I guess you could describe Movie Review Intelligence as a slightly more accessible, less nerdy-buffy movie-review casserole site for people with short attention spans who…what, find Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic too challenging? The “we don’t like sifting through ratings or numbers” crowd. The titles and numbers are nice and orderly and easy to get a fix on — I’ll check it out regularly — but MRI’s one-word characterization summaries are too generous, I think.
She’s Out of My League averaged 51.4% positive and they call that “moderate.” I call that a failing grade because it’s actually lower, of course, because the 51.4% has been propped up by easy-lay go-along critics who look for ways to be nice or kind to crap-level mainstream studio comedies. MRI is calling the 65.7% positive response to Green Zone “good.” I’m sorry but a 65% rating is moderate at best. “Good” is 70% to 75%. This suggests they’re not that tough either when it comes to assigning a number grade to a review. What’s the science behind that exactly?