I don't understand why good movies get bad reps
I finally saw this last night. It's intelligent, entertaining and well made. What gives? Its only real weakness, perhaps, may be the irrational behavior of Evelyn (hard to reconcile a brilliant scientist with the dangerous early choices she makes--yet even that is explained by the insanity of love) but the rest is a more than decent exploration of the themes and topic. It actually develops, unlike many movies, it takes things to a point and beyond, looking for conclusions, asking questions, putting characters through ringers.
Audiences are pretty simple minded, I think. A few bad reviews by *koff koff* "professionals" tells people what they think without them having to go through the motions of actually making up their own minds.
I've always thought that film criticism, like book criticism, art criticism, music criticism--they're all generally a pile of absolute horsesht, just useless people making a buck spreading their personal opinions under the guise of some sort of authority just because some editor decided that they instead of a hundred million billion other equally valid nobodies with comparable language skills should get printed. The editor's choice to print them is an act of criticism in itself: it's a personal opinion, "I like this critic and not that critic". The whole racket is a shadow scam.
That said, there are (or at least have been) bona fide "authorities" in criticism. It is of value to listen to *koff* "experts" in every field; not to get insight into your own unformed opinion, but for context. Your Eberts and Maltins are people with encyclopedic knowledge of the field, so their opinion is worth hearing, if just for the educational amusement that comes from learning how a work fits into an oeuvre and overall history.
But a viewer, reader, patron or customer has to question everything, including themselves. "What do I think?"