MovieChat Forums > Virus (1999) Discussion > Metacritic score seems strange

Metacritic score seems strange


I know Metacritic uses a weighted average, but I still don't see how they came out with 19/100 for this film. Austin Chronicle and The A.V. Club both gave the film a 0, but the other fifteen reviews range from 20 to 60. The average of the scores would be 28/100. Are the Austin Chronicle and The A.V. Club's ratings so valued that their scores can drag it down that much? The only other thing I can think of is that Metacritic deduct more when a 20/100 relates to a 1/5 review where 1 is the lowest score a film can receive from that publication.

For reference, here are all the scores:

Los Angeles Times
Kevin Thomas
60

TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
50

Entertainment Weekly
Staff (Not credited)
42

Film Threat
Tom Meek
30

L.A. Weekly
Nicole Campos
30

The New York Times
Lawrence Van Gelder
30

Variety
Joe Leydon
30

Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
30

Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
25

Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
25

San Francisco Chronicle
Bob Graham
25

USA Today
Andy Seiler
25

ReelViews
James Berardinelli
25

The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
25

Chicago Reader
Lisa Alspector
20

Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
0

http://www.metacritic.com/movie/virus/critic-reviews

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