You don't often know if a movie is good until you've finished it, because it all depends on how the story came together in the end.

You can spend 2 hours watching a moving, emotional story that teaches you something new about the human condition and the choices we make in our lives.

Or you can spend 2 hours that turns out to be full of plot holes and inconsistent characters, where nothing makes sense in the end and you've utterly wasted your time.

In what universe would you not want to have that information before watching? Especially if you're generally a busy person and only get to watch 10-20 movies a year.

I truly don't understand the attitude of "just pick one", whether it's for movies or other things. That reviews are "micro-optimization". Like, do you just not value your time? Do you not care about quality?

It's not like reviews are always right. But one film with 98% on Rotten Tomatoes vs. one with 45%... that's a really strong signal. Why on earth would you choose to ignore that?