Recently there has been a debate about whether or not Rotten Tomatoes has been good or bad for the film industry. As this has been a surprisingly down year for movies, a lot of filmmakers have pointed the finger at rottentomatoes giving poor ratings to movies which influence viewer decisions and have kept them away from their films. I mean, I guess this is a fair assessment on the surface. Before RT, all we had to go by were reading lengthy reviews in magazines or newspapers and most of us didn't take the time to do so. Then there was also Siskel and Ebert and their thumbs up thumbs down reviews... which, if you think about it, is basically the same good/bad assessment that RT gives, except instead of collecting an aggregate of all critics' reviews, it's two old, cynical dudes. On one hand, I can see where filmmakers, who spend countless hours and energy and money on films want a fair chance at people seeing their movies (at least enough to recoup expenses). But, on the other hand, don't be upset when a remake of The Mummy with Tom Cruise gets a 16% on RT, doesn't make even half the money it was expecting... when the movie was shit to begin with. I've always been a fan of RT because I don't take it at face value. When a movie gets a rating, I'll do my own investigation and read the reviews that follow said rating, especially a movie with an abnormally high or low percentage. My issue with RT is that it is too polarizing. Yes, we get the say of all critics allowed to cast their opinion on the site which is calculated into a percentage... but what fails to translate is the good/bad ratio of films. It's not fair to assess that your rating means either the film is fresh or rotten and there is no other middle ground. This means, if a movie is "just okay", in the C-average range, it's automatically labeled as rotten, which can bring a movie's percentage way down, even if the movie doesn't reflect such a low score. On the other hand, a movie with only two and a half stars and above can be certified fresh (60% and above is technically fresh), so I mean it does balance itself out in the end. Unfortunately, some films can get screwed by this balance. The Snowman is one of these films.
Earlier this week I saw Geostorm, which currently sits at a putrid 13% on RT. It's accurate, it's well-deserved, and there's really no arguing with it, especially if you've seen the film. However, The Snowman sits even further below with an amazingly low score of 9%. Is The Snowman a good movie? No, not exactly. But is it worthy of getting a lower score than Grown Ups? Absolutely not. And I think this is where filmmakers actually have a concern about their movies. People on the fence about seeing The Snowman are certainly not going to see the film now that it has a 9% attached to it. Hell, even people who probably wanted to see the movie have turned their backs to it. The film, no matter what the projections were for it, is going to suffer financially. Is it entirely Rotten Tomatoes' fault? Absolutely not... but it doesn't help. Accurately, I'd say The Snowman should sit around the 45-50% range. Even with a score like that, it's not going to change everyone's minds about the film, but there are many people out there willing to give a movie with a 50% a better chance than a 9%.
So, what's actually wrong with the film? How did a movie with such a skilled director, a fantastic cast, and a competent crew actually make a movie deemed worthy by critics as being worse than most Adam Sandler films? Well, from everything I've read about the movie, it sounds like it was a shit-show from the very beginning. Filmmaking itself, with everything that goes into making a movie, sounds like an absolute nightmare. There are so many small parts working together to make something large, it seems to me like a straight up impossibility to make an actual film good. But, it's been done. Several times. Obviously. I'm just surprised it hasn't failed more often. The Snowman is based off a book. The rights were purchased by Martin Scorsese and he was actually, at one time, attached to direct. When his schedule filled up, he handed the movie off to Tomas Alfredson (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Let the Right One In), a very skillful director and totally competent to handle this movie. But, everything just went haywire. Shooting in Norway took longer than expected, and production was shut down. They had to do extensive re-shoots over a year later. By the end of the production, about "10-15% of the script didn't even get shot." Unfortunately, this is very apparent when you actually see the film.
Advertising for the film didn't help much either. There's a poster for the film at a bus stop just down from my place. The poster looks like one of the notes written to Michael Fassbender's character from the killer. It says: "Mister Police. You could have saved her I gave you all the clues."
What's even more upsetting is the movie is pretty enthralling. It's gorgeously shot and the actors do a fine job, especially Fassbender. I found myself wrapped up in the mystery, trying to guess what was going to happen along the way. Yes, you do find out who the killer is. Yes, you do get some semblance of a motive. And yes, said motive does make decent sense. But that's about it. The identity of the killer, left until the very end, isn't exactly difficult to figure out. I carelessly thought the movie was going to be much more intelligent than it was, so when I had my first suspect in mind-- I quickly threw it away because I felt it was too obvious, and this film wouldn't go the obvious route... and it did. I also was paying way too close attention to the subplots, hoping for some semblance of resolution to all of them. Yet, all but maybe one or two are wrapped up nicely. I keep going over and over in my head trying to connect all the dots of the film to make sense out of everything, and there are clearly chunks of plot just left entirely out of the film. And it's not an awful movie by any means, just frustratingly incomplete.
There's an entire subplot featuring J.K. Simmons that diverts from the murders, but is supposed to somehow connect-- and it doesn't. There's the opening sequence with a mother driving purposely into a frozen lake and drowning herself in front of her son's eyes that straight up connects to the killer-- but I'm still not sure how. There's flashbacks featuring Val Kilmer as a detective chasing a similar killer who may or may not be the same one today-- and it offers no closure whatsoever. In fact, the entire Kilmer subplot poses questions beyond what's even supposed to be asked within the scope of the plot of the film. He looks terrible (though this is most likely attributed to his recent cancer surgeries), but his dialogue is poorly dubbed over by someone who sounds NOTHING like Val Kilmer and doesn't even match the way his mouth is moving, making it distracting as well as sad.
I really didn't hate the movie. I don't like that there are large pieces missing from the puzzle and the fact that the killer's identity was so easy to figure out, but everything else worked just enough to keep me interested the entire time, even if this interest was often interrupted by head scratching. I believe we will get the full story of just what exactly happened behind the scenes of The Snowman because I'm genuinely curious as to how it all fell apart. And, yes, it has been branded with a repulsive 9%, when it certainly hasn't earned a score that low. I can't tell you to go out and help this movie earn some of the money it's losing because that would make me not very good at this whole "reviewing movies" thing... but if, for some reason, you do find yourself in the theater watching The Snowman, it's not going to be the worst thing to happen to you that day. It's just going to make you wish you had the full story.
C
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