Plenty of people fancy a Date Night

Date Night's mixed reviews have not stopped it shooting to No 1.

FILM critics tend to be a self-satisfied bunch, with many taking a pretty pompous tone when it comes to less high-brow releases.

I freely admit that I have given similarly short shrift to certain recent offerings which have failed to float my boat, whether on the grounds of predictability or laziness.

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But the paying public don’t seem to care and just to stop all the writers feeling pleased with themselves, the box office statistics don’t always see the “best” films winning out.

Various other factors, such as distribution budgets, cinema’s screening policies and advertising outlay, come into play when it comes to putting bums on seats and you can pretty much guarantee selling lots of tickets if you blow plenty of things up in the trailer.

The latest obvious example of the public ignoring the critics is Dear John, which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago as having sold out despite dire reviews.

Well, Date Night is going the same way, the attractive combination of Steve Carrell and Tina Fey having shot it to the top of the box office chart despite reviews that can best be described as patchy.

It just goes to show that critics might think they know best but they’re not as influential as they might hope.