Shang-Chi is very, very good. How good? According to Rotten Tomatoes, it’s the highest-rated comic book movie of all time in terms of its audience score.
As spotted by Redditor iCXNoLar, Shang-Chi has received thousands of overwhelmingly positive votes and currently sits at a whopping 98% on the movie aggregator.
That’s not only better anything in the MCU (Spider-Man: Far From Home is the next biggest hit on with audiences at 95%), but further beyond too. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse ‘only’ managed 93%, while Christopher Nolan’s iconic middle movie in his Bat-trilogy, The Dark Knight, reached 94%.
Of course, there is a big caveat. For one, Shang-Chi is dwarved by a decent amount of its peers when it comes to its RT score from critics. The Marvel Phase 4 movie has been reviewed positively by 92% of critics, which is nothing to be sniffed at but doesn’t match up to Black Panther’s 96% on the Tomatometer, nor the original Iron Man’s 94%.
Then, there’s the fact that the majority of votes haven’t piled in yet. Shang-Chi’s Rotten Tomatoes run hasn’t yet garnered 10,000 votes – compared to nearly 250,000 for some comic book movies.
Still, it’s testament to Shang-Chi to succeed where so many others have faltered. In an age of review bombing (and a pandemic), it has still managed to soar both with critics and audiences. That near-perfect score may waver in the near future but, for now, the MCU newcomer has shown up the big boys.
For more on the movie, check out our breakdown of the Shang-Chi ending and a look at where Shang-Chi fits on the Marvel timeline.