polar movie review rotten tomatoes

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

• What's the Tomatometer®?
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Fandango at Home
• Netflix streaming
• Prime Video
• Most popular streaming movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Link to Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
• Young Woman and the Sea Link to Young Woman and the Sea
• Jim Henson Idea Man Link to Jim Henson Idea Man

New TV Tonight

• Ren Faire: Season 1
• Star Wars: The Acolyte: Season 1
• Clipped: Season 1
• Queenie: Season 1
• Sweet Tooth: Season 3
• Mayor of Kingstown: Season 3
• Criminal Minds: Season 17
• Becoming Karl Lagerfeld: Season 1
• Power Book II: Ghost: Season 4
• Erased: WW2's Heroes of Color: Season 1

Most Popular TV on RT

• Eric: Season 1
• Evil: Season 4
• Dark Matter: Season 1
• Tires: Season 1
• Outer Range: Season 2
• Fallout: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• Outer Range: Season 2 Link to Outer Range: Season 2
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

All Harry Potter (and Fantastic Beasts ) Movies Ranked

All George Miller Movies Ranked by Tomatometer

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Pride Month Programming Calendar 2024: TV and Streaming Shows and Movies Celebrating LGBTQ+ Voices

Movie Re-Release Calendar 2024: Your Guide to Movies Back In Theaters

• Trending on RT
• Vote: 1999 Movie Showdown
• 100 Best Movies on Netflix
• Star Wars: The Acolyte
• Superman: Everything We Know

Where to Watch

Watch Polar with a subscription on Netflix.

What to Know

An action thriller starring Mads Mikkelsen as the world's most dangerous assassin should be terrifically entertaining, but Polar proves it's possible to ruin anything if you try.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Jonas Akerlund

Mads Mikkelsen

Duncan Vizla

Vanessa Hudgens

Ruby O. Fee

Robert Maillet

More Like This

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

A retiring assassin suddenly finds himself on the receiving end of a hit, contracted by none other than his own employer seeking to cash in on the pensions of aging employees. A retiring assassin suddenly finds himself on the receiving end of a hit, contracted by none other than his own employer seeking to cash in on the pensions of aging employees. A retiring assassin suddenly finds himself on the receiving end of a hit, contracted by none other than his own employer seeking to cash in on the pensions of aging employees.

• Jonas Åkerlund
• Jayson Rothwell
• Víctor Santos
• Mads Mikkelsen
• Vanessa Hudgens
• Katheryn Winnick
• 1.1K User reviews
• 113 Critic reviews
• 19 Metascore
• 1 nomination

• Duncan Vizla

• Junkie Jane

• (as Anastasia Marinina)

• Evalina's Son

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

More like this

Did you know

• Trivia The neighbors cabin is also the same cabin from the final season of Hannibal (2013) .
• Goofs Vivian says "He's currently staking out in Belarus, Russia", to Duncan while discussing business at the restaurant. Belarus and Russia are two separate countries.

Duncan Vizla : Try not to be scared.

• Crazy credits The end credits roll from top-to-bottom instead of the more widely used bottom-to-top
• Connections Featured in Everything Wrong with...: Everything Wrong With Polar In 17 Minutes Or Less (2019)
• Soundtracks September Performed by Earth Wind & Fire (as Earth, Wind & Fire) Written by Al McKay , Maurice White , Allee Willis (c) Steel Chest Music/EMI Blackwood Music Inc./EMI April Music/Irving Music, Inc. Courtesy of EMI Music Publishing Germany GmbH/Rondor Musikverlag GmbH (p) 1978 Sony BMG Music Entertainment Courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment Germany GmbH

User reviews 1.1K

• blueeye-silntkilr07
• Jan 24, 2019
• How long is Polar? Powered by Alexa
• Is that Johnny Knoxville in the first trailer @ :38?
• Where is really Villa La Angostura?
• Alexei wears a cool Russian jersey. Do you know more about it?
• January 25, 2019 (United States)
• United States
• Official Netflix
• Polar: Sát Thủ Tái Xuất
• Casa Loma, Toronto, Canada
• Constantin Film
• Dark Horse Entertainment
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 58 minutes
• Dolby Digital
• Dolby Atmos

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• IMDb Answers: Help fill gaps in our data
• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Recently viewed.

Advertisement

Supported by

Streaming Movie Review

‘Polar’ Review: A Hit Man’s Redemption Gets Mired in Toxic, Wintry Sludge

• Share full article

By Chris Vognar

• Jan. 31, 2019

If “Polar” were a teenager, it might be content to chug Mountain Dew while playing first-person shooter games and trolling innocents online. Unfortunately, “Polar” is a movie, and if it has any redeeming qualities, it chooses to keep them a secret.

A particularly toxic brew of glibness and graphic violence, this Netflix throwaway , directed by the music video maestro Jonas Akerlund, stars the usually trustworthy Mads Mikkelsen as a notorious hit man, the Black Kaiser, who decides he is ready to retire and ruminate on his sins. His boss (a preening Matt Lucas) has other ideas. He sends a team of hot, hip young assassins to take down the Kaiser in his wintry Montana hide-out (and to torture as many people as they can along the way).

“Polar” actually contains one interesting idea: The Kaiser is a wanted man not because of anything he did but because his employer wants to seize his lucrative pension. Yes, the assassination corporation for which the Kaiser works has a pension plan. If it weren’t so busy slathering sadism, garish color schemes and played-out rapid-fire editing on the screen, “Polar” might make for a decent satire of corporate America.

Based on a web comic apparently popular enough to become a Netflix movie, “Polar” pales in comparison to other assassin-in-midlife-crisis movies like “Grosse Pointe Blank” (with John Cusack) and “Panic” (William H. Macy). Like both of those films, “Polar” throws a noble young woman into the mix: A grunged-out Vanessa Hudgens plays the vehicle for the Kaiser’s potential salvation. She is the centerpiece of an adequate final-act twist, but by then the damage has been done and overdone.

Polar Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 58 minutes.

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help..

Leslye Headland’s new “Star Wars” show, The Acolyte,” is a dream come true, but she knows it carries enormous expectations .

Once relegated to supporting roles, the comedian Michelle Buteau  is a star of the film “Babes” and is moving to a bigger stage, Radio City Music Hall, for her new special.

American audiences used to balk at subtitles. But recent hits like “Shogun” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” show how much that has changed .

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings   on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime  and Hulu  to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter  to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

‘polar’: film review.

Mads Mikkelsen cuts a bloody path through an army of assassins in 'Polar,' Jonas Akerlund's gleefully outrageous graphic novel adaptation.

By Keith Uhlich

Keith Uhlich

• Share on Facebook
• Share to Flipboard
• Send an Email
• Show additional share options
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Pinterest
• Share on Reddit
• Share on Tumblr
• Share on Whats App
• Print the Article
• Post a Comment

Any movie that begins with a sequence centered on Johnny Knoxville ‘s erect penis can only go up (or down, as the case may be) from there. In the case of director Jonas Akerlund and screenwriter Jayson Rothwell’s adaptation of the graphic novel Polar : Came From the Cold  by Victor Santos, the narrative and emotional through-lines change by the millisecond. This is whiplash-inducing ADD cinema, and shamelessly proud of it (the editor’s name is Doobie White, for god’s sake!), though there is a grounding center in the form of Mads Mikkelsen as near-retirement-age assassin Duncan Vizla, aka The Black Kaiser.

For years, Duncan has been a top employee at Damocles, a shadowy cabal of killers run by doughy-faced psycho Mr. Blut (Matt Lucas). Duncan’s scars are plentiful and even if he’s still very good at his job, retirement is beckoning. Upon joining this butcher’s guild, each assassin signs a contract complete with IRA or the equivalent. Duncan’s post-service take-home is topping out at $8 million, so it seems like a good time to live that quiet cabin life he’s been dreaming about. The problem is that Mr. Blut has been pulling a fast one. Also in his workers’ contracts is a clause that states if an assassin dies pre-retirement, all their money goes to Damocles. Once a hitman calls it a day, the last hit is on him.

Related Stories

Netflix's co-ceo says hits are "more art" than data science, touts $600b+ market opportunity, 'one day' star ambika mod on the netflix effect and what she learned from googling herself too much.

