The Little Mermaid has become a target of suspected review bombing online, and IMDb is taking action. Directed by Rob Marshall, The Little Mermaid is a live-action remake of Disney's 1989 animated film of the same name. The remake has been met with mixed but generally positive reviews from critics and has performed modestly well at the box office.
Now, however, Deadline reports that The Little Mermaid is experiencing what appears to be review bombing, particularly in countries like France, Germany, Korea, and elsewhere. In response to the suspicious distribution of reviews, IMDb has issued a warning saying “Our rating mechanism has detected unusual voting activity on this title. To preserve the reliability of our rating system, an alternate weighting calculation has been applied.” IMDb further elaborates on this system with the following explanation:
Although we accept and consider all votes received by users, not all votes have the same impact (or ‘weight’) on the final rating. When unusual voting activity is detected, an alternate weighting calculation may be applied in order to preserve the reliability of our system."
Why The Little Mermaid Could Be Getting Review Bombed
It's interesting to note that, as of this writing, The Little Mermaid's audience score on Rotten Tomatoes sits at an impressive 95%. Combined with the film's stronger showing at the domestic box office, it seems like, generally, American audiences are enjoying the film. It's unclear why exactly some international markets are not welcoming the film, but it could involve the casting of Halle Bailey, a Black woman, in the lead role of Ariel.
Before the film was even released, there was a significant backlash online against Bailey's Little Mermaid casting. Her casting, it was argued, is too much of a departure from the pale-skinned, red-haired Ariel in the original animated film. If Bailey's skin color and Disney's perceived "political correctness" is indeed the reason for the recent wave of review bombing, it's curious that the backlash is mostly concentrated in international markets and not in the U.S. as well.
Historically, review bombing has been an effective way to bring down a film's overall rating on IMDb and other sites, ultimately making user reviews of films increasingly less meaningful as a metric for judging quality. Despite an overwhelming surge in one-star reviews, however, The Little Mermaid, as of this writing, has a rating of 7/10. With review bombing becoming an increasingly common practice in today's entertainment landscape, it bodes well for the future of user review sites that IMDb is actively putting measures in place to ensure a more accurate ratings.
Source: Deadline