OK, so I've known that this thing exists for quite a while. But only 
recently have I actually visited it to see what it's like.

Now it should come as no surprise that for almost any given thing, some 
people like it and some people hate it. That's just human nature, right?

And yet, reading some of the descriptions, I almost find it hard to 
believe that they're describing the same thing. One person comments "the 
performance by actor X was especially weak", and the next person adds 
"for me, actor X was the best part". Wuh?!

The critics give moderately consistent reviews. The user reviews are 
just all over the place. If you go look up the crappiest, lamest 
computer game you've ever played in your life, somebody on Metacritic 
will tell you how it's the greatest game ever made in history. If you 
look up the best film ever, somebody will claim it's mass-produced garbage.

I notice that all of the user ratings are either 10 or 0, or very near 
to one of those extremes. I have a couple of theories as to why:

- If the film (or whatever) was "just OK", are you going to bother going 
to Metacritic, creating a user account, finding the thing, and writing a 
review? Probably not. Only the people who really loved it or really 
hated it are likely to be motivated enough to write reviews.

- If an item was mostly good but let down by one thing, that's probably 
going to leave you with an overall negative impression. And hence a low 
rating. So all the stuff that was imperfect gets very low ratings, and 
all the stuff lacking any major flaws gets very high ratings, leaving 
little in the middle.

In particular, I looked at the reviews for the final Harry Potter film. 
Now granted, this is the type of product where some people will gladly 
throw themselves off of bridges just because it says Harry Potter on it, 
while others will automatically hate it just because it's super-popular. 
But I couldn't help but chuckle when one reviewer claimed that they 
watched every single film, and they were all terrible.

Hey genius, if you don't like HP films, WHY ARE YOU STILL WATCHING 
THEM?! Do you just enjoy having something to whine about? Because in 
that case, you know, you could just *pretend* to have watched it and 
save yourself some money. Also: try getting a life.

My personal opinion - not that anyone cares - is that this is a film 
that actually deserves a rating somewhere near a 5. After 10 years of 
anticipation, basically any product you can release is going to be a 
monumental anticlimax. I don't think the film was done very well - but 
then again, I hear people complain the final book wasn't great either. 
But it certainly wasn't a /bad/ film. It just wasn't spectacular. I've 
seen much worse...

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