Roger Ebert is considered one of the best film critics of all time, despite the fact that most people know him solely based on the binary judgment he’d give a film: a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Given this binary, his TV show appearances often lacked the nuance that convey why a film earned that distinction, and while his thoughts on a film were always insightful, that doesn’t mean he was always right. Hindsight has granted some critics the luxury of judging a movie based on the limitations of when it was released, though it can be hard to imagine a world in which they could ever give a negative review to something so promising from its debut.
Speaking specifically to the realm of sci-fi, Ebert has been wrong quite a few times, yet he’s also not always alone in these assessments. Countless movies have only gotten better, or more relevant, the more time that goes by, and below you’ll find three examples of when it feels like Ebert missed the mark. For good measure, though, we’ve also included a title where he was dead-on in his analysis.
4
Got It Wrong – ‘The Thing’
John Carpenter’s adaptation of the Who Goes There? novella by John W. Campbell, The Thing is considered by many today to be a defining piece of sci-fi horror, in addition to a seminal example of paranoia-driven terror. At the time of its release, on the other hand, The Thing earned a frigid reception from audiences and critics alike, but this is to be expected when it opened the same summer as an alien adventure like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
In his initial review of the film, Ebert only gave the movie a 2.5 out of 4, and admitted he felt “disappointed.” He points out that he was frustrated by the lack of complex characters, noting, “The few scenes that develop characterizations are overwhelmed by the scenes in which the men are just setups for an attack by the Thing.” He also felt that the men trying to outwit and outlast a shape-shifting monster was “implausible” and noted that these characters should have utilized a “watertight buddy system.” Well, maybe if Ebert himself had been there, he could have told these fictional characters how to react to this fictional situation.
3
Got It Wrong – ‘Hollow Man’
Admittedly, Ebert is far from being the only one to get this movie wrong, as Rotten Tomatoes calculates that only 25% of critics gave it a positive review. The problem, however, is that director Paul Verhoeven is always two decades ahead of audiences, as proven in movies like RoboCop, Basic Instinct, and Starship Troopers. In effect, the Kevin Bacon-starring movie was an updated spin on Claude Rains’ The Invisible Man, showcasing what an individual would do if they could get away with embracing their primal instincts and the subsequent madness this would cause.
Coming 70 years after The Invisible Man, though, Hollow Man instead explored the more provocative, sexually charged psychosis that Bacon’s character embraced. Verhoeven was clearly trying to shine a light on toxic masculinity, with Ebert reducing the movie to “Scientist becomes invisible, becomes sex fiend, goes berserk, attacks everyone.” To say this character became a “sex fiend” is incorrect, as the figure regularly demonstrated his territoriality over anyone ever dating his ex-girlfriend, as well as depicting him spying on his neighbor. He didn’t become a sex fiend, it’s that becoming invisible allowed him to get away with being a sex fiend.
Even more interesting, 20 years after Hollow Man, Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man received critical praise for exploring similar themes of toxic masculinity as what we saw in Hollow Man, cementing how Verhoeven was ahead of his time.
2
Got It Wrong – ‘Stargate’
Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin’s Stargate is far from a masterpiece, and with the pair following this adventure with Independence Day, this sci-fi outing felt more like a rough draft of what the pair could do with movie magic. This specific movie might have dull moments in its two-hour runtime, but it presents a compelling question: what if humans could pass through a portal to travel to different planets, dimensions, and time periods, potentially altering the course of existence?
Clearly the concept had potential, which is why we got multiple episodic spin-offs, like the 10-season Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Stargate Universe. Why it feels like Ebert got this one so wrong, though, is because he gave the original movie a 1 out of 4, despite the inherent premise requiring suspension of disbelief. The critic claims that the movie feels more like an assignment in film school, detailing, “Conceive of the weirdest plot you can think of, and reduce it as quickly as possible to action movie cliches.” The issue is that Ebert considered the makings of a B-movie adventure to seemingly lack any value, even if this storytelling potential has spanned hundreds of episodes of television.
1
Got It Right – ‘Battlefield: Earth’
Even 26 years later, John Travolta’s Battlefield: Earth hasn’t gained any type of relevancy or significance, with Ebert being accurate about the movie’s worth right from the start. In fact, part of what makes his 0.5-out-of-4 review of the movie so entertaining all these years later is how prescient it was. Not only did the critic correctly lambast the story, performances, and filmmaking, but he claimed to know while he was watching it just how reviled it would be.
The critic confessed, “Some movies run off the rails. This one is like the train crash in The Fugitive. I watched it in mounting gloom, realizing I was witnessing something historic, a film that for decades to come will be the punch line of jokes about bad movies.” With its Rotten Tomatoes score still only 3% positive, it even feels like Ebert was being too kind.
- Birthdate
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June 18, 1942
- Birthplace
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Urbana, Illinois
- Deathdate
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April 4, 2013