I saw Aziz Ansari’s Good Fortune in theaters this week, and I was quite surprised by the movie. It’s tonally nothing like I would have expected from a comedy starring Keanu Reeves, Seth Rogen, and Ansari himself. In fact, it’s more of a downer in moments and more political than I would have anticipated, focusing on issues such as the housing crisis, cronyism in business and wealth inequity. To me, some of this worked, and some of it was kind of preachy; regardless, the movie has been full of surprises on the review front.
In fact, as Keanu Reeves’ popular character Ted would say, its debut was rather “excellent.” When I’d looked at early reviews ahead of the opening weekend, Good Fortune had around 60 reviews and was well over the 80% mark. In the last couple of days before Rotten Tomatoes officially certified it “fresh,” it has nabbed even more reviews and has settled into a comfortable 78% on the critics side.
But the biggest surprise to me? Good Fortune is the rare case where critics and audiences seem to be on exactly the same page!
Critics And Audiences Both Agree On Good Fortune
By the time of the writing of this article, Good Fortune settled into a 78% on the critics side and was matched with a 78% on the audience side. I cannot underscore how rare this is. A lot of movies that are critical darlings for journalists are not beloved by wider audiences. A lot of fun, silly (and sometimes big budget) movies that critics seem to despise really land more traction with people paying for the popcorn and movie tickets.
Sure, there are some clunkers everyone hates, and there are some big releases that hit on levels both critics and fans can appreciate. I’m looking at you, Inside Out 2 review, or Weapons releasing to fanfare on both sides earlier this year. However, to be a movie that’s seen as “pretty good” by folks on all sides of the spectrum just does not feel like it comes up that often.
This is why we often see big discrepancies between critics and the moviegoing audience at large. The Conjuring: Last Rites was a recent example in which many critics splatted the film (at 58% in total, though CinemaBlend’s own review of Last Rites was positive). Meanwhile, the audience liked it pretty well — intriguingly at the same 78% Good Fortune has also settled into at the time I wrote this article. People look for different things from their moviegoing experience, and it’s rare for everyone to be on the same page about a movie that’s pretty decent.
I’m still surprised Good Fortune hasn’t been a little more polarizing for some audiences, but that might say more about the people watching and reviewing the movie being aligned tonally with the comedians involved than anything else. And that might also be why it’s at a 78% rather than an 88% or 90% overall.
Regardless, Keanu Reeves, Aziz Ansari, and Seth Rogen Good Fortune landed some, well, good fortune with reviews when it came to their movie about a fallen angel, a gig economy worker and a wealthy business owner who swap places. Even though I was only OK on the movie personally, I’m happy to see fans and critics rally around a theatrical comedy. Now, if only that could translate into box office numbers…