Blake Lively selectively shares GLOWING comments on Another Simple Favor despite the VERY mixed reviews online
Blake Lively gave her fans a very selective view of the reaction to her new film Another Simple Favor over the weekend.
The 37-year-old actress shared multiple posts to her Instagram Stories on Saturday highlighting viewer reviews on the social media site Letterboxd, which lets users log films they have seen and review or rate them.
Blake — who is in the midst of a brutal legal battle with her former collaborator Justin Baldoni — chose to highlight some glowing reviews from fans, but the over-the-top reviews didn't give a full picture of the mixed reviews the Simple Favor sequel has received from critics — and even everyday viewers.
All of the reviews Blake shared screenshots of gave the film — which features returning costars Anna Kendrick and Henry Golding — the max rating of five stars, along with a heart to 'like' the film.
But over on Rotten Tomatoes, which determines a percentage score of the number of positive reviews from critics, Another Simple Favor only has a 67 percent rating from all critics surveyed.
When only the most prestigious critics at major publications are considered, the rating drops further to 62 percent, though it is still technically Fresh.
On Instagram, Blake posted a still of herself in a pale blue feathered dress with her costar Michele Morrone, who appears as Dante, the man her character Emily marries early in the film.
'Fantastic give me 14 of em right nowww,' gushed one fan in all caps.
'They keep GOING THERE and I LOVE IT,' enthused another person.
'God I love these movies so much this had no right being this FUN. Also I love movies that are bold and campy and know it. I loved everything about this,' wrote one fan, who begged for the films to be made into a trilogy.
'Just yes. Everything about this movie is a yes,' wrote another satisfied customer in their review. 'And Amen to Blake and Anna.'
A second post featured even more effusive reviews from fans, and Blake wrote, 'These reviews are brilliant.'
But the reviews weren't in keeping with the film, which has an average star rating of 2.5 from viewers, with a plurality of viewers giving the film three out of five stars.
Only three percent of people who logged a star rating, around 1,200 people, gave the film five stars, making the people Blake singled out part of a small minority.
Although Letterboxd doesn't have the same public profile as IMDb, and therefore isn't as likely to fall victim to concerted campaigns by obsessed fans or disgruntled haters, the platform doesn't verify that users have seen the films that they're rating.
On another popular review aggregation site, Metacritic, the picture is even less rosy.
Unlike Rotten Tomatoes, which only derives a rating based on whether reviews are positive or negative, Metacritic gives higher scores to more effusive reviews, while more modest praise and outright pans receive lower scores.
Another Simple Favor received a score of 55 based on 20 critics' reviews, indicating significantly less enthusiasm among critics than the Rotten Tomatoes score might suggest.
Among the 20 reviews surveyed, a whopping 55 percent are categorized as mixed, while only 40 percent are positive and five percent are negative.
Unlike the 2018 original film, which was released in theaters and earned an impressive $97 million against a $20 million budget, Another Simple Favor was released directly to Amazon Prime streaming, so there's no meaningful way to compare the grosses or the number of people who paid money to see the picture.
Several critics found the new movie more 'strained' and over-the-top than the original, even in otherwise positive reviews.
The new film finds Lively's character Emily planning a wedding in Capri, Italy, while out of prison on an appeal.
She turns to her former friend Stephanie (Kendrick) to be her maid of honor, but she is once again pulled into a plot involving deception and murder.
Despite the less-than-stellar reaction to the movie, the film's director, Paul Feig, suggested he would be up for a third entry in the series.
Feig, 62, said, 'I definitely know where I want it to go,' though he would have to wait to 'see if everybody wants to do a third one.'
'It was too much fun — I would love to get back together with this group and these characters and send them on an even weirder, international adventure, if possible,' he said while speaking with People.
Despite some of the criticisms of how far out the new film goes compared to the more modest and realistic original, Feig suggested the next entry to go even broader.
'I think we need to take them out into the world even more,' he said.
The release of Lively's new films comes after she filed an 80-page civil rights complaint with the California Civil Rights Department against her It Ends With Us director and costar Justin Baldoni on December 20, before officially filing a federal lawsuit on December 31.
In December, Lively sued Baldoni amid claims of sexual harassment during production of the motion picture. In her lawsuit, the Gossip Girl alumna accused Baldoni of sexually harassing her in multiple ways — including body shaming her — and orchestrating a smear campaign against her to damage her reputation.
Baldoni and his reps have said in response to the lawsuit that Lively twisted the meaning of text messages and mislead the public about their interactions while making the motion picture.
In her lawsuit, Lively named a number of Baldoni's collaborators, including his company Wayfarer Studios, the studio's CEO and financial backer, and PR personnel Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel.
'I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted,' Lively told The New York Times the day after she filed the complaint.
Baldoni subsequently sued the newspaper for $250 million in a defamation claim over a December 21 story titled '"We Can Bury Anyone": Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine.' The newspaper has denied the allegations.
Baldoni on January 16 filed a $400 million lawsuit against Lively, Reynolds and her publicist Leslie Sloane, alleging defamation and extortion. Baldoni told the court the trio had concocted 'false accusations of sexual harassment' against him.
Since Lively's complaint was filed, Baldoni has faced a number of professional consequences, including a lawsuit from a former publicist; and being dropped by the agency WME, which also reps Lively and Reynolds.
WME has denied claims that Lively and Reynolds leaned on them to release Baldoni from their client roster, according to Variety.
Lawyers for both parties were in accordance with a plan to compound both federal cases filed into one moving forward.
It Ends with Us, which also starred Jenny Slate, Hasan Minhaj, Brandon Sklenar and Kevin McKidd, arrived in theaters August 9 and was a hit with audiences. The film, adapted from the 2016 Colleen Hoover novel, earned $148 million in domestic box office, and $350 million globally, according to Box Office Mojo.
Lively broke out with the 2005 movie The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants opposite Amber Tamblyn, Alexis Bledel and America Ferrera. That led to her high-profile role on the TV show Gossip Girl, which she starred on from 2007-2012, playing lead character Serena van der Woodsen.
She has also appeared in movies such as 2010's The Town, 2016's The Shallows, 2018's A Simple Favor and 2020's The Rhythm Section.
Prior to It Ends with Us, Baldoni was best known for playing the role of Rafael Solano on the TV show Jane the Virgin from 2014–2019. He also has directed films including 2019's Five Feet Apart and 2020's Clouds, and penned the 2021 book Man Enough, which tackled misconceptions of contemporary masculinity.
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