A Conspiracy Of Critics?

You know, there's a bunch of folderol out there about how critics who didn't like Batman v. Superman: Dawn Of Justice have some sort of hidden agenda, or are on the Disney payroll, or just hate movies, or whatever.

Sure. If anyone disagrees with you, it must be a conspiracy, right? No one has legitimate differences of aesthetic preferences, right? If someone doesn't validate your opinion, they must be evil, and shunned.

Of course, that takes us back to the halcyon days of 1995:

Oh, yeah, that.

That film has an 18% on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 0%--yes, ZERO--amongst "top" critics. Obviously, we acknowledge the caveats about a lot of that era's reviews not being available on the internet, etc. Maybe only the bad reviews survived Y2K...but obviously, the film was not well-received. Unless you want to argue there was some serious anti-Dredd plotting going on behind the scenes, or that the $227,000,000 global box office (after adjusting for inflation) means it was made for fans and not critics.

Ah, but not EVERYONE hated it. 2000 AD ran a review from then-famous TODAY show critic Gene Shalit (click to embiggen to full rave review size!):

Good lord, he even praises Rob Schneider's performance.

Look, Gene Shalit is 90 now, but if someone would get him to a theater, I'm sure he would enthusiastically help raise BvS's Rotten Tomatoes score...that will teach those (other) snooty critics!!

From 2000 AD #952 (1995). No, Dan Jurgens, Action Comics will NOT be the first comic book to reach #1000...