Homophobes Review Bomb Billy Eichner’s Gay Rom-Com Bros
Image: Billy Eichner (right) with Paul Rudd (left) promoting Bros. Photo: Billy Eichner/Facebook
Billy Eichner’s gay romantic-comedy Bros had been hit with review bombing by a group of homophobes, despite not being out in theatres.
The film, which is expected to be in US theatres on September 30, Australian theatres on October 27 and UK theatres on October 28, has had its IMDb score shot down to 5.5/10 as a result of the 312 one-star reviews.
As a result, all reviews have been removed from the movie’s page, including the professional reviews as IMDb’s review system is unable to separate critic and audience reviews.
However, prior to the reviews being scrubbed clean from the page, Out discovered that 78 per cent of reviews gave at least 7/10 stars whilst the remaining 43 per cent gave a full rating.
Review Bombing
The term ‘Review Bombing’ is defined as the toxic internet practice of giving a piece of media negative reviews from multiple accounts in order to bring its rating down.
This has happened countless times and usually with bigoted, extremist views fueling it, as such when Marvel’s Eternals was review bombed – with the same homophobic driving force for Bros.
The low rating for Bros came as a shock after it had received consistently positive feedback at its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Bro’s High Rotten Tomatoes Score
Bros Rotten Tomatoes page currently has a 94 per cent approval rating out of 36 reviews. As it’s only critic reviews until the film is released to the public, so far critics have praised it.
“It sands off the edges of its own sense of specificity, which hampers its attempts to stand out on its own. Still, when it focuses on Eichner and Macfarlane, and the ever-complicated mores of queer masculinity, it stays charming and light on its feet,” Clint Worthington from Consequence wrote.
“It’s a very realistic portrayal of gay men, finding love and dealing with their issues and coming together. In that sense, Bros is raw, unapologetic and completely aware of the story it’s telling, without worrying about who it’s telling it to,” Shah Shahid from shahshahid.com wrote.
