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Some are. Movie criticism is ultimately about one person sharing what they like or don't like and trying to explain why (and hopefully writing well in the process). It isn't so much about trying to tell you whether you will like it. To the extent that you are influenced by critics, part of that process is determining which critics seem to share tastes with you.
Yes, see a couple hundred movies in a year as I do and you can't help but begin to view them as part of a larger tapestry and ponder on that. If you only see one movie in your entire life then you'll probably be entertained by sixteen minutes of watching a man ride his bike in a circle (as people in the earliest days of cinema were).
Because of the reviews I write for MousePlanet I will see pretty much every single movie released by Disney's three labels this year. I can't help but be affected by the fact that this means that fully a third of the Disney releases I see are sports related and therefore tend to draw on similar themes. If you only see one sports movie then you'll probably think that The Mighty Ducks is pretty good, but if it uses the same themes and plot elements of another, better movie why not mention that and hopefully you'll watch the better movie instead.
A lot of people say to me "why don't you just shut off your mind and go with it? It is just stupid entertainment." My response is that I can't imagine why anybody would ever want to just shut off their mind and go with stupid entertainment. I do my best to explain why I don't like or do like something. There are almost always factors entirely internal to the movie that make it, in my view, bad or good but there are also frequently external factors. Perhaps movie B in complete isolation isn't all that bad but movie A covers the exact same territory much better? Deep Impact needs to be reviewed on its own terms but it also wouldn't make much sense to review it without mentioning Armageddon.
When I review a movie I do try to review it in the context of what it is trying to be. It is unfair to use the same criteria of quality in judging an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet that you would use for a Hong Kong action movie. But I don't think a movie gets a pass just because it is aiming for the lowest common denominator.
Bottom line, though, if you find that a critic (or all critics) aren't a good indicator of what you personally will like then they are of no use to you and you shouldn't rely on them. It is all subjective. You'll find that a good critical response to a movie is not much of an indicator of what will do well at the box office. That said, it is a much better indicator (but not perfect) of what will still be remembered as a "classic" 30 years down the road.
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