First a confession, the writer of this piece does happen to be a currently working film critic so there is a little bias on my part. On IMDB there is a story about how newspaper critics that didn’t come out with The Dark Knight is the best movie ever made have been receiving hate mail in massive quantities. Not just small time reviewers but even those such as the critics for the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times.

One of the reviewers has even commented that “I’ve gotten 250 or 300 e-mails, almost all with the vilest, most abusive language you could possibly imagine. I was stunned. These people aren’t just discourteous. They’re insane.” The comments continued with “I write for an educated readership and usually the responses to my reviews are courteous and collegial,” he remarked. “But this was really ugly. It did feel like a mob.”

My two cents on this is by default for print published reviewers there are two default settings for comments. The first is that a no feedback policy is enabled between the editor and reviewer so they receive no feedback from the readership and thus feel no pressure beyond providing an honest opinion. The other option is to publish the reviewers email address and allow them to feel the full force of the readership. This is a negative in my opinion as comments made do leave a lasting impression and everything under the sun would receive a generic 3/5 as to not upset anyone one way or the other.

Most gamers have been hailing the famed Hitman movie as being the last saving grace for video game movies. Fans rejoiced when it was confirmed that Hitman is heading straight for an R-rating. It appears that all that has been in vain.

Critics have gotten their miserly hands on the Hitman movie and are not impressed. We have no reason to distrust Rotten Tomatoes, so here’s their score: 13% . Yes folks, time for a loud ‘WTF?!’ That’s right, the critics don’t like it one bit. There are a few positie reviews, but most of it looks bad. We took a quick glance over the reviews, and here’s what they say:

• It is mindlessly cold and brutally violent (which is good for most of us).
• Plenty of nudity - yes, sir!
• Horrible story, direction, screenwriting, action, everything. Then again, when was that ever important in movies?
• Comparable to James Bond and Bourne movies - in the bad way.
• I particularly like Stephen Whitty’s statement: “A lousy picture.”
• The positive reviews appear to be sarcastic, and not entirely hope-inducing.
• EXCEPT Pete Hammond from Maxim: “It delivers top-notch action, dazzling gunplay and lots of fireworks. What more could we ask for?” Got a point there, Pete.
• Some statements are hilarious: Apparently the film thinks fans of the videogame will empathize with a guy who has zero practice dealing with women.
• This is a script written with the sensibility of a geeky 12-year-old boy and then dumbed-down some. More than some.
• A movie so bland it’s hard to believe it was inspired by anything more than a Wikipedia entry on ‘action thrillers.’

While this makes for some good laughs for us folks not interested in the Hitman games, you can expect a lot of fuming from the Hitman camp. But nyah, those are critics. We, the viewers do want mindless violence, secks, blood and guns.

You might think that’s not bad for a video game movie, but it actually is. Here are Rotten Tomatoes’ scores for some other video game movies:

DOA: Dead or Alive: 34%
Resident Evil: 33%
Resident Evil: Apocalypse: 21%
Resident Evil: Extinction: 22%
Mortal Kombat: 20%
Doom: 19%

Wow. Hitman is worse than Doom? Is that even possible?

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