Professional movie critics and regular moviegoers don't always see eye to eye. Sometimes, however, the disparity is so wide it feels like critics and audiences live on different planets. That's evidenced by these movies that critics hated, but audiences actually loved.
While the art and craft of professional film criticism is, at least in theory, informed by scholarly expertise (including regular exposure to films made outside Hollywood), regular moviegoers can have a different palette for what defines a "good movie." It's not simply that audiences prefer dumber movies, with simpler stories and extravagant explosions. Although that might seem to be the case, the truth is that audiences and critics can simply have different standards.