Release date: Jan 25, 2019

Surely nothing could go wrong setting Mads Mikkelsen in your gunsights? Yeah, right. The steely predator’s stare and wolfish charisma that made him such a perfect cannibal psychiatrist on the TV series Hannibal  is very well utilized here. Duncan is like the solemn strongman at an unhinged carnival, a virile moper with some apparently unresolved guilt (as suggested by several quick-cut flashbacks) over a job gone wrong. His remorse in no way mitigates his stealthy, stone-cold instincts. Duncan brings the same level of concentration to picking the right stove-top mac-and-cheese as he does to sneaking around naked in a snowstorm to get the upper hand on his adversaries. It’s all pretty glorious to behold.

Akerlund punkishly shifts tones and styles scene by scene (one very memorable decapitation is like R-rated Looney Tunes ), and the rest of the performers follow suit. Duncan’s anxious neighbor Camille ( Vanessa Hudgens ) seems to be inhabiting her own earnest indie drama about death, mourning and rebirth. (There’s a rather jarring reason for that, a grasp for seriousness that doesn’t entirely land in this context.) Elsewhere, Richard Dreyfuss cameos as a portly former killer reduced to drinking his life away in a karaoke bar; there’s more genuine pathos in the actor’s brief appearance here than in the entirety of his other recent Netflix production, the execrable dramedy The Last Laugh.  Blut and his corps, meanwhile, are like a revolving band of demented clowns popping out of a mini-car, weapons and one-liners at the ready. Katheryn Winnick’s slinky go-between Vivian (“Speak,” she purrs whenever answering the phone) and Fei Ren’s merciless Hilde, who’s like a piece of anime fan art come to life, are standouts. 

Nothing, of course, can beat the sight of Mikkelsen, whether he’s instructing a class of agog schoolchildren on the finer points of disembowelment, or hung up like a heretic and graphically tortured by Blut, yammering on about the extended agonies of Scottish knight William Wallace (to drive the point home, this cut-rate inquisitor blasts bagpipe music). Visions of Mel Gibson ‘s Wallace epic Braveheart,  specifically its entrails-eviscerating finale, might come to mind as Blut cuts and jabs at Duncan’s flesh with pliers, knives and other sharp objects. But in contrast to Gibson, there’s not an ounce of egomania in Mikkelsen’s often naked display of sinew and suffering. He offers himself up fully and freely, never demanding any viewer’s ardor, and that’s a large part of what makes him such an enticing screen presence.

Polar  is pure trash, but the generousness — and, in the final stretch, the poignancy — with which Mikkelsen approaches even the most lurid of the film’s conceits at least pushes it toward the top of the garbage heap.

Distributor: Netflix Production companies: Constantin Film, Dark Horse Entertainment Cast: Mads Mikkelsen, Vanessa Hudgens, Katheryn Winnick, Fei Ren, Ruby O. Fee, Matt Lucas, Robert Maillet, Anthony Grant, Josh Cruddas, Johnny Knoxville, Richard Dreyfuss Director: Jonas Akerlund Screenwriter: Jayson Rothwell Producers: Jeremy Bolt, Hartley Gorenstein, Robert Kulzer Executive producers: Keith Goldberg, Mads Mikkelsen, Martin Moszkowicz, Mike Richardson Music: Deadmau5 Director of photography: Par M. Ekberg Editor: Doobie White

118 minutes

THR Newsletters

Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Martin lawrence addresses viral clip from ‘bad boys 4’ premiere, shoots down health concerns: “i’m healthy as hell. stop the rumors”, capturing austin butler, tom hardy and jodie comer on the set of ‘the bikeriders’ (exclusive photos), michael rosenbaum says marvel “cut a lot out” from his ‘guardians of the galaxy’ role, marvel eyes shawn levy to direct next ‘avengers’ movie, chloë sevigny joins julia roberts in luca guadagnino thriller ‘after the hunt’ (exclusive), ‘bad boys: ride or die’ review: fourth time around, will smith and martin lawrence can’t hide the strain.

• Children's/Family
• Documentary/Reality
• Amazon Prime Video

More From Decider

New Shows & Movies To Watch This Weekend: 'Eric' on Netflix + More

'Godzilla Minus One' Gets Surprise Release On Netflix

Netflix's Huge Jake Paul Vs. Mike Tyson Fight Postponed After Tyson...

Jax Taylor Admits His "Delivery Is Awful" In 'The Valley': "That's One Of...

What Happened to Regé-Jean Page? Did the Duke Bomb His Movie Star Career...

'9-1-1's Malcolm-Jamal Warner On Amir And Bobby, Working With Peter...

'Unfrosted' Has Everyone Wondering "What's The Deal With Jerry Seinfeld?"

Chrissy Teigen Stuns John Legend On 'The Drew Barrymore Show' With Reveal...

Share this:.

• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
• Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
• Click to copy URL

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Polar’ On Netflix, Where Mads Mikkelsen Plays An Assassin Whose Boss Wants Dead

Where to Stream:

Fans of the late, lamented NBC series Hannibal know how charming but terrifying Mads Mikkelsen can be. So it seems logical that he might play the world’s greatest assassin in the movie adaptation of the Polar graphic novel series. But, you ask, where does Vanessa Hudgens fit in? Read on to find out more…

POLAR : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Duncan Vizla (Mads Mikkelson) aka “The Black Kaiser” is one of the world’s best assassins, but he’s reaching the end of the line, at least according to the rules at Damocles, the organization he works for. Retirement age there is 50, and he’s two weeks away; at that point he’s going to collect his pension, which will total just over $8 million. He’s counting the days, to say the least.

He’s met by Vivian (Katheryn Winnick), one of Damocles’ top agents, with a job to kill a Mexican drug lord who’s hiding out in Minsk. Vizla refuses, decamping to his cabin in Montana, where he’s content to sit and drink, watch movies, and try to keep a pet without killing it (fish, yes; dogs, no). He’s basically content with riding out the last two weeks in the snow, especially as he gets to know Camille (Vanessa Hudgens), his neighbor across the lake.

But, as we see in the first scene with another assassin who’s about to reach 50 (Johnny Knoxville), the boss of Damocles, Mr. Blut (Matt Lucas), doesn’t want any of his assassins to reach their birthdays. You see, if the assassin dies before hitting 50, the organization gets the pension money back, including the employee’s contributions. So Mr. Blut is determined to never let Vizla get his $8 mil. At first, he thinks the job in Belarus will take care of it. But when Vizla finally accepts and does the job, he realizes he’s been set up and goes back to Montana. Blut dispatches a team to find him, and they set of a bloody spree at each of the residences that are listed with his accountant, but he’s not there.

Then they spot a yearly $200k contribution to an account at a bank in Montana, and trail him to the small town where his cabin is. When the team finds him, though, he gets the better of them — naked, in the middle of a snowstorm. One problem: They kidnap Camille.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Polar is a bit of a take-off of the “one final job” genre, considering it’s not the job that gets Vizla in trouble, it’s the fact that his boss wants him to die before he retires. Combine that with the cartoonish violence of movies like the  Kill Bill  series to get Polar’s vibe.

Performance Worth Watching: Vanessa Hudgens does a great job as Camille, a wildlife photographer who has been deeply hurt in life to the point that she drinks “winter coffee” (with bourbon and maple syrup) for breakfast. As she and Vizla get to know each other, she tells him of a time where a mall Santa sexually assaulted her, which she does a nice job with. But a later revelation makes us wish the movie had more of her in it.

Memorable Dialogue: A sequence where Vizla teaches a bunch of kids the advantages of a machete, then shows them pictures of a decomposed body, was pretty much the funniest thing in a film that tries too hard to be funny and campy.

Single Best Shot: Naked axe throwing. Need we say more?

Sex and Skin: One of the team members for Damocles is a bombshell named Sindy (Ruby O. Fee), who sets up the targets to be taken down via her sexual skills. We see her doing it with Knoxville’s character, then we see her having lots of sex with Vizla in Montana.

Our Take: Polar is based on the graphic novel series of the same name, and it feels like director Jonas Åkerlund wanted to make it feel like a graphic novel, making it colorful, bloody and loud. But the problem is that it’s not only too bloody and loud, but Åkerlund missed an opportunity to make a real affecting film surrounding the relationship between Vizla and Camille.

