Review-bombing: it happens. Over at Rotten Tomatoes, it’s not possible for it to happen to movies and TV shows before public release (although Kevin Smith recently dealt with the phenomenon from anti-Teela He-Man “fans” on the day of release) since the review-aggregator portion of the site took action on the sexist trolls who bombed Captain Marvel with fake user reviews. The latest instance, allegedly, is happening to James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad — a relaunch of 2016’s completely messy Suicide Squad, as directed by David Ayer — which arrives on HBO Max and in theaters on August 6.
So far, critics (including our own Mike Ryan) are loving the relaunch and calling it a total blast. Just for reference’s sake, here’s the current 96% “fresh” rating from Rotten Tomatoes in screencap form.
As expected, there aren’t audience ratings there yet. However, that might be happening over at IMDb already, and someone asked James Gunn what he thought of claims that “[t]he Suicide Squad is being review-bombed by the Snyder Cut crew.”
I hear The Suicide Squad is being review-bombed by the Snyder Cut crew. Why? Because something shows a movie can be dark as well as fun and actually have some personality in its characters? @JamesGunn hasn’t let me down yet.
— Hyde (@hydeandgeek) August 3, 2021
Gunn’s response? He’s over it, whether or not it’s actually happening. “I’ll live,” he tweeted. “[S]tuff like this means nothing in the big picture. (And important to point out most the SnyderCut fans have been supportive, it’s only a few who feel it’s worthwhile spending their time doing stuff like this.)”
I’ll live – stuff like this means nothing in the big picture. (And important to point out most the SnyderCut fans have been supportive, it’s only a few who feel it’s worthwhile spending their time doing stuff like this.)
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) August 3, 2021
Of course, Snyder Cut fans may or may not be doing this review-bombing at all. What would be the actual motive here (beyond also boosting the “Release The Ayer Cut” movement)? If they are doing so, then this would be a very vocal minority, who could (for unknown reasons) throw blame at Gunn’s project because the “Snyderverse” isn’t being “restored” by Warner Bros. following Zack Snyder’s cut of Justice League that streamed on HBO Max. In all reality, and as a few Twitter users point out, it sounds like someone (with an assist from bots) who didn’t even bother to spell Zack Snyder’s name correctly, in order to “make Snyder fans look bad.”
I think it’s important to point out here that the people who are review bombing cannot even spell “Snyder” correctly unless all of Zack Snyder’s fans forgot how to spell his name. This is very obviously someone who wants to make Snyder fans look bad. pic.twitter.com/PSIojMCxRb
— Shivansh Atri #ReleaseTheAyerCut (@Shivonidas214) August 3, 2021
It’s most likely not true. There are always some that go out of their way to hate on shit (LIKE IN EVERY FANDOM) But most have been supportive. I don’t understand this focus on making us Snyder fans look as bad as possible.
— Siccness
(@Siccness4) August 3, 2021
It’s not. It’s mainly being bombed by people that wanna make us look bad. That’s why most of them, til they started wising up, said “Synder” and not “Snyder”.
We can generally spell his name.
Anyone who review bombs is a piece of s*** but these aren’t us.
— Drü #ReleaseTheAyerCut (@drewexmachina) August 3, 2021