re: Does Disney Marvel have the critic world on payroll?

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All that it took was a couple of click-seeking critics placing it with Catwoman and Michael B. Jordan's Fantastic 4 for people to dismiss it as a trainwreck.

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I’m not sure that is correct. I distinctly remember seeing articles about Hardy criticizing the final edit.

Stars being critical of the final product is far more damaging than any reviewer.

And when did those movies come out again?

And one of those was a video game movie, they never get good reviews.

DC far superior to Marvel

The main thing I got from your list is that the floor for audience ratings seems to be about 70% (there is only one I see a couple of notches below that at 67%)

This thread is also about the MCU and not their other live action offerings, but I bet the people who did give those properties positive reviews were the fanboy sites I mentioned. You can lump Star Wars in with that as well.

Not sure how this is confusing. If the $80 million production fails, the Mouse isn't happy but they weren't counting on it anyways. If the $150-200 million MCU/SW movie fails, that will damage a quarter of their year. If two fail, that screws up a year.

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MCU (critics/Audience)
Iron Man - 93/91
Avengers - 92/91
Winter Soldier - 89/92
Guardians - 91/92
Infinity War - 84/91
Civil War - 91/89
Strange - 89/86
Ragnorok - 92/87
Homecoming - 92/88

Sony/DC
Batman Begins - 84/94
The Dark Knight - 94/94
TDKR - 87/90

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Every MCU listed has a better critics rating than Batman Begins, is that for real? That has to be a misprint.

They aren't paying critics. One, audience scores are always high because audiences aren't terribly discerning and give high scores to nearly everything. Secondly, the MCU is practically review proof at this point. They don't NEED critics. Who is basing their decision whether to see Avengers 4 based on what their local critic says? I don't want to go as far as to say no one, but the number is insignificantly small.

Also, Rotten Tomatoes overstates critical support of the MCU. When its a simple up or down vote, MCU films tend to be competently made and well-crafted entertainments. They are bound to get positive reviews that stop short of glowing. Metacritic shows the difference, to use your sample movies:

Iron Man 3: 80%, 62 Metascore
Hulk: 67%, 61
Thor Dark World: 66%, 54
Iron Man 2: 73%, 57
Ant Man and Wasp: 88%, 70

All of a sudden, they don't seem like raves, so much as, "Meh. This was pretty good but nothing special."

Finally, someone would have blabbed. You can't pay off hundreds of people because someone is bound to figure out its worth more to them to expose the scheme rather than take the cash. Now, critics are lavished with freebies, but everyone is smart enough to stop short of straight payola. And DC engages in the same freebies as the MCU, so its no guarantee of a good review.

Critics tend to be more... critical

Audiences tend to enjoy laughed, stars and action.

What’s annoying is a movie like The Shape of Water can win awards for effect and cinamatography with probably the dumbest plot ever, and action movies with amazing effects and cinamotography get 0 critical love ever.

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Marvel does a great job hyping up their films before release, gotta give them credit for that. When critics go into a film excited, they're more likely to give positive reviews

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I'd amend that just a bit...

Marvel does a great job of hyping up their films, and then delivering a product that you expect, given the buildup.

DC is the champs at making great trailers, but not delivering. Weren't we all hyped about Suicide Squad, etc?
Same thing with Star Wars Ep 8. Everyone was pumped up going into that, based on what he had seen.

But those movies gave us something completely different than what we expected. And while filmmakers might think that's a cool thing to do, it's not what anyone wants from a well-defined franchise.

Venom was horrible, just so bad