It’s not a great week for anything involving Citizen Kane. Not only did Mank – inspired by the creation of the 1941 film – lose big at the Academy Awards, but Citizen Kane no longer has a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes. What’s the newly crowned king on the critical aggregation website? None other than Paddington 2.
Yes, the 2017 sequel starring the world’s most adorable bear has surpassed the Orson Welles film. But how did Citizen Kane lose out on the 100% Club on Rotten Tomatoes? It seems like the site has uploaded a review of the film from the Chicago Tribune. While that may sound normal to some, the review is from 80 years ago.
Twitter user @Caulimovirus found and shared the original review in a now-viral tweet. Check it out below:
Rotten Tomatoes literally dug up an 80 year old negative review of Citizen Kane and now the movie no longer has a 100% fresh rating pic.twitter.com/0I8cxvuGdd
— Screaming Pectoriloquy (𝕖𝕩𝕖𝕔𝕦𝕥𝕖𝕕) (@Caulimovirus) April 26, 2021
With the headline, “Citizen Kane Fails to Impress Critic as Greatest Ever Filmed,” the review written under the pseudonym Mae Tinée became the 116th review for the film on Rotten Tomatoes. But it also happened to be the very first negative review of the film, which brought it down from 100% to 99%. For comparison, Paddington 2 has 244 reviews, and every one of them is positive.
So, there you have it. Many of us felt this way before but it’s now confirmed by Rotten Tomatoes: Paddington 2 is better than Citizen Kane.
