Rotten Tomatoes Suspends Dark Knight Rises Comments After Death Threats

When fans come together for a cause, they can move mountains. Sadly, they can also tear them down and cause chaos, as is the case here: Rotten Tomatoes has shut down the comments on “The Dark Knight Rises” reviews after reviewers received death threats.

TDKR is this year's most anticipated film, so it makes sense to have fans react negatively to negative reviews. However, nothing could justify this.

The Hollywood Reporter notes that Rotten Tomatoes, the film reviews aggregator owned by Warner Bros. who made TDKR, has taken action to police comments after death threats were sent to those who gave the film a negative critique.

They expanded to include reviewers who gave even mild spoilers in their critiques, to the point where RT had no other option but to implement a comment system similar to the one used on Facebook.

“The job of policing the comments became more than my staff could handle for that film, so we stopped the comments altogether. It just got to be too much hate based on reactions to reviews of movies that people hadn't even seen,” Matt Atchity, editor for RT, says.

The comments will go back up by the end of the week, which makes sense: the film opens on July 20, so many of those who have a bone to pick with negative reviews will have seen it by then so at the very least, they will have a starting point for the conversation.

This is precisely what bothered Marshall Fine of Hollywood and Fine the most: after he posted his review, he got so many negative comments (and death threats) and such a boost in traffic that his site crashed – but few of those who had something to say against him had seen the film.

“I guess to me it crosses a line if someone shows up on my front step,” Fine says, explaining that he understands where this type of aggressive response comes from.

“Otherwise everyone's entitled to their opinion. People have strong feelings about this stuff. Is it unfortunate that this is the way people express themselves? Well, yeah, I think it's a measure of how powerless people feel in this society in general. Here's their chance to get their rocks off at someone they don't know,” Fine adds.

We reported a couple of days ago that TDKR stood at 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes after the embargo on reviews was lifted. Today, it's at 86%, with 65 Fresh reviews and 11 Rotten.

Via: Rotten Tomatoes Suspends Dark Knight Rises Comments After Death Threats