‘Suicide Squad’ fans want to shut down Rotten Tomatoes after negative reviews

LOS ANGELES — “Suicide Squad” fans launched a Change.org petition with the intent of shutting down film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes after the tentpole received a slew of negative reviews from critics.

Abdullah Coldwater, the DC Comics fan who drafted the petition, accused the site of giving “unjust bad reviews” that “affects people’s opinion even if it’s a really great [movie].”

He added, “Critics always give The DC Extended Universe movies unjust bad reviews.”

The petition has received over 13,000 signatures as of this post.

“Suicide Squad,” which stars Will Smith, Jared Leto and Margot Robbie and is one of the most highly-anticipated movies of the summer, currently has an approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes of 34 percent.

Related Film Review: ‘Suicide Squad’

In comparison recent critical disgrace “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” settled at 27 percent on 344 critiques, whereas Marvel’s “Captain America: Civil War” garnered a laudatory 90 percent with 320 critics chiming in.

“Suicide Squad” has received negative reviews from critics such as Richard Lawson at Vanity Fair who wrote that the movie is, “Not fun bad. Not redeemable bad. Not the kind of bad that is the unfortunate result of artists honorably striving for something ambitious and falling short.”

Variety critic Peter Debruge wrote, “Rather than bringing levity and irreverence to the increasingly unpleasant comic-book sphere, as its psychedelic acid-twisted marketing campaign suggests, ‘Suicide Squad’ plunges audiences right back into the coal-black world of ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.’”

With the film’s mediocre reviews, media outlets are questioning if it will survive for a record-breaking weekend at the box office. Variety’s Brent Lang wrote, “Regardless of the frosty critical reception, ‘Suicide Squad’ will annihilate the competition” and “rank as the biggest ever debut for Will Smith.”

Following the petition’s initial posting, Coldwater revised his comments about Rotten Tomatoes: “A petition definitely won’t shut down the site. The aim of the petition is to deliver a message to the critics that there is a lot of people disagree with their reviews.”