Since the casting of Halle Bailey as Ariel in the live action of The little Mermaid, Disney faced endless negative comments around it. Thousands of accounts on social networks have criticized the film just because of the skin color of its protagonist, and an intense review bombing has been hovering over The Little Mermaid on various internet sites. Given this, IMDb has already taken action in this regard.
Within his weekly box office report, Deadline He pointed out that various pages where user reviews and opinions are collected had registered unusual traffic around the Disney production. In them, a large number of users have rated The Little Mermaid with the lowest possible rating (the so-called review boming). In addition, they express comments that disparage the film not because of its script, performances or visual effects, but because of Bailey’s casting as the protagonist.
An example of this is IMDb, where the average score of Mexican users is, so far, 6.3. If you enter the site, in the “score” area, you will notice a particular legend that says:
“Unusual activity. Our scoring mechanism has detected an unusual vote on this title. To preserve the reliability of our scoring system, an alternate weighting calculation has been applied.”
This commented the site in a statement:
“While we accept and consider all user votes, not all have the same impact (“or weight”) on the final rating. When unusual voting activity is detected, an alternate weighting calculation may be applied to preserve the reliability of our system.”
Other countries where The little Mermaid has faced the review bombing are Germany (with a 0.7 rating on moviepilot, which later became 5), Korea (where a 1.96 rose to 6.67), and France. In this last territory, AlloCiné He charged viewers and visitors to the site to form “your own judgment around the movie” and not get carried away by unusual activity.
In Rotten TomatoesFor example, audience acceptance is 95%. However, it presents its data in a bit of a confusing way. The site divides the opinions into two sections: “All Audience” and Verified Audience. In the first, which many have used to attack The little Mermaid, any user registered on the site can give a rating to the tape. Therefore, it is not representative. But in the second, the one that Rotten Tomatoes takes into account, only the opinions of those who saw the tape are valued. Thanks to its agreements with movie theater chains in the United States, the site can confirm that, indeed, whoever votes bought a ticket to see the show.
At the end of the day, the review bombing of The little Mermaid it did not cause much havoc in Mexico. The film starring Halle Bailey debuted with $141 million pesos in its first weekend. This places it slightly below tapes like Dumbo (which in Mexico was a success) and aladdin. In addition, it snatched first place at the box office from fast and furious 10something that seemed complicated considering that the Mexican public loves the adventures of Toretto.
Other recent productions that have suffered the so-called review bombing are The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and Peter Pan & Wendy. Both productions featured a diverse cast, just like The Little Mermaid.
Juan Jose Cruz I am one of those who always defended Robert Pattinson as Batman and can see the same movie in the theater up to 7 times. My guilty pleasure? Low budget horror movie.