That's lower than I thought, too. I was expecting it to be around 60-70% for the critics rating. Most fans will probably rate it 90-100% as they normally do. Critics are too harsh, fans are too forgiving. Maybe when it comes out on DVD, I'll consider picking up a copy then instead.
Oh my. That's... a bit lower than I expected. I'll be interested in hearing more specific criticisms in the coming days.
Nobody is suggesting that it will be worse or even remotely as awful as the live action film, and the Rotten Tomatoes score reflects that. The live action movie sits around 29% for both critics and audiences, and even that I feel is a tad generous. (Granted, it's a movie that predates Rotten Tomatoes, so it's difficult to gauge the accuracy of it, but I can't imagine it's terribly off the mark) But it's possible for a movie to be less than satisfactory on a variety of different scales.
I don't feel that critics necessarily rate things more harsh as a general practice; rather, I think they just view films for different reasons than fans and general moviegoers do. I also expected it to be higher, because most critics don't give a toss about loyalty to the source material, and (complete disasters like The Emoji Movie aside) will normally rate any animated movie with decent enough production value at a default of high-60's to low-70's as a base. It's worth keeping in mind that most major review outlets have devolved into glorified advertisements, and there's plenty of financial incentive to--consciously or unconsciously--skew perspective, so it's right to be skeptical.
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Obviously. The point of bringing up review scores (hopefully) is to compare their criticisms against your tastes and preferences, so that you can make an informed decision on how to spend your time and money. Not to throw your hands in the air and proclaim, "God hath spoken, this movie is trash!"
My husband and I enjoyed it a lot 
The theater was packed too and they even had a balloon display! Poor Mario had lost his hand though...
