Why are sentimental movies almost universally disliked?

[wonderer99]

I have always found this curious. Now dont get me wrong , a bad movie is a bad movie but it seems that films that have a sentimental tone or are structured in some way to turn the waterworks on are pretty much always criticised for attempting to do just that.

Case in point, I watched Mr Church which is a prime example. I thought it was a wonderful little film. Aside from being the best thing Eddie murphy has done in a long while it was just a very sweet movie. Headed over to Rotten Tomatoes and was shocked to discover it stands at 15%. Now i know the tomatometer is not something to pay a great deal of attention to but straight away it was clear that the sentimental tone of the film was a subject of criticism. I cant help but feel it is a lazy criticism. I mean, what precisely is wrong with sentimentality? Some films are designed to make us laugh, others to scare us etc etc and all film genres are guilty of twisting emotions to extract the desired response in viewers whether it be fear, laughter or indeed sadness. But an attempt to be sentimental seems to illicit an out of proportion disdain from both critics and viewers alike. Like i say if a movie is bad then it is bad. For example most Nicolas Sparks adaptations are usually just bad movies. But films like Mr Church seems to take a bashing mostly (it does have other issues) due to its tone and sentimentality.

I was wondering what other peoples opinions were on this? Maybe i am just getting setimental on my old age