Splat!

Like Roger Ebert, I’m a fan of Rotten Tomatoes. It’s like those little “major reviews at a glance” tables some newspapers and magazines compile, but fortified with the power of the web. You can see at a glance whether a movie is an across-the-board hit, a mixed-bag, or a bomb.

Well, this week, a film plummeted quite stunningly into that latter category. The reviews for The Master of Disguise are, with barely an exception, absolutely vicious. Right now, it’s running at two percent — unquestionably “rotten.”

There’s a guilty pleasure in reading bad reviews. Really bad, mean, ruthless reviews. And Dana Carvey’s flick has earned them by the truckload.

The New York Post opined, “No one but a convict guilty of some truly heinous crime should have to sit through The Master of Disguise.” Or: “Even its fart jokes are below the industry standard,” said the Hollywood Reporter. “This kiddie-oriented stinker is so bad that I even caught the gum stuck under my seat trying to sneak out of the theater,” says the Fresno Bee.

Still, two percent isn’t zero. And there have been several movies ranked at “diddley-squat.”