Elon Musk hits out at ‘disconnected’ film critics over Rotten Tomatoes score for Mario movie

Children’s film has been savaged by critics

Elon Musk has hit out at “disconnected” film critics over the reviews of The Super Mario Bros Movie.

The animated children’s film, adapted from the best-selling Nintendo video game franchise, was released in cinemas this weak.

Reviews were generally negative, with The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey awarding the film just two stars.

On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, The Super Mario Bros Movie has a critics’ score of just 54 per cent positive, marking it as “Rotten”.

However, the audience score, which is voted for by non-professional critics, is a “Fresh” 96 per cent positive.

On Twitter, the website’s divisive CEO responded to a tweet from an account called @BoredElonMusk, which contained a screenshot of the film’s Rotten Tomatoes scores.

“Content review systems are broken. Because critics have a problem with Chris Pratt, the ‘experts’ have deemed the new Mario movie a D- even though audiences clearly love it,” claimed the account.

“Both of these groups are obviously biased, but the disparity here reveals a major problem.”

In response, Musk wrote: “Wow, the critics are so disconnected from reality!”

Others, however, were more sceptical of the apparent disconnect between audiences and critics.

“This is exactly how these numbers should look given that the movie’s audience is children and most professional critics are adults,” one person argued.

Coincidentally, Musk appeared as a Mario character – Mario’s stocky yellow nemesis Wario – in a much-derided Saturday Night Live sketch back in 2021.

Earlier this week, Mario star Jack Black promised to “call Elon Musk’s bluff” over the Twitter CEO’s promise to remove “blue tick” verification on non-paying accounts.

Donkey Kong (Seth Rogen) in ‘The Super Mario Bros Movie’ (Illumination)

At the film’s premiere, he remarked: “I’m a little embarrassed by the blue check to be honest with you. Maybe it’s cooler not to have checks. It’s definitely not cool to pay for it.”

Black then added that he intends to “see what happens if I don’t pay for it” and “call his bluff, see if he really takes my check away”.

Elsewhere, The Super Mario Bros Movie fans have issued a warning to potential cinema-goers planning on seeing the film.

The Super Mario Bros Movie is out in cinemas now.