What's the deal with Rotton Tomatoes?

[Dr. Buttplug]

Looking up reviews for "Death Wish" mostly to amuse myself and these two popped up. Why would Rotten tomatoes mark this one rotten when the other is percentage wise rates it higher? The language is irrelevant because both spend a page or two bashing the film for being poorly made with a few "entertaining moments." Only the Young Folks article has a score attached at the bottom which makes things more confusing.

Links to the articles The Young Folks (the fresh one) and Salon (the rotten one)


This one is for "Fifty Shades Freed." The Blurb seems pretty negative, and the reported score is even more incongruous with this being a supposedly positive review. The Australian wants you to pay if you want to look at their articles so I cannot confirm whether or not the rest of the article is as negative as it sounds.

Regardless this is a little odd. Both these movies are in the sub 20% range. Is Rotten Tomatoes putting their fingers on the scales just slightly because studios get angry when things rate below 10%? Is there something I'm missing about how they determine whether or not an article is fresh or rotten?

And yes I'm one of those losers who goes to rotten tomatoes and actually reads the linked articles. Feel free to judge me.

[Frank West]

Some critics (or staffers at their publications) upload their own reviews, choose their own pull quotes, and designate their review as “fresh” or “rotten.” Other critics (including myself) have their reviews uploaded, pull-quoted, and tagged as fresh or rotten by the Rotten Tomatoes staff. In the second case, if the staff isn't sure whether to tag a review as fresh or rotten, they reach out to the critic for clarification. And critics who don't agree with the site’s designation can request that it be changed.

From here

So basically, in one of those cases the reviewer (or RT staff member) decided that, in spite of the issues raised, it was still an okay enough movie to get a thumbs up, and in the other case they didn't.