(Image credit: Fabio Lovino / 20th Century Studios)
"The Dog Stars" is making news this week, and for the wrong reasons. Director Ridley Scott has made some of the best movies in cinema history, and with some incredible actors. While he nailed the latter part again with this post-apocalyptic drama — it stars Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, Guy Pearce, Margaret Qualley and features an incredible third-act appearance from Allison Janney — it seems unlikely that this will go down as one of the best movies.Right now, "The Dog Stars" is a meager 40% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. You don't have to be a film critic to know that's bad. But I am a film critic. And I've seen the movie. And I'm here to tell you that not only do I think that 40% rating is harsh, but it's actually misleading.Is 'The Dog Stars' really rotten?Before we dive into why you should see "The Dog Stars" — which, for the record, you should — let's examine that 40% fresh rating. Because I took a look at the critics' reviews, and there are some reviews that are arguably merely a bruised tomato than a rotten one.For those of you who don't know how Rotten Tomatoes works, there are actually four different scores on the site for any given movie. There are the famous Tomatometer and Popcornmeter ratings from critics and audiences, respectively. These are merely pass/fail ratings on whether you should see a movie. Then, there are the scored reviews: For audiences, these are always out of five stars, but for critics, they're out of four stars, five stars, or on an A+ to F letter-grade scale.This means that sometimes, a review you might reasonably think is a "pass," and therefore should be rated fresh, is instead rated as a rotten review.
