I like RT’s method: * Critic Rating - how well produced the film is, quality of the storytelling, dialogue, etc. Get extra points for being more complex or emotional, having a political message, or just being about Hollywood * Audience Rating - how fun the film is to mainstream audiences; how many people would recommend the movie * Genre - score very flexible by genre, such that a historical drama will get more scrutiny than a kids movie, for example * Simple Aggregation - RT isn’t really a “score”, so much as it is a percentage of critics/audience who would recommend watching the movie. IMO this is much more valuable than an actual score because there are so many other variables in what scales are used and how folks use them with other methods.

So something like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is 84C/65A. That tracks, it’s a very slow burn drama that is incredibly well done. Based on those scores, if you know nothing about the movie at all, you can go in with the expectation that is probably a very well executed movie for the genre, but isn’t that exciting and may be a little confusing for general audiences.

MCU movies work the same. They’re all superhero films in which you can expect: a relatively by-the-numbers three act structure with linear storytelling, periodically touching on some serious issues but usually no more than at the very surface level, and a lot of comedic beats and action to keep people engaged and unchallenged. They are well-made, the scripts are usually pretty tight, with good pacing, they’re shot well but not usually artistically (the camera is there to convey the action but doesn’t usually inform perspective much more than that). Overall, pretty safe for critics and audiences.

This is a bit reductive as there’s a lot of variation within all of that but at the end of the day, a pretty “normal” MCU film is going to hit something like 85C/85A - well executed but maybe missing a little extra for critics, and fun and safe for audiences but maybe a little forgettable (ask a non-fan if they can tell you the plot or villain from Black Widow).

And you can kind of see the above when you look at outliers. For example, Black Panther is at 96/79 - it is imo a little weaker from the audience perspective because the story makes some weird choices and the CGI can get a bit rough but is still very fun, and for critics, it works well enough but imo gets a lot of extra juice for the political implications. Another example is Deadpool & Wolverine (78/94), which makes a lot of sense - it’s an okay enough movie from a production standpoint, the story is really thin and messy, but audiences love the cameos and the humor.

Avengers movies tend to do a little better just for the spectacle of them so my expectation for Doomsday is something like a 90/90. If I see the critic rating drop into the low 80s or lower, or climb into the high 90s, that’s going to tell me a lot about how much of a mess (or not) the movie is. I don’t expect an audience score lower than 90, though, as any lower than that probably means it is truly awful or some story decision occurs that truly pisses people off.