• Mads Mikkelsen

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Promised Land’ on Hulu, in Which Mads Mikkelsen And His Big Ass Potatoes Carry a Gripping Historical Drama

Stream it or skip it: ‘indiana jones and the dial of destiny’ on disney+, a good-but-not-great final go-round for an iconic screen hero, donald trump gives unhinged shout-out to “great actor” hannibal lecter at an iowa rally: “he said on television… ‘i love donald trump’”, new movies on streaming: 'indiana jones and the dial of destiny' + more.

Clocking in at almost 2 hours, the movie is at least 30 minutes too long, and it seems to have at least three false endings. It would have been better served to minimize the creepy rogues’ gallery that is Damocles, with the creepy wimp Mr. Blut, who likes to squirt lotion on his hands and torture via the use of wire cutters. That part of the movie, with the names of each assassin displayed via blood-spattered graphic, reads like a superhero film, all caricatures and bright colors, but no real characterization. Even the smart Vivian doesn’t even get much of a story arc besides being the one to warn Blut to not go after Vizla.

No, the story is with Vizla, who is haunted by a particular job that went wrong, and Camille, whose relationship with Vizla runs deeper than neighbors and new friends. There is hope, though, as it seems that in more than one respect the movie sets itself up for a sequel. But this movie was so disjointed and silly, there might not be a sequel forthcoming.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Polar is too long and too silly to spend two hours on, despite a fine performances from Mikkelsen and Hudgens.

Joel Keller ( @joelkeller ) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream Polar on Netflix

• Stream It Or Skip It

When Will 'Heartland' Season 17 Arrive On Netflix?

Does ‘Yellowstone’ Return Tonight? ‘Yellowstone’s Season 5, Part 2 Return Date, Kevin Costner Update

Ana Navarro Can Barely Contain Her Rage At Marco Rubio On 'The View' After He Compares Trump Guilty Verdict to Oppression In Cuba: "How Dare You"

'Live's Kelly Ripa And Mark Consuelos Say They Could Never Be Part Of A Throuple: "I Can't Even Understand Their Scheduling"

It’s A 'Yellowstone' Wedding: Co-Star Couple Ryan Bingham And Hassie Harrison Marry In A "Cowboy Black Tie" Ceremony

Stream It Or Skip It: 'Eric' On Netflix, Where Benedict Cumberbatch Is A Troubled Dad Who Turns To An Imaginary Monster When His Son Goes Missing

Polar on Netflix: Cast, reviews, and all you need to know

Polar is a brand new movie that was released on Netflix on January 25, 2019. The movie is about a top assassin, Duncan Vizla, who has decided to retire.

While he’s enjoying his retirement, his former employer suddenly believes that he’s a liability and soon he finds himself the target of assassins.

The movie is based on a graphic novel of the same name and because it has something to live up to, the reviews are mixed.

The movie has only received 17% on Rotten Tomatoes , with people slamming the movie for being “stupid,” an “ultra-violent action flick,” and a movie with a target audience of “teenage boys.”

Some readers on IMDB gave the movie slightly more credit, giving the movie an average of 6.3 stars out of 10. While some viewers expected the worst, they ended up loving the movie.

One person gave the movie an 8/10, revealing that the movie may not be for everyone, while another gave it a perfect 10/10 for following the silly, over-the-top, and gory style of comic books.

Since the movie is based on graphic novels, there are several volumes that are not covered in Polar, the movie. So naturally, there’s a question of whether this will turn into a franchise .

Director Jonas Åkerlund reveals that Polar primarily focuses on the first graphic novel, but they did borrow some ideas from the second and third books.

Plus, they also made up some things to make the movie what they wanted. While there’s still more story to be told, Jonas had no comments about another movie at present time.

Polar is currently available on Netflix.

Netflix Really Missed The Mark With This Mads Mikkelsen Action Thriller

When you think of Mads Mikkelsen, your brain probably locks onto the captivating villains he's played on screen, be it Le Chiffre from "Casino Royale," Hannibal Lecter in "Hannibal," or even Jürgen Voller in "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny." What you may not think about (not right away, at least) is Mikkelsen the dancer. 

It's true: after studying at the world-famous ballet academy in Gothenburg, Sweden (aka. the Balettakademien), the Danish actor spent a decade as a professional dancer before getting into acting. He would go on to put his ballet skills to incredible use in the opening fight in "Hannibal" season 2, as well as the memorable drunken dance scene that went viral from director Thomas Vinterberg's Danish dramedy "Another Round." With his physical grace and screen charisma, it was probably inevitable somebody would have the idea to cast Mikkelsen as the protagonist in a post-"John Wick" assassin thriller (of which there've been many).

That's precisely what Swedish director Jonas Åkerlund did on "Polar," a Netflix action flick that was released to little fanfare in January 2019. Written by Jayson Rothwell and based on Víctor Santos's comic book "Polar: Came From the Cold," the film casts Mikkelsen as Duncan Vizla/The Black Kaiser, an assassin who works for Damocles, an organization that gives its employees a handsome pension to retire once they reach 50. When Damocles conspires to have him killed before he can collect, Duncan double-crosses their double-cross before demanding what he's owed and retiring to the same remote cabin all aging assassins retire to in movies ... only for his past to inevitably come knocking.

Derivative tropes aside, the setup for "Polar" doesn't sound all that sillier than "John Wick" and its own rigidly-structured assassin bureaucracy. It's the execution that makes "Polar" a misfire.

If at first you don't succeed, hit the reboot button

"Polar" holds a decidedly bad 18 percent score among Rotten Tomatoes critics , with its Critics Consensus reading, "An action thriller starring Mads Mikkelsen as the world's most dangerous assassin should be terrifically entertaining, but 'Polar' proves it's possible to ruin anything if you try." That more or less sums up the problems with the movie. It's got all the flash and bang you could ask for your buck, but where "John Wick" brought a thematic richness and polished visual flair to its B-movie underpinning, "Polar" is sloppily constructed and emotionally hollow. It's also repetitively bloody and unknowingly exploitive, to the degree that it could almost (but not quite) pass for a Paul Verhoeven-styled European satire of hyper-violent Hollywood genre fare

Clearly, however, somebody believes the masses have a fever and the only prescription is more of Mikkelsen's Black Kaiser and his mustache. In a baffling turn of events, it was announced in May 2022 that Mikkelsen is reprising his role as Duncan Vizla in "The Black Kaiser," a film that's not "a sequel or a prequel" but a new take on the "Polar" comic books. Derrick Borte ("Unhinged") has since signed on to direct instead of Åkerlund, with an eye on starting production in the fall of 2023. For now, though, it remains to be seen how the writers' and actors' strikes have impacted those plans.

Can Borte succeed where Åkerlund failed? "Unhinged" was a functional pulpy B-movie that fancied itself as something more (and was mostly held afloat by Russell Crowe's bug-eyed performance as the villain), but the fact we're already getting some kind of "Polar" reboot just goes to show how much the original movie really missed the mark in the first place.

Giles's Notes

'polar' - movie review.

The critical consensus at Rotten Tomatoes says "An action thriller starring Mads Mikkelsen as the world's most dangerous assassin should be terrifically entertaining, but Polar proves it's possible to ruin anything if you try." I looked at that and thought "Nah, Mads Mikkelsen as a hardcore assassin? That's got to have some good stuff in it!" I'm here to tell you that Rotten Tomatoes is entirely correct.

Mikkelsen is Duncan Vizla, an assassin who works for a company called Damocles. Vizla is days away from his automatic retirement at the age of 50, and the company owe him $8 million in retirement money. (The movie is already on shaky grounds, with a firm of assassins having a standard retirement plan ...) We are immediately informed that the company is sending younger assassins to killing older, retired assassins so that their retirement money goes back into the company.

The first half of the movie is split between Vizla's quiet life in the place he's planning to spend his retirement and the young and only semi-competent hit team sent to all his properties to kill him (and failing to find him). The only good scene in the entire movie is at the mid point when they finally catch up to Vizla. It's all downhill from there.

We're treated to a ten minute torture scene: in most movies, even action/revenge flicks like this one, the scene fades as the torturer approaches - maybe we hear fading screams. It's all implication. But no: in this case, someone is tortured, and we get to see several minutes of it. We're assured this goes on for three days. Fans of torture porn might like this - I'm not sure, since it's not my thing ... but I suspect this isn't even specific enough for them. We see lots snipping motions, hear a lot of grunting, see a lot of blood. Not my idea of fun.

And then there's the big twist about the girl he's befriended at the end. (No spoilers, I promise. But after reading this, why would you care? Why would you think about watching this?) They get partial points for a twist I didn't remotely see coming - but only partial because it's kind of ridiculous. And then they set up a sequel, on staggeringly improbable grounds. Couldn't you have spent your energy on making a better movie instead of on manoeuvring yourself into a sequel?

Even Mikkelsen's performance is only "okay" in this piece of shit. Vanessa Hudgens as "the girl" proves herself particularly bad when the twist landed and she totally didn't sell it. And everyone else is just over-the-top, particularly Matt Lucas as "Blut," the big-bad company owner. The blame for this most probably goes to the director rather than the actors - it's particularly obvious in the case of Lucas, who's so ridiculous that the best actor in the world couldn't have sold that crap the script called on him to say.

Believe Rotten Tomatoes on this one. Stay away.

2019, dir. Jonas Åkerlund. With Mads Mikkelsen, Vanessa Hudgens, Katheryn Winnick, Matt Lucas, Josh Cruddas, Ruby O. Fee, Anthony Grant, Robert Maillet, Fei Ren, Inga Cadranel, Pedro Miguel Arce, Johnny Knoxville, Richard Dreyfuss.

Chronological: --> Prev: Vim Tip #30: Numbering Your Tabs Next: 'Bushwick' - Movie Review Category: Prev: Vim Tip #30: Numbering Your Tabs Next: 'Bushwick' - Movie Review -->

Screen Rant

Polar express 2 in development 20 years later.

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

Millie Bobby Brown's Fantasy Movie Is Now One Of The Most Popular Netflix Films Ever

Where silverado was filmed (& how the location became a legacy), denzel washington's most underrated movie is a $46 million flop from 26 years ago.

• Producer Gary Goetzman reveals that The Polar Express 2 is being " worked out ."
• It's not clear the sequel will actually happen due to the mixed reviews and poor box office of the original.
• Advances in technology mean that now might be the right time to bring a Polar Express sequel to life.

The Polar Express 2 is now in development, 20 years after the original hit theaters. Released in 2004, director Robert Zemeckis' The Polar Express , which is based on a book of the same name by Chris Van Allsburg, chronicles one young boy's journey on Christmas Eve to the North Pole aboard the titular train. The animated movie features Tom Hanks voicing multiple characters, and was made using what was, at the time, a novel animation style.

Now, producer Gary Goetzman tells ComicBook.com that The Polar Express 2 is in the works. Unfortunately, however, the producer doesn't provide any indication regarding how far along this development is or how likely the movie is to actually come to fruition. Check out Goetzman's full comment below when asked about the possibility of a sequel to Zemeckis' Christmas movie:

"Listen, I'd love to. I'd love to do a sequel of Where The Wild Things Are . There's a lot of the things that we've done, if it established itself, branded itself, those movies, studios want another one. That's the way it goes. I'm up for Mamma Mia 3 , man. That would be a ball to do right about now. But it becomes, there's so much involved with, 'Who's artistic property would that be? Would that be?' It's just not like, 'Hey, let's go do another free sailing! So, they all take time and that's okay because we don't mind things going slowly. But that is trying to be worked out now, for sure, Polar 2 . Yes."

Will The Polar Express 2 Actually Happen?

Why it might be the right time for a sequel.

A movie being in development is far from a movie actually getting the green light, and there are several factors that could be standing in the way of a sequel actually happening. Despite the talents of The Polar Express ' cast , reviews for the film were mixed, at best, and the film currently holds a middling 56% on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience score is a little higher at 64%, and the IMDb user score is fairly similar at 6.6 out of 10, with neither suggesting that the movie totally struck a chord with general movie-goers.

There is no Polar Express 2 book, meaning the sequel would seemingly be an original story.

The Polar Express 's box office was also disappointing. Made on a record-breaking budget of $165 million, the film managed to earn just over $314 million worldwide. Despite holding an IMAX box office record until Avatar 's release in 2009, this still isn't the type of performance that would normally lead to a sequel. It's possible, however, that T he Polar Express has since become a hit on home video and streaming.

While it's certainly fair to question why a sequel to The Polar Express is in development, now might also be the perfect time to revisit the world of the film. The Polar Express 's animated characters were widely criticized for their "Uncanny Valley" appearance, with Zemeckis opting to give the characters a lifelike look without technology that could achieve this. Now, however, advances in technology mean that, if The Polar Express 2 does happen, it could avoid one of the biggest complaints about the original.

The Polar Express is currently available to stream on AMC Plus.

Source: ComicBook.com

The Polar Express

Based on the book by Chris Van Allsburg, The Polar Express is an animated holiday-fantasy film by director Robert Zemeckis. A young boy is spirited away on Christmas Eve aboard the magical Polar Express, where he meets new friends on a journey to rediscover their belief in Christmas.

The Polar Express 2: Confirmation & Everything We Know

Rotten Tomatoes, explained

Does a movie’s Rotten Tomatoes score affect its box office returns? And six other questions, answered.

by Alissa Wilkinson

In February 2016, Rotten Tomatoes — the site that aggregates movie and TV critics’ opinions and tabulates a score that’s “fresh” or “rotten” — took on an elevated level of importance. That’s when Rotten Tomatoes (along with its parent company Flixster) was acquired by Fandango , the website that sells advance movie tickets for many major cinema chains.

People had been using Rotten Tomatoes to find movie reviews since it launched in 2000, but after Fandango acquired the site, it began posting “Tomatometer” scores next to movie ticket listings. Since then, studio execs have started to feel as if Rotten Tomatoes matters more than it used to — and in some cases, they’ve rejiggered their marketing strategies accordingly.

It’s easy to see why anyone might assume that Rotten Tomatoes scores became more tightly linked to ticket sales, with potential audiences more likely to buy tickets for a movie with a higher score, and by extension, giving critics more power over the purchase of a ticket.

But that’s not the whole story. And as most movie critics (including myself) will tell you, the correlation between Rotten Tomatoes scores, critical opinion, marketing tactics, and actual box office returns is complicated. It’s not a simple cause-and-effect situation.

My own work is included in both Rotten Tomatoes’ score and that of its more exclusive cousin, Metacritic . So I, along with many other critics , think often of the upsides and pitfalls of aggregating critical opinion and its effect on which movies people see. But for the casual moviegoer, how review aggregators work, what they measure, and how they affect ticket sales can be mysterious.

So when I got curious about how people perceive Rotten Tomatoes and its effect on ticket sales, I did what any self-respecting film critic does: I informally polled my Twitter followers to see what they wanted to know.

Here are seven questions that many people have about Rotten Tomatoes, and review aggregation more generally — and some facts to clear up the confusion.

How is a Rotten Tomatoes score calculated?

The score that Rotten Tomatoes assigns to a film corresponds to the percentage of critics who’ve judged the film to be “fresh,” meaning their opinion of it is more positive than negative. The idea is to quickly offer moviegoers a sense of critical consensus.

“Our goal is to serve fans by giving them useful tools and one-stop access to critic reviews, user ratings, and entertainment news to help with their entertainment viewing decisions,” Jeff Voris, a vice president at Rotten Tomatoes, told me in an email.

The opinions of about 3,000 critics — a.k.a. the “Approved Tomatometer Critics” who have met a series of criteria set by Rotten Tomatoes — are included in the site’s scores, though not every critic reviews every film, so any given score is more typically derived from a few hundred critics, or even less. The scores don’t include just anyone who calls themselves a critic or has a movie blog; Rotten Tomatoes only aggregates critics who have been regularly publishing movie reviews with a reasonably widely read outlet for at least two years, and those critics must be “active,” meaning they've published at least one review in the last year. The site also deems a subset of critics to be “top critics” and calculates a separate score that only includes them.

Some critics (or staffers at their publications) upload their own reviews, choose their own pull quotes, and designate their review as “fresh” or “rotten.” Other critics (including myself) have their reviews uploaded, pull-quoted, and tagged as fresh or rotten by the Rotten Tomatoes staff. In the second case, if the staff isn't sure whether to tag a review as fresh or rotten, they reach out to the critic for clarification. And critics who don't agree with the site’s designation can request that it be changed.

As the reviews of a given film accumulate, the Rotten Tomatoes score measures the percentage that are more positive than negative, and assigns an overall fresh or rotten rating to the movie. Scores of over 60 percent are considered fresh, and scores of 59 percent and under are rotten. To earn the coveted “designated fresh” seal, a film needs at least 40 reviews, 75 percent of which are fresh, and five of which are from “top” critics.

What does a Rotten Tomatoes score really mean ?

A Rotten Tomatoes score represents the percentage of critics who felt mildly to wildly positively about a given film.

If I give a film a mixed review that’s generally positive (which, in Vox’s rating system, could range from a positive-skewing 3 to the rare totally enamored 5), that review receives the same weight as an all-out rave from another critic. (When I give a movie a 2.5, I consider that to be a neutral score; by Rotten Tomatoes' reckoning, it's rotten.) Theoretically, a 100 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating could be made up entirely of middling-to-positive reviews. And if half of the critics the site aggregates only sort of like a movie, and the other half sort of dislike it, the film will hover around 50 percent (which is considered “rotten” by the site).

Contrary to some people’s perceptions, Rotten Tomatoes itself maintains no opinion about a film. What Rotten Tomatoes tries to gauge is critical consensus.

• Why people are freaking out over Wonder Woman’s stellar Rotten Tomatoes score

Critics’ opinions do tend to cluster on most films. But there are always outliers, whether from contrarians (who sometimes seem to figure out what people will say and then take the opposite opinion), or from those who seem to love every film. And critics, like everyone, have various life experiences, aesthetic preferences, and points of view that lead them to have differing opinions on movies.

So in many (if not most) cases, a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score may not correspond to any one critic’s view. It’s more like an imprecise estimate of what would happen if you mashed together every Tomatometer critic and had the resulting super-critic flash a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.

Rotten Tomatoes also lets audiences rate movies, and the score is often out of step with the critical score. Sometimes, the difference is extremely significant, a fact that's noticeable because the site lists the two scores side by side.

There’s a straightforward reason the two rarely match, though: The critical score is more controlled and methodical.

Why? Most professional critics have to see and review many films, whether or not they’re inclined to like the movie. (Also, most critics don’t pay to see films, because studios hold special early screenings for them ahead of the release date, which removes the decision of whether they’re interested enough in a film to spend their hard-earned money on seeing it.)

But with Rotten Tomatoes’ audience score, the situation is different. Anyone on the internet can contribute — not just those who actually saw the film. As a result, a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score can be gamed by internet trolls seeking to sink it simply because they find its concept offensive. A concerted effort can drive down the film’s audience score before it even comes out, as was the case with the all-female reboot of Ghostbusters .

Even if Rotten Tomatoes required people to pass a quiz on the movie before they rated it, the score would still be somewhat unreliable. Why? Because ordinary audiences are more inclined to buy tickets to movies they’re predisposed to like — who wants to spend $12 to $20 on a film they’re pretty sure they’ll hate?

So audience scores at Rotten Tomatoes (and other audience-driven scores, like the ones at IMDb) naturally skew very positive, or sometimes very negative if there’s any sort of smear campaign in play. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. But audience scores tend to not account for those who would never buy a ticket to the movie in the first place.

In contrast, since critics see lots of movies — some of which they would have gone to see anyhow, and some of which they would’ve never chosen to see if their editors didn’t make the assignment — their opinion distribution should theoretically be more even, and thus the critical Rotten Tomatoes score more “accurate.”

Or at least that’s what Rotten Tomatoes thinks. The site displays a movie’s critics’ scores — the official Tomatometer — at Fandango and in a more prominent spot on the movie’s Rotten Tomatoes landing page. The audience score is also displayed on the Rotten Tomatoes page, but it’s not factored into the film’s fresh or rotten rating, and doesn’t contribute to a film being labeled as “certified fresh.”

Why do critics often get frustrated by the Tomatometer?

The biggest reason many critics find Rotten Tomatoes frustrating is that most people’s opinions about movies can’t be boiled down to a simple thumbs up or down. And most critics feel that Rotten Tomatoes, in particular, oversimplifies criticism, to the detriment of critics, the audience, and the movies themselves.

In some cases, a film really is almost universally considered to be excellent, or to be a complete catastrophe. But critics usually come away from a movie with a mixed view. Some things work, and others don’t. The actors are great, but the screenplay is lacking. The filmmaking is subpar, but the story is imaginative. Some critics use a four- or five-star rating, sometimes with half-stars included, to help quantify mixed opinions as mostly negative or mostly positive.

The important point here is that no critic who takes their job seriously is going to have a simple yes-or-no system for most movies. Critics watch a film, think about it, and write a review that doesn't just judge the movie but analyzes, contextualizes, and ruminates over it. The fear among many critics (including myself) is that people who rely largely on Rotten Tomatoes aren't interested in the nuances of a film, and aren't particularly interested in reading criticism, either.

But maybe the bigger reason critics are worried about the influence of review aggregators is that they seem to imply there's a “right” way to evaluate a movie, based on most people's opinions. We worry that audience members who have different reactions will feel as if their opinion is somehow wrong, rather than seeing the diversity of opinions as an invitation to read and understand how and why people react to art differently.

Plenty of movies — from Psycho to Fight Club to Alien — would have earned a rotten rating from Rotten Tomatoes upon their original release, only to be reconsidered and deemed classics years later as tastes, preferences, and ideas about films changed. Sometimes being an outlier can just mean you're forward-thinking.

Voris, the Rotten Tomatoes vice president, told me that the site is always trying to grapple with this quandary. “The Rotten Tomatoes curation team is constantly adding and updating reviews for films — both past and present,” he told me. “If there’s a review available from an approved critic or outlet, it will be added.”

What critics are worried about is a tendency toward groupthink, and toward scapegoating people who deviate from the “accepted” analysis. You can easily see this in the hordes of fans that sometimes come after a critic who dares to “ruin” a film's perfect score . But critics (at least serious ones) don't write their reviews to fit the Tomatometer, nor are they out to “get” DC Comics movies or religious movies or political movies or any other movies. Critics love movies and want them to be good, and we try to be honest when we see one that we don't measures up.

That doesn't mean the audience can't like a movie with a rotten rating, or hate a movie with a fresh rating. It's no insult to critics when audience opinion diverges. In fact, it makes talking and thinking about movies more interesting.

If critics are ambivalent about Rotten Tomatoes scores, why do moviegoers use the scores to decide whether to see a movie?

Mainly, it’s easy. You’re buying movie tickets on Fandango, or you’re trying to figure out what to watch on Netflix, so you check the Rotten Tomatoes score to decide. It’s simple. That’s the point.

And that’s not a bad thing. It's helpful to get a quick sense of critical consensus, even if it's somewhat imprecise. Many people use Rotten Tomatoes to get a rough idea of whether critics generally liked a film.

The flip side, though, is that some people, whether they’re critics or audience members, will inevitably have opinions that don't track with the Rotten Tomatoes score at all. Just because an individual's opinion is out of step with the Tomatometer doesn't mean the person is “wrong” — it just means they're an outlier.

And that, frankly, is what makes art, entertainment, and the world at large interesting: Not everyone has the same opinion about everything, because people are not exact replicas of one another. Most critics love arguing about movies, because they often find that disagreeing with their colleagues is what makes their job fun. It's fine to disagree with others about a movie, and it doesn't mean you're “wrong.”

(For what it’s worth, another review aggregation site, Metacritic, maintains an even smaller and more exclusive group of critics than Rotten Tomatoes — its aggregated scores cap out around 50 reviews per movie, instead of the hundreds that can make up a Tomatometer score. Metacritic’s score for a film is different from Rotten Tomatoes’ insofar as each individual review is assigned a rating on a scale of 100 and the overall Metacritic score is a weighted average, the mechanics of which Metacritic absolutely refuses to divulge . But because the site’s ratings are even more carefully controlled to include only experienced professional critics — and because the reviews it aggregates are given a higher level of granularity, and presumably weighted by the perceived influence of the critic’s publication — most critics consider Metacritic a better gauge of critical opinion.)

Does a movie’s Rotten Tomatoes score affect its box office earnings?

The short version: It can, but not necessarily in the ways you might think.

A good Rotten Tomatoes score indicates strong critical consensus, and that can be good for smaller films in particular. It’s common for distributors to roll out such films slowly, opening them in a few key cities (usually New York and Los Angeles, and maybe a few others) to generate good buzz — not just from critics, but also on social media and through word of mouth. The result, they hope, is increased interest and ticket sales when the movie opens in other cities.

Get Out , for example, certainly profited from the 99 percent “fresh” score it earned since its limited opening. And the more recent The Big Sick became one of last summer's most beloved films, helped along by its 98 percent rating. But a bad score for a small film can help ensure that it will close quickly, or play in fewer cities overall. Its potential box office earnings, in turn, will inevitably take a hit.

Yet when it comes to blockbusters, franchises, and other big studio films (which usually open in many cities at once), it’s much less clear how much a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score affects its box office tally. A good Rotten Tomatoes score, for example, doesn't necessarily guarantee a film will be a hit. Atomic Blonde is “guaranteed fresh,” with a 77 percent rating, but it didn‘t do very well at the box office despite being an action film starring Charlize Theron.

Still, studios certainly seem to believe the score makes a difference . Last summer, studios blamed Rotten Tomatoes scores (and by extension, critics) when poorly reviewed movies like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales , Baywatch , and The Mummy performed below expectations at the box office. ( Pirates still went on to be the year’s 19th highest-grossing film.)

2017’s highest grossing movies in the US

But that correlation doesn’t really hold up. The Emoji Movie , for example, was critically panned, garnering an abysmal 6 percent Rotten Tomatoes score. But it still opened to $25 million in the US, which put it just behind the acclaimed Christopher Nolan film Dunkirk . And the more you think about it, the less surprising it is that plenty of people bought tickets to The Emoji Movie in spite of its bad press: It's an animated movie aimed at children that faced virtually no theatrical competition, and it opened during the summer, when kids are out of school. Great reviews might have inflated its numbers, but almost universally negative ones didn't seem to hurt it much.

It's also worth noting that many films with low Rotten Tomatoes scores that also perform poorly in the US (like The Mummy or The Great Wall ) do just fine overseas, particularly in China. The Mummy gave Tom Cruise his biggest global opening ever . If there is a Rotten Tomatoes effect, it seems to only extend to the American market.

Without any consistent proof, why do people still maintain that a bad Rotten Tomatoes score actively hurts a movie at the box office?

While it’s clear that a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score and box office earnings aren't correlated as strongly as movie studios might like you to think, blaming bad ticket sales on critics is low-hanging fruit.

Plenty of people would like you to believe that the weak link between box office earnings and critical opinion proves that critics are at fault for not liking the film, and that audiences are a better gauge of its quality. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, co-star of Baywatch , certainly took that position when reviews of the 2017 bomb Baywatch came out:

Baywatch ended up with a very comfortably rotten 19 percent Tomatometer score , compared to a just barely fresh 62 percent audience score. But with apologies to The Rock, who I’m sure is a very nice man, critics aren't weather forecasters or pundits, and they’re not particularly interested in predicting how audiences will respond to a movie. (We are also a rather reserved and nerdy bunch, not regularly armed with venom and knives.) Critics show up where they’re told to show up and watch a film, then go home and evaluate it to the best of their abilities.

The obvious rejoinder, at least from a critic’s point of view, is that if Baywatch was a better movie, there wouldn’t be such a disconnect. But somehow, I suspect that younger ticket buyers — an all-important demographic — lacked nostalgia for 25-year-old lifeguard TV show, and thus weren't so sure about seeing Baywatch in the first place. Likewise, I doubt that a majority of Americans were ever going to be terribly interested in the fifth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (which notched a 30 percent Tomatometer score and a 64 percent audience score), especially when they could just watch some other movie.

A pile-up of raves for either of these films might have resulted in stronger sales, because people could have been surprised to learn that a film they didn’t think they were interested in was actually great. But with lackluster reviews, the average moviegoer just had no reason to give them a chance.

Big studio publicists, however, are paid to convince people to see their films, not to candidly discuss the quality of the films themselves. So when a film with bad reviews flops at the box office, it’s not shocking that studios are quick to suggest that critics killed it.

How do movie studios try to blunt the perceived impact when they’re expecting a bad Rotten Tomatoes score?

Of late, some studios — prompted by the idea that critics can kill a film’s buzz before it even comes out — have taken to “ fighting back ” when they’re expecting a rotten Tomatometer score.

Their biggest strategy isn’t super obvious to the average moviegoer, but very clear to critics. When a studio suspects it has a lemon on its hands, it typically hosts the press screening only a day or two ahead of the film's release, and then sets a review “embargo” that lifts a few hours before the film hits theaters.

Consider, for example, the case of the aforementioned Emoji Movie. I and most other critics hoped the movie would be good, as is the case with all movies see. But once the screening invitations arrived in our inboxes, we pretty much knew, with a sinking feeling, that it wouldn’t be. The tell was pretty straightforward: The film’s only critics' screening in New York was scheduled for the day before it opened. It screened for press on Wednesday night at 5 pm, and then the review embargo lifted at 3 pm the next day — mere hours before the first public showtimes.

Late critics’ screenings for any given film mean that reviews of the film will necessarily come out very close to its release, and as a result, people purchasing advance tickets might buy them before there are any reviews or Tomatometer score to speak of. Thus, in spite of there being no strong correlation between negative reviews and a low box office, its first-weekend box returns might be less susceptible to any potential harm as a result of bad press. (Such close timing can also backfire; critics liked this summer's Captain Underpants , for example, but the film was screened too late for the positive reviews to measurably boost its opening box office.)

That first-weekend number is important, because if a movie is the top performer at the box office (or if it simply exceeds expectations, like Dunkirk and Wonder Woman did this summer), its success can function as good advertising for the film, which means its second weekend sales may also be stronger. And that matters , particularly when it means a movie is outperforming its expectations, because it can actually shift the way industry executives think about what kinds of movies people want to watch. Studios do keep an eye on critics’ opinions, but they’re much more interested in ticket sales — which makes it easy to see why they don’t want risk having their opening weekend box office affected by bad reviews, whether there’s a proven correlation or not.

The downside of this strategy, however, is that it encourages critics to instinctively gauge a studio’s level of confidence in a film based on when the press screening takes place. 20th Century Fox, for instance, screened War for the Planet of the Apes weeks ahead of its theatrical release, and lifted the review embargo with plenty of time to spare before the movie came out. The implication was that Fox believed the movie would be a critical success, and indeed, it was — the movie has a 97 percent Tomatometer score and an 86 percent audience score.

And still, late press screenings fail to account for the fact that, while a low Rotten Tomatoes score doesn’t necessarily hurt a film’s total returns, aggregate review scores in general do have a distinct effect on second-weekend sales. In 2016, Metacritic conducted a study of the correlation between its scores and second weekend sales , and found — not surprisingly — that well-reviewed movies dip much less in the second weekend than poorly reviewed movies. This is particularly true of movies with a strong built-in fan base, like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , which enjoyed inflated box office returns in the first weekend because fans came out to see it, but dropped sharply in its second weekend, at least partly due to extremely negative press .

Most critics who are serious about their work make a good-faith effort to approach each film they see with as few expectations as possible. But it's hard to have much hope about a movie when it seems obvious that a studio is trying to play keep-away with it. And the more studios try to game the system by withholding their films from critics, the less critics are inclined to enter a screening devoid of expectations, however subconscious.

If you ask critics what studios ought to do to minimize the potential impact of a low Rotten Tomatoes score, their answer is simple: Make better movies. But of course, it’s not that easy; some movies with bad scores do well, while some with good scores still flop. Hiding a film from critics might artificially inflate first-weekend box office returns, but plenty of people are going to go see a franchise film, or a superhero movie, or a family movie, no matter what critics say.

The truth is that neither Rotten Tomatoes nor the critics whose evaluations make up its scores are really at fault here, and it’s silly to act like that’s the case. The website is just one piece of the sprawling and often bewildering film landscape.

As box office analyst Scott Mendelson wrote at Forbes :

[Rotten Tomatoes] is an aggregate website, one with increased power because the media now uses the fresh ranking as a catch-all for critical consensus, with said percentage score popping up when you buy tickets from Fandango or rent the title on Google Market. But it is not magic. At worst, the increased visibility of the site is being used as an excuse by ever-pickier moviegoers to stay in with Netflix or VOD.

For audience members who want to make good moviegoing decisions, the best approach is a two-pronged one. First, check Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic to get a sense of critical consensus. But second, find a few critics — two or three will do — whose taste aligns with (or challenges) your own, and whose insights help you enjoy a movie even more. Read them and rely on them.

And know that it’s okay to form your own opinions, too. After all, in the bigger sense, everyone’s a critic.

Most Popular

Trump wants the supreme court to toss out his conviction. will they, 10 big things we think will happen in the next 10 years, take a mental break with the newest vox crossword, the secret to modern friendship, according to real friends, india’s election shows the world’s largest democracy is still a democracy, today, explained.

Understand the world with a daily explainer plus the most compelling stories of the day.

More in Culture

This changed everything

Serial transformed true crime — and the way we think about criminal justice

The last 10 years, explained

The internet peaked with “the dress,” and then it unraveled

Billie Eilish vs. Taylor Swift: Is the feud real? Who’s dissing who?

The MLB’s long-overdue decision to add Negro Leagues’ stats, briefly explained

Biden’s sweeping new asylum restrictions, explained

Trump’s New York conviction is not enough

MDMA’s federal approval drama, briefly explained

What we know about the police killing of Black Air Force member Roger Fortson

Backgrid paparazzi photos are everywhere. Is that such a big deal?

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, infinitely polar bear.

Now streaming on:

With a title as intriguingly enigmatic as “Infinitely  Polar Bear,” it is hard to surmise exactly what awaits plotwise. Rest assured that this is not a documentary that exploits the cute factor of cold-climate animals. Instead, this festival-circuit sleeper is one of those to-be-treasured indie films that revels in real life with all its inherent messiness while sneakily giving your heartstrings a tug.

Not that its star, Mark Ruffalo —who continues to be cinema’s leading purveyor of rumpled bed-headed sexiness, a status he first achieved in 2000’s “ You Can Count on Me ”—isn’t often cuddly in the extreme. But his rather startling early entrance in this keenly observed and understated late-‘70s-era dramedy about an unconventional mixed-race family and their struggle to stick together initially suggests his unhinged Cam Stuart might be one of the most petrifying patriarchs since Jack Nicholson grabbed an ax in ” The Shining .”

This troubled soul wobbles into view atop a bicycle while wearing bright red undies, a matching headband and nothing else, even though it is winter. Spying distraught wife Maggie (the languid and lovely Zoe Saldana , who for once isn’t sporting a green or blue alien hue) and their two grade-school-age daughters, Amelia and Faith, as they are about to escape in a car, this wild-eyed mad man starts banging on the windshield and yanks out the distributor cap from under the hood. The episode ends with a deflated Cam sitting cross-legged on the ground, emotionally spent and shivering.

A prologue consisting of fuzzy Super 8 home-movie footage already has us expecting the worse as it reveals that Cam, the scion of a once-celebrated blue-blood New England clan, was diagnosed with manic-depressive disorder in 1967. And that Maggie married him anyway, given that everyone was basically a some sort of mental case back in the ‘60s.

However, this extreme meltdown in 1978 lands Cam in a hospital, where such meds as Lithium have left him benign to the point of being comatose and barely able to light his endless chain of cigarettes. When his family visits, it is very sad affair—until one of the girls notices her father’s treatment-induced bloated belly and punches it on a dare. An arcane throwaway line in which he warns her that just such a blow caused Harry Houdini to die suggests there is more to this shaky Cam (and to “Infinitely  Polar Bear,” a garbled play on bipolar) than meets the eye.

There is an intoxicating authenticity and welcome low-key humor to what happens during the rest of this episodic story that manages to gently touch upon societal shifts, the class system, corporate sexism and racial identity as it shows how even an emotionally damaged adult can still summon enough caring and devotion be an effective primary caretaker.

That’s not surprising since screenwriter and first-time feature director Maya Forbes based the events on her own childhood in Cambridge, Mass. She and younger sister China, a lead singer for the cocktail-lounge-inspired Pink Martini, were raised by their charismatic though often erratic father while their breadwinner mother went to New York for a year and a half to earn her MBA at Columbia in the hopes of raising her family’s standard of living.

While that decision might be considered an admirable one, it also could be a recipe for disaster given Cam’s regular rage-induced outbursts that are only occasionally tempered by drugs and, as he admits, small sips of beer. Living in a cramped and cluttered apartment with two rambunctious and highly opinionated pre-adolescent girls would test anyone’s patience, although most parents probably wouldn’t leave their kids alone while issuing the warning, “If a rapist knocks, don’t let them in,” before heading out to a late-hours drinking hole. 

On top of that, Cam is a little too eager to be friends with the neighbors, offering to not just carry a lady’s laundry but to fold it for her as well. He tends to swan about a bit with a patrician air—of course, he owns a smoking jacket—that is part and parcel of his breeding although complications make his distant family’s wealth mostly off limits.  But Cam can also be surprisingly resourceful. He is an ace with fixing gadgets, can make a mean batch of crepes, has a childlike appreciation of playtime, knows martial arts, heals a rift between the girls and bullying neighbor children and even pulls an all-nighter to sew a wonderful flamenco skirt for Faith to wear in her school’s talent show.  

Basically, Cam is one of the most entertainingly inappropriate guardians for impressionable youths since Auntie Mame. That’s in large part due to Forbes’ decision to cast Ruffalo, who channels a nervous kinetic energy into his performance that is rightfully grating and ingratiating at the same time without wearing out his welcome. The film is worth seeing just to observe the actor as he masterfully ties a bow tie without a mirror after Cam fails to meet a restaurant’s dress code, all the while carrying on a heated conversation with Maggie.

The novice director also made another wise move by having her own 12-year-old daughter, Imogene Wolodarsky , play Amelia—who is based on Forbes herself. What could be deemed nepotism is instead a perfect fit that results in a magical connection between actress and character. Equally good is Ashley Aufderheide as Faith. While Ruffalo is the main event as his shifting moods swirl around him, we also have to believe that these girls could not only survive such an upbringing but also be surrogate parents to their needy father as well. Mission accomplished. 

When it became obvious that the conclusion was nigh, however, I had a reaction that I rarely feel these days. I wasn’t ready to leave this complicated clan behind just yet. I wished that the 88-minute “Infinitely  Polar Bear” was longer. This might be the first time ever I knocked off a half of a star from a rating because the ending had arrived too soon.

Susan Wloszczyna

Susan Wloszczyna spent much of her nearly thirty years at USA TODAY as a senior entertainment reporter. Now unchained from the grind of daily journalism, she is ready to view the world of movies with fresh eyes.

Now playing

Peyton Robinson

Terrestrial Verses

Godfrey cheshire.

Handling the Undead

Turtles All the Way Down

Christy Lemire

Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg

Marya e. gates, film credits.

Infinitely Polar Bear (2015)

Rated R for language

Mark Ruffalo as Cameron

Zoe Saldana as Maggie

Keir Dullea as Murray Stuart

Beth Dixon as Pauline Stuart

Georgia Lyman as Becca

• Maya Forbes

Director of Photography

• Bobby Bukowski

Latest blog posts

Chi Film Fest's 60th Anniversary Cinema Soirée

The Acolyte Sends Star Wars Into a Galaxy Far, Far In the Past

Short Films in Focus: The Year of Staring at Noses

Animation Is Slow Motion: Pablo Berger on Robot Dreams

10 TV Shows Where Every Season Has 100% on Rotten Tomatoes

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

Television has clearly been one of the best mediums in modern storytelling, for it has allowed our beloved characters and their compelling narratives to unfold at a steady and deliberate pace episode after episode, season after season. Some shows, they struggle to maintain consistency and top-notch quality in the long run. But a select few have achieved the incredible fear of earning themselves a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score for every season.

It is challenging to juggle dozens of characters, complicated plot points and creative vision over the course of multiple seasons . Sometimes, there’s only so much room for innovation and driving a narrative to bold new direction. But the shows on this list have skillfully maintained freshness and emotional resonance year after year and won critical acclaim for the same.

TV shows that rise to the challenge and deliver non-stop excellence are worth praising. And in this list, we celebrate the shows that have attained the coveted honor of 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes for every single season. They’re testament to the fact that perfection can be achieved. Flawless in their execution and memorable in their storytelling, these are some of the greatest TV shows ever brought to screen.

10 Flowers (2016 – 2018)

Living in a small coastal town in South England is the Flowers family. It is led by Maurice, a depressed children's author, and his wife Deborah, a music teacher and composer, who face the many ups and downs of married life and parenthood while dealing with their rival children, Donald and Amy. From petty grievances to mental illnesses, from themes of regret to mortality, the show covers it all.

Flawed Characters that Feel Whole

A dark comedy/family drama written by Will Sharpe, Flowers stands out because of its unflinching portrayal of mental health and depression, as well as the raw and complicated relationship dynamics shared by the titular family. Olivia Colman and Julian Barratt lead the show with their outstanding performances. While heavy at times, this underrated sitcom finds its moments of humor, hope and compassion, which is high praise for any TV drama.

9 Spaced (1999 – 2001)

Also a British sitcom, Spaced follows twenty-somethings Tim and Daisy, who, despite only having just met, pretend to be a couple to rent a flat together in North London. Also living in their building, just in the flat downstairs, is Brian. The landlady Marsha, Tim’s best friend, Mike, and Daisy’s best friend Twist, pop in every now and then. Each episode is filled with comedic adventures around unemployment, odd jobs, and the struggles of adulthood.

Perfectly Captures Being Young and Confused

Spaced is a beloved show for many reasons . For starters, it is written, created by, and stars Simon Pegg, whose frenetic cuts and witty dialogues elevate every episode. Jessica Hynes, Nick Frost, Katy Carmichael, and Mark Heap also feel like real people stumbling their way towards independence while still acting like kids. Two seasons was probably the right length to tell this funny, surprising, confusing, and stylish show.

8 Counterpart (2017 – 2019)

Counterpart follows J.K. Simmons’ lead character, Howard Silk, a low-level bureaucrat who discovers that he works for a secret agency that protects the existence of a parallel universe. Every person in the “Alpha” world has a counterpart in the “Prime” world, and when Howard confronts his counterpart, who has been wreaking havoc through a series of unauthorized crossovers between the two worlds, he gets embroiled in a revenge plan.

The Best Spy Thriller Out There

This Starz original series is such a mesmerizing watch that you won’t be able to take your eyes off of the escalating tension and mystery until the final conspiracy spanning dimensions is revealed. Simmons is brilliant in his dual role. The world-building, overlooked carefully by Justin Marks, is the ultimate source of intrigue and insight. Even though Starz had to cancel the series after two seasons, Counterpart remains a thriller, high-quality sci-fi outing worth your time.

Related: 20 Short and Suspenseful Docuseries Perfect for Bingeing

7 Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969 – 1974)

Monty python's flying circus.

*Availability in US

Not available

A highly influential British comedy group, Monty Python breathed life into the most absurd, surreal, and absolutely unpredictable sketches in their TV show, Monty Python’s Flying Circus . Consisting of 45 episodes spread across four seasons, the series was known for never holding back on convention, taboo subjects, risqué and innuendo-laden humor, with celebrity guests adding to the fun.

Back When Comedy was Simple and Silly

Delivering a stream of the most absurd sketches, sight gags, and observational humor unlike anything ever seen, Monty Python’s Flying Circus secured its place as a cult classic not only because of its format but also by getting a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score on every season. Creators Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam let their creativity run wild and delivered forever-quotable sketches like Dead Parrot and The Piranha Brothers.

6 Somebody Somewhere (2022 – Present)

Somebody somewhere.

A relatively recent addition to the 100% Rotten Tomatoes Score club is Somebody Somewhere . Premiering on Max in 2022, this two-season comedy-drama centers around Sam, a woman in her 40s who suffers from a great loss. She’s lived almost all her life in her Kansas hometown but has never felt like she belonged. However, while grappling with her grief, Sam finds community in a group of offbeat friends who help her rediscover her lost passion.

A Heartwarming Ode to Friendship

Led by a tender, soulful, and captivating performance from Bridget Everett, Somebody Somewhere charms its way into our hearts with its portrait of midwestern small-town living. The overall tone of the show is bittersweet. Watching Sam reclaim her voice, find compassion and humanity, while basking in the quirks of her hilarious friends, creates a feel-good atmosphere and makes you laugh.

5 Vida (2018 – 2020)

Each of the three seasons of Vida have a 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. A Starz dramedy, it follows Mexican-American sisters Emma and Lyn Hernandez, who struggle to accept the changes in their lives when they return to their childhood home in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles after their mother’s death. Polar opposites, the sisters are about to learn a shocking truth about their pasts.

Deals with Themes of Identity

Vida is a rare and remarkable comedy drama that explores family and relationships with a fresh perspective. It tells rich stories of Mexican-American identity and complexity through sisters learning to understand one another. Adapted from a short story “Pour Vida” by Richard Villegas Jr., each six episode dives deeper into culture-specific themes, slaps stereotypes, and remains bold and funny throughout.

4 Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005 – 2008)

Avatar: the last airbender.

A universally acclaimed animated series, Avatar: The Last Airbender takes you to a world that is divided into four nations – Water, Earth, Fire and Air. Legend of a mystical Avatar destined to maintain peace and balance in all nations has gone around for long, but it isn’t until the Fire Nation wages a war that young Aang sets out on a journey to master all elements and put an end to the ruthless leader of the Fire Nation.

A Mythical World That Feels Real

Every season of Avatar: The Last Airbender is better than the last because it expands on the adventurous takes of Aang and his friends in an immersive world. There are overarching character arcs, themes of spirituality and identity , stylistic use of action, as well as a lot of feel-good humor. Nearly two decades after its release, this influential modern masterpiece spawned a live-action remake series that aired on Netflix.

3 Jane the Virgin (2014 – 2019)

Jane the virgin.

A loose adaptation of the Venezuelan telenovela of the same name, Jane the Virgin follows a 23-year-old virgin named Jane Villanueva who dreams of becoming a writer, much to the disappointment of her traditional Latino family. When a gynecologist’s error causes Jane to become artificially inseminated, her life turns upside down. She also later discovers that the biological donor is her boss.

Finds Humor in Unexpected Places

A hilarious comedy-drama that aired for five seasons on The CW, Jane the Virgin is perhaps the longest TV show on the list with a perfect Rotten Tomatoes strike. The ensemble is graced by an optimistic and unforgettable performance from Gina Rodriguez, who balances family, pregnancy mishaps, office crush, and friendship with her signature wit and vibrance. Her narrative got more engagement when the show offered fans soapy love triangles, villains, drama and grand declaration.

Related: 20 TV Shows with Feel-Good Finales

2 Fleabag (2016 – 2019)

Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s one-woman show was first performed by her in 2013 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and three years later, she brought it to the small screens. She stars as the title character, a messy, rebellious and free-spirited woman navigating life in London. Running an ineffective guinea pig-themed café, Fleabag has an awkward relationship with her family. As she embarks on outrageous misadventures, Fleabag works through her grief one deadpan observation at a time.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge is a Comedic Genius

Darkly comedic and sometimes tragic, Fleabag elevated the sitcom landscape. Waller-Bridge's breathtaking performance as she breaks the fourth wall to openly confide her thoughts and pathos with the viewers is meaningful and humorous at the same time. References to feminism and grief are as empathetic as they are sharp. While the first season itself was televised magic, Fleabag garnered an immensely positive response when Andrew Scott joined the cast as The Priest in season two.

1 Feel Good (2020 – 2021)

Feel Good is Canadian comedian Mae Martin’s semi-autobiographical romantic comedy. A recovering addict, Mae is seen navigating a fresh romance with George, a repressed and closeted young woman played by Charlotte Ritchie. As their relationship blossoms, Mae attends NA meetings, manages sobriety, gets diagnosed with PTSD and learns more about who they are and what they want from life and love.

Mae Martin's Most Insightful Outing

It’s clear that Martin isn’t afraid of raw emotions. Their journey from addition to forging healthy relationships is poignant, humorous and sentimental at the same time. The chemistry between Mae and Charlotte is off the charts, sparking laughter and tears as they support each other through individual struggles. Feel Good is approved by critics as a “lowkey, insightful and real” drama that addresses mental health but is feel-good throughout.

• Movie Lists
• rotten tomatoes