Why Amsterdam Bombed At The Box Office

Movie critics are not the end-all-be-all of cinematic truth. Oftentimes, films that a professional reviewer would find lacking will yet entertain general audiences. It's not that the public is inherently less discerning or that the critic is any less agreeable, but they are decidedly watching movies for different reasons. As such, there's usually a significant disconnect between the opinions of both parties. That is not the case for "Amsterdam." Cruel and concise, and on the behalf of Roger Ebert, Christy Lemire began her review by stating, "simultaneously overstuffed and undernourished, frantic and meandering, 'Amsterdam' is one big, star-studded, hot mess of a movie." 

And that's pretty much the professional consensus. The Rotten Tomatoes aggregate statement is essentially the same, saying that the film has  "a bunch of big stars and a very busy plot, all of which amounts to painfully less than the sum of its dazzling parts." 

The audience impressions are only slightly kinder. According to Cinemascore, the public gave "Amsterdam" a rousing "B" (like the American grading system), which is just above the 60 percent (a different part of the grading system) listed by Rotten Tomatoes' Audience Score. While there is no perfect, objective way to translate an artistic opinion into digestible data, it cannot be ignored that so many people tried and that their results were equivalently derogatory toward David O. Russel's confusing film. Speaking of the director ...