Harping on Total Recall (1990) and Rotten Tomatoes

I watched Total Recall (1990) last night, and it was terrible, a good terrible though.  It was campy; the acting was abominable (Schwarzenegger being the worst offender); and the lines were beyond cheesy.  Here's a sampling of some of the lines that had me rolling my eyes or pausing the movie and laughing: 

Lori (played by Sharon Stone):  Doug, honey... you wouldn't hurt me, would you, sweetheart? Sweetheart, be reasonable. After all, we're married!
[Lori goes for her gun, Quaid shoots her in the head, killing her]
Quaid (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger): Consider that a divorce!

________________


Benny (played by no one I or you know): Hey, Quaid! I'm gonna squash you!
Quaid:  Benny! Here!
Benny: [shouts] Where the fuck are you?
Quaid: [killing him with a large drill] SCREW YOU!



Overall, the movie was nothing more than a bad action movie set in Mars year 2029 with people jumping through glass-plate windows, karate-ing it up, shooting magazines of bullets, running and turning corners with a film of sweat on their skin all while breathing heavy.

If it was 1990 and I was more of a critical movie goer than I was when I was ten, I'd be pissed I spent my money on that movie.  Twenty-two years later, I can laugh at it and get sucked into it being that it was checked out of the library for free.

On Rotten Tomatoes, of which I have relied on for over ten years, this movie has an 84%.  It SHOULD NOT have an 84%, and this is where Rotten Tomatoes upsets me. That 84% was given retroactively.  It wasn't given when the movie was in the theater, and, if it had been, it would probably have no better of a rating than the Total Recall remake out in theaters now, which has a 30%.  The reason the original has such a high rating has to do with inflation from those nostalgic critics who have fond memories of the movie or those geeks (excuse me, I mean people) who live for Sci-Fi action.

Inflation doesn't have to be from nostalgia or those who live for a certain genre.  Retroactive ratings happen for other reasons too.  A movie may not be realized for its greatness until well after it has left the theaters and is collecting dust.

If you come across an old movie and check it on Rotten Tomatoes, be mindful that the rating was given retroactively or that new reviews were grandfathered in with the old reviews to blow up the rating.  I shouldn't be too hard on Rotten Tomatoes, because its purpose is to compile reviews and assign a percentage based on those reviews, so it is doing its job.  I just want to put out a beware.