Taika Waititi Says Film Critics Are ‘Sad Lost Souls’

Taika Waititi’s latest movie is not getting great reviews, a state that Waititi blames on film critics being “sad lost souls” who are “irrelevant.”

On his Instagram account, Waititi shared an image that said his new film, Klara and the Sun is performing better with general audiences than film critics. As a caption, he wrote, “I haven’t read a review of anything aimed at me or my peers in almost 15 years. But I do listen to the people.”

He added:

So this Halloween, let’s spare a thought for those sad lost souls who couldn’t achieve their dreams of becoming artists, and thus settled, and became critics. The same people who also hated Jojo Rabbit … Irrelevant. Out of touch. Obsolete. In the bin.

 

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On Rotten Tomatoes, Waititi’s Klara and the Sun currently holds a 26 percent approval rating from critics and a 74 percent rating from paying customers. So he’s certainly correct that in this particular case, audiences like the movie more than film critics, and at a much higher percentage.

But critics by and large have liked the vast majority of Waititi’s work — including Jojo i, which Waititi says critics “hated.” In fact, that film holds a “Certified Fresh” 81 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, an overwhelming consensus of positive reviews. If a few critics disliked it, a higher percentage of them still recommended it than “the people” that Waititi supposedly listens to did for Klara and the Sun. In other words: More critics liked Jojo Rabbit than audiences liked Klara and the Sun.

Those sad lost souls also loved Thor: Ragnarok (93 percent on Rotten Tomatoe), Hunt for the Wilderpeople (97 percent), and What We Do in the Shadows (96 percent). In fact, the critics’ scores for those movies are all higher than the audience scores. (87, 91, and 87 respectfully.) Perhaps the audience’s souls were lost for a bit too.