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The Dark Knight Rises premiere was attended to with the usual Hollywood fanfare and high anticipation for the third and final of Christian Nolan’s Batman offerings. Afterward, film critics do what film critics usually do … they reviewed the film. Most had good reviews for the movie, but one in particular took to his venue to write a scathing review of the film, calling it “nonsensical.” The fans responded with hate and death threats.

The critic was Marshall Fine and the venue was Rotten Tomatoes, a website owned by the social movie site Flixter, a Warner Bros. company. Fine published his review on his own site, Hollywood and Fine, which was then picked up by Rotten Tomatoes with the following quip being the quoted portion of his review (probably not the best selection from the review either):
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“At times, the action is so massive and thunderously clunky that I might as well have been watching one of the Transformers movies.”
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Ouch! But okay, Fine’s a film critic and that’s what film critics do, right? Then, usually, people watch the movie and respond with their own thoughts on the film, both good and bad, which gives the Rotten Tomatoes website its aggregate “fresh” or “rotten” rating. Except this time fans took to the site in droves, even though most probably have not seen the movie (it opens Friday), and a lot of what they had to say about Fine’s review was downright hateful. But it didn’t stop there. There were even death threats:
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“His punishment must be more severe.”
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“When this critic’s review is ashes, he has my permission to let his career die.”
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“You either die a good critic, or live long enough to see yourself get trashed by every Dark Knight fan alive.”
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“R.I.P. Marshall Fine”
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“…die in a fire”
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“…beaten with a thick rubber hose into a coma”
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In response, Rotten Tomatoes took to Twitter to warn users that anyone posting inappropriate comments would be banned from the site. Even that wasn’t enough to stem the tide of hate against Fine. Ultimately, the site ended up shutting down user comments on movie review of The Dark Knight. Matt Atchity, the site’s editor-in-chief, said it was the first time Rotten Tomatoes has suspended user comments, but said the comments would probably be restored at the end of the week when the movie comes out.
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So what do you think about the way people reacted to Fine’s review? Over the top or par for the course?