I’ve never had a ton of use for professional critics, especially over the last thirty years as they’ve apparently come to view their jobs as blowing whatever plot details they want in their reviews, especially if they don’t like the film. (One of Ebert’s more egregious sins, especially.)
Ebert sums up nearly everything really good and really bad about critics. Especially irksome is growing tendency to completely spew bile over any film that doesn’t match his politics, despite that being a fairly rare occurrence these days. I still remember Richard Roeper literally leaning back in alarm as Ebert spittled uncontrollably over The Death of David Gale, a film he violently hated because it wasn’t dogmatically against the death penalty enough. Seriously, that was the basis of his whole ‘review,’ which he spent yelling clearly suspect statistics about that issue.
Even so, on those occasions when he remains more level