How ’90s classic Rush Hour inspired the launch of Rotten Tomatoes

Currently, the critical acclaim or downfall of a film often depends on its Rotten Tomatoes scores, as this site compiles a variety of reviews from recognized critics and regular viewers.

There’s been plenty of discussion about whether Rotten Tomatoes should hold significant weight, considering that a five-star review is equally considered ‘Fresh’ as a three-star one. Nevertheless, it’s hard to disregard its impact on the entertainment industry, particularly since it has developed and improved its rating system for audience scores, which are also presented as measures of a film’s quality.

Back in the day, I found myself pondering about the roots of Rotten Tomatoes. It turns out, this movie review aggregator’s story began with the 1998 action flick “Rush Hour” featuring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. Who would have thought a comedy like that would lay such a foundation?

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Although Chan had been acting in films since 1962, and had ventures into Hollywood with “Enter the Dragon” in 1973 and “Rumble in the Bronx” in 1996, the movie “Rush Hour” was the first opportunity for many Western fans to witness him in action.

Since Chan was making his first significant move into Hollywood, film enthusiast Sehn Duong sought a platform to gather information about the actor by compiling different news articles and tidbits leading up to the premiere of “Rush Hour“.

Back in 2021, when I shared my thoughts with Alex Vo over at Rotten Tomatoes, I said something like this: “Watching a character similar to me on the screen, somehow, it unconsciously makes me feel more included.

Despite being developed alongside fellow University of California students Patrick Y Lee and Stephen Wang, the name for this project originated from Senh drawing inspiration from a scene in the 1992 film “Léolo,” where a woman thought she was pregnant with tomatoes. Launched in August 1998, the project faced a minor hiccup as “Rush Hour” was postponed until September due to delays.

Initially sticking only to Chan films, Senh eventually expanded his selection and added Neil LaBute’s “Your Friends & Neighbors” as the first non-Chan movie on the site. The Tomatometer was not established until December 1998, making it the inaugural film to receive a rating through this system, with a middling score of 55% (“Star Trek: Insurrection”).

On the initial day itself, the website had approximately 100 views. I managed to attract this traffic by sharing it in Usenet movie discussion forums and encouraging people to take a look. A few days later, Yahoo! selected the site as their ‘Site of the Day’, which boosted the view count to a couple thousand. During the subsequent week, the website was featured prominently by USA Today and Netscape, which was quite significant at that time.

Initially, both fresh and decayed components existed, along with a 60% threshold that distinguished between fresh and rotten. However, the term “Tomatometer” was not used in the beginning.

Over time, Rotten Tomatoes has significantly grown and transformed. It started providing news from August 2004, and later added interviews and various additional features to its offerings. However, despite these advancements, it continues to maintain its original aggregator function, which remains a crucial part of film criticism.

Senh appreciates the consistent inclusion of the Tomatometer in every new feature on Rotten Tomatoes, its increasing variety of critic voices, and the broadening scope that includes older films. He’s always envisioned it as a tool people use when deciding what movies and shows to watch. This is exactly where he wanted it to be.

Speaking as a fan, I must admit that the original Rush Hour movie has managed to impress with its 62% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. However, the ratings took a slight dip for Rush Hour 2 at 51%, and plummeted dramatically for Rush Hour 3 at an unfortunate 17%. Yet, if there ever is a Rush Hour 4, I’m hopeful that it might regain the ‘Fresh’ status that the franchise once enjoyed.

You can either purchase or rent “Rush Hour” on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and various other digital platforms in the United Kingdom.

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2025-06-10 09:19