Critics and audiences disagree often enough that the gap needs explaining. Most of it comes from the conditions under which a critic encounters the work rather than from differing taste.
The conditions are not the ones you have
Press screenings happen in the morning, in a controlled room, with phones away and an audience of people working.
Nobody in that room chose the film, paid for a ticket or arranged an evening around it, and none of the social framing that shapes an ordinary viewing is present.
This strips out atmosphere, which cuts both ways: a comedy loses the amplification of a laughing crowd, and a weak film loses the goodwill of a night out.
Screening rooms are also better calibrated than most cinemas, so problems with a sound mix or a dark image reach the critic in a form the paying audience may never see.
Volume changes the comparison set
Someone watching four films a week is comparing each one against hundreds of recent releases, not against the handful an ordinary viewer sees in a year.
A device that feels fresh to an occasional viewer may be the fourth instance of it that month for a critic.
That produces harshness towards competence and enthusiasm for risk, which reads as contrarian from outside and is simply calibration from inside.
It also explains the opposite complaint, that critics overpraise difficult work. A viewer who has seen the conventional version of a story forty times will value the departure more than someone meeting the convention for the first time.
They are working while watching
A critic is tracking structure, noting when a shift happens, and holding sentences in mind for later use.
Attention spent on analysis is attention not spent on immersion, and immersion is most of what an ordinary viewer is there for.
Experienced critics manage this deliberately, some refusing to take notes precisely to protect the first experience.
Deadlines fix the verdict early
Most reviews are written from one viewing, filed within hours, and published on a schedule set by an embargo.
Works that reward a second encounter are therefore assessed at their least favourable moment, and dense films suffer most.
Critics revisiting their own reviews years later frequently disagree with them, which is an honest reflection of how the judgement was produced.
Why the disagreement is structural
None of this makes either judgement wrong. They are answers to different questions asked under different conditions.
A critic is largely answering whether a work is interesting against everything else being made now.
An audience is answering whether an evening was worth the money, and there is no reason those two answers should converge.