RT Flashback: The First Ten Movies Ever Reviewed

The critical and box office legacies of RT's first Tomatometers.

by Jen Yamato | Monday, Jun. 23 2008

As the story goes, Rotten Tomatoes founder Senh Duong launched the site in August of 1998 to coincide with the release of Rush Hour, the true Hollywood debut of his idol, Jackie Chan. Duong had, after all, conceived the idea of collecting film reviews in one easy-to-find destination after struggling to find the latest notices of Jackie Chan imports like First Strike, Rumble in the Bronx, and Supercop.

But soon after pegging RT's launch date for August 18, 1998 -- the week of Rush Hour's slated release -- the film got rescheduled to September. (And a smart move on New Line's part it was; Blade opened at number one on August 21, while the calendar move allowed Rush Hour to win its stellar opening weekend opposite the Renee Zellweger-Meryl Streep drama One True Thing.) The site launched as planned anyway; Your Friends & Neighbors became the first movie to appear on Rotten Tomatoes.

In honor of RT's Tenth Anniversary, we took a trip in the way back machine to revisit the first 10 films ever reviewed on Rotten Tomatoes. Come on all you film review nuts; it's time to party like it's 1998!

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Blade
Tomatometer: 55%
Opening Weekend: $17 million

The comic book movie explosion of the past decade can be attributed in no small part to Stephen Norrington's Blade, which took a lesser-known Marvel comics character -- the titular half vampire, half human "daywalker" who hunts killer bloodsuckers (Wesley Snipes) -- and turned it into one of the first wildly successful superhero trilogies in recent years. Opening at number one, Blade proved that dark, ultra-violent comic book stories could make great dark, ultra-violent comic book movies, and two sequels followed. Screenwriter David S. Goyer, who penned all three films and a short-lived spin-off television show, would go on to write Batman Begins and Jumper; he's also signed on for scripting and directing duties, respectively, for forthcoming film adaptations of The Flash and Marvel's X-Men Origins: Magneto.

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Dance With Me
Tomatometer: 46%
Opening Weekend: $4.5 million

What do you get when you combine a chart-topping former Miss America with Puerto Rico's biggest pop star in a romantic dramedy about ballroom dancing helmed by the director of Children of a Lesser God? A modest gamble that doesn't really pay off, as Columbia execs soon found when Dance With Me opened in 8th place behind hot tickets like Saving Private Ryan and There's Something About Mary. The Vanessa Williams vehicle barely made its budget back; its male lead, Chayanne, would never make another English-language feature; and Hollywood would subsequently never really get the competitive ballroom dancing genre right.

Willy105 on 06-23-2008 04:30 PM

A lot of bad movies there it seems.

iakobos on 06-23-2008 05:32 PM

My wife and I saw Rush Hour totally on a whim. We were at the mall an a Saturday and decided to see if anything looked appealing. I had no idea who Jackie Chan was but next thing you know I was being completely awed by an action star who plainly did his own stunts. I kept nudging my wife and saying, "He's really doing that! He's really doing that!"

After that I was hooked an Jackie Chan movies. If you've never seen the fall he makes from the clock tower in Project A, you owe it to yourself to rent it. The only thing that broke his 70' fall were two awnings, one above the other. No other lead actor in the world would ever even think about it, not for a minute. When he got up from the ground, and there's no cut aways you can see the whole thing, he was growning in pain and it was obviously real pain he was growning from.

Jen Yamato on 06-23-2008 05:38 PM

Wow, that's pretty cool, iakobos. It's always neat to have those moments of discovery, especially when they're totally unexpected!

lovetomato809 on 06-23-2008 08:59 PM

Hey, do you still have a profile on 'Ric h kiss.co m'? I saw it days ago. And there were many nice pics of you. I love them. Are you still there?

TombstoneLawDog on 06-23-2008 10:08 PM

My god, I wish whoever sic'd their spambot on RT and is bringing us this 'richkiss' nonsense would have the common courtesy to get indicted for child porn already and die. RT: YOU NEED TO START SCREENING BETTER.

back on topic; I agree with Willy105- lotto crap, back in the day... I DID like Rush Hour, though.

rockinrors on 06-24-2008 01:29 AM

I heart Rush Hour

Ecs5001 on 06-24-2008 01:39 PM

The first time I saw Rush Hour..haha great times. O and btw Jen I friend requested you on Facebook haha.

bookworm1994 on 06-25-2008 10:46 AM

What did the world do before there was Rotten Tomatoes?

colinsbob on 07-4-2008 03:12 AM

I think you are the bigest enemy to IMDB

Jen Yamato on 06-25-2008 01:16 PM

Ecs5001 - what's your first name? I'll look for you in my inbox thingy.

ninja13 on 06-25-2008 02:05 PM

As the years have gone on, Jackie Chan has become a more an more
appealing, not just action guy, but actor. In his new movie the forbidden kingdom he
actually knows what he's saying and delivers well.

Ghenghis on 06-26-2008 02:06 AM

Chris Tucker really hasnt come in any other movies other than Rush hour has he? he was great in Money Talks!

zach_baum on 07-2-2008 04:51 PM

I Love Rounders, Best out of the bunch.

Sean C. -The One Coz- on 07-2-2008 11:05 PM

Congrats on 10 years RT I am a member, reviewer and big fan of the site.

However, I still have a big problem with the tomatometer counting movies in which over half of all the critics that reviewed it liked it but it gets a rotten tomato. Im talking of course of the stupid rule that a movie must be at 60% or higher to be ripe. That is a terrible rule. All movies that have a tomatometer rating of 50 to 59% should also be considered a ripe tomato.

Critics by nature are cynical and looking to nit pick a movies every flaw so when half (50%) or over half (51-59% ) agree that they like a movie and give it a good review it should be a ripe tomato without a doubt. To this day If I see a movie, like 'Blade' for example (55%), that was rated between 50 and 59% but was given the rotten tomato splat I ignore it and consider it a ripe tomato movie.

elawson on 07-8-2008 01:00 AM

I'm glad these first 10 movies weren't a true representation of the movies in the late 90's LOL

Padfoot1492 on 07-12-2008 07:45 PM

I think Christian Bale would think about it...

Mr. Positive on 07-14-2008 09:36 PM

I don't care what anybody says, but there are a couple of scenes in Deadman on Campus that I laughed harder at than anything I've ever seen. Ok, they all involved Cliff.

darthgandalf on 07-23-2008 03:05 PM

Gosh, with a lineup like that, I'm amazed they didn't pack up shop & head home. Not a very good opening 10... at least things got better after that... :)