TV

MrBeast asks why Beast Games got low Rotten Tomatoes score from critics

MrBeast asks why Beast Games got low Rotten Tomatoes score from critics
MrBeast among investors eyeing TikTok amid US ban concerns
Straight Arrow News / VideoElephant

MrBeast has responded to seeing his reality show Beast Gamesreceiving a less than favourable verdict from critics.

The first two episodes of gameshow presented by the YouTuber and businessman - real name Jimmy Donaldson - launched on December 19 last year with weekly episodes being released up until February 13.

With 1,000 contestants taking part, viewers were told to "expect their favourite type of ‘MrBeast-style’ challenges fuelled by time-sensitive emotional decisions, pyrotechnics, and of course, big rewards”.

Not to mention the massive $5 million cash prize which Donaldson claims is “largest grand prize in entertainment history”.

Following the initial episodes dropping, Beast Games quickly shot to the number one in 82 countries and became Prime Video's most-watched-unscripted series.

From this, it's clear the show has gone down well with fans - so much so that it have a 90 per cent audience score on the Rotten Tomatoes’ Popcornmeter.

In the comments of the Beast Games Instagram, fans have been praising the show.

"The best show ever, it's so entertaining," one person wrote, while another described one of the episodes as "absolute cinema".

(Though it hasn't been without controversy or criticism with some viewers calling the series "sadistic" and "dystopian").

But something Donaldson noticed is how the show hasn't been well-received among critics, with a Tomatometer score of just 13 per cent.

Taking to X, formerly Twitter, the 26-year-old pointed out the significant difference between the audience and critics score on the film and TV review aggregation website.

"Audiences rated Beast Games 90% but 8 critics rated it 13%.. why the large gap," he wrote on January 31, with a crying face emoji.

To which a user replied theorising that critics hadn't watched the show when they gave it a bad rating.

It seems Donaldson agrees with this sentiment as he wrote back: "“Yeah, they didn’t even watch the show before leaving the ratings lol.”

There was a viral response to MrBeast's initial post, where the user hit back: "Because critics aren't 11 years old," which received 264,000 likes.

When reviews came in after the initial episodes back in December last year, critics didn't hold back.

The Guardian's Stuart Heritage gave Beast Games two stars out of five, calling it "one of the most undignified spectacles ever shown on TV" and "as grimly compelling as picking a scab".

"Mr Beast’s long-awaited Amazon Prime Video series is a deafening, joyless cash-dash," The Telegraph's Ed Power wrote, describing it as "$100 million worth of charmless YouTube nonsense" and giving the show one star out of five.

IGN's Chase Hutchinson said: "It’s a shallow series best suited to existing MrBeast fans, reality show completionists, or people looking for background noise while they scroll on their phones," and rated it a two out of ten.

Elsewhere, MrBeast video sees cancer survivor wins huge amount of money, all the people that could buy TikTok as deadline looms.

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