Attending a movie is an expensive proposition. Apart from the cost of the tickets, the concession foodstuff, the babysitter, and the $309/hour (my rate, just in case you ever wanted to hire me to write something for you) I’m not earning because I’m watching a movie, there’s the additional cost of brain cells which are going to be dedicated—for the rest of my life—to remembering the film, whether I liked it or not.

In short, at this stage of my life, before I commit to going to a movie, I want some assurance that the movie is good.

And that is Roger Ebert’s job.

Roger Ebert is well-paid for his job. He is well-known, and is widely respected. A casual moviegoer, then, might take it for granted that Ebert is doing his job well.

Which is all fine and good, if you’re the kind of person who takes things for granted.

I am not that kind of person.

Here, then, is a review of Roger Ebert.

Writing Style

Let’s start with what I consider Ebert’s strongest point: his writing style. Even when he’s demonstrably wrong (I’ll get to that in a minute), he’s entertainingly wrong. Ebert’s writing is never bad.

Think about that assertion for a moment: Ebert’s writing is never bad. On the strength of that alone, I can heartily recommend reading every single review Ebert writes.

I cannot, however, heartily recommend believing what he writes.

I will explain.

Automatic Fail / Automatic Pass

There are certain types of people that Ebert is going to give a good review to, regardless of the quality of film. These people can be described as “hot chicks.” Consider—and I’m about to ask you to do something quite painful—the movie Tomb Raider. It was mind-blowingly bad. It scored 18% on RottenTomatoes.com, an aggregator of movie critics.

That’s bad. Real bad.

But Ebert gave it three stars, saying it is “...so wondrous to look at, that only a churl could find fault.” Which means that 82% of the rest of the critics are churls. And I am, too. And so are all the people I’ve ever mentioned this movie to. Horrible, stupid plot. Remedial acting. Addle-brained special effects. Boring action sequences. Whether I’m a churl (I am) has nothing to do with it. Tomb Raider sucked, and Ebert cheerfully recommended it because (and I am speculating here) of the Lara Croft Boobs special effect.

Interesting trivia tidbit: Did you know that Ebert wrote the screenplay for several skinflicks (Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens, Up!, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls)? Not that the “Hot Chick” rule could have anything to do with that.

A second demonstration of the “Hot Chick Automatic Pass” effect is the movie Gigli, which Ebert did not quite recommend (2.5 stars), but which he should have eviscerated. He didn’t, though…because Jennifer Lopez is hot.

The flip side of the Automatic Pass effect is the Automatic Fail. For years, Tim Burton could simply not buy a break from Ebert. Consider the review Ebert gave the original Batman (2 stars), Beetlejuice (2 stars), and Edward Scissorhands (2 stars).

Does anyone see a pattern here? I’ll give you a hint: Tim Burton tends to have very few hot chicks in his films, does not treat hot chicks especially well in his films, and is himself not an especially hot chick. Too bad for him.

Note: Ebert finally started occasionally recommending Tim Burton, beginning with  Ed Wood, which indicates there’s an “important movie you have to pretend to like” caveat to the Automatic Fail rule.

Comic Sensibility

I admit to being baffled by Roger Ebert’s sense of cinema humor. I mean, he himself is pretty good at being funny. Consider his incredibly funny—and vitriolic—review of North (which he gave 0 stars):

"I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it."

That’s funny, lucid stuff. Which is why I can’t understand how he managed to give Raising Arizona: 1.5 stars. Read his review. How can someone who writes so well be so completely clueless about one of the most brilliant comedies of our generation? How?

I’ve got myself all worked up now, so I may as well mention that Ebert also panned Grosse Pointe Blank (2.5 stars from Ebert, while getting a very positive 76 on the review aggregator Metacritic.com) and The Wedding Singer (1 star? Is Drew Barrymore not a hot enough chick, or does Ebert simply not understand the 80’s?).

Really, though, Ebert can be trusted with his comedy reviews, as long as you’re willing to treat him as an anti-pattern generator.

I don’t think that’s what he’s going for, though.

Experiential Bias

Ebert once made a good point, somewhere: a film stands on its own, independent of reality or source material. Basically, he’s saying that you review a movie on its own merit, not in the context of what you anticipated based on your own experience.

Or if he didn’t make that point, he should have.

The thing is, if Ebert knows something about the topic of the film or otherwise has history with it, he forgets to review the movie and instead talks about how the movie on the screen stacks up against the one in his head.

Ebert gave the film adaptation of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (84% on RottenTomatoes, which indicates a very strong movie)—get this—zero stars. I’m so dumbfounded by this I spelled “zero” and italicized it instead of just putting down a “0.” And why did he give it zero stars? Because it wasn’t the stage production he had really enjoyed in London.

Same deal applies to his review of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Ebert actually gives this movie three stars, which is technically a recommendation, except for two facts:

• This movie deserves 5 stars. Even though his scale doesn’t go that high. It was a genre-changing film.
• Ebert actually doesn’t spend much time reviewing the film. Instead, he rebuts it, taking it to task because it didn’t match up to the book as much as he’d have liked.

Miscellaneous Observations

• Ebert is a Sci Fi Goober: He gave Star Wars, Episode I (by which I mean the fourth movie that was really awful) 3.5 stars, which goes to show that Dug wasn’t the only adult in the universe to like this film. Seriously, Dug: admit that was a dumb film, OK? Because it had Jar Jar Binks and a really lame pod race that looked completely dead on screen, and the flying Jewish bug embarrassment, and it had that moment where Anakin (who will eventually become Darth Vader but whose nickname is currently “Annie,” and who will furthermore become a little orphan Annie before long) yells, noncommittally, “yippee.”
• Ebert’s Great Movies: You know what? So far, all of the movies in his Great Movies list—the ones I’ve seen anyway—are actually great. If Ebert says a movie is great, it almost certainly is. It’s the other movies—the ones with 1-3 stars—you’ve got to do criticism analysis on.

Final Recommendation

I give Roger Ebert 2.5 stars. I’d probably have given him 3 stars, but—unfortunately for him—Ebert’s not a really hot chick.

- Elden