% obviously has an issue or two’?”

HE reply: The Metacritic figure may seem mildly troubling at first, but if you look more closely it’s not so bad. 22 out of 26 reviews (written by Chicago Sun-Times‘ Richard Roeper, Uproxx‘s Mike Ryan, Time‘s Stephanie Zacharek, Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman, the Washington Post‘s Ann Hornaday, TheWrap‘s Steve Pond, USA Today‘s Brian Truitt, The Telegraph‘s Robbie Collin, The Hollywood Reporter‘s David Rooney, the Boston Globe‘s Ty Burr) range from solidly approving to borderline ecstatic. The 75% grade was caused by four lone wolves — the N.Y. Times‘ A.O. Scott, A.V. Club‘s A.A. Dowd, The Film Stage‘s Matt Cipolla and especially The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw, the biggest sorehead of the bunch.

Otherwise the Rotten Tomatoes score for Aaron Sorkin‘s film is 92%, which is excellent.

Is Trial a perfect creation? Maybe not, but even the most widely acclaimed films have met with one or two detractors. It goes like that. The seriously admired Manchester by The Sea, which earned a 96% positive on Metacritic, was panned by The Guardian‘s Lanre Bakare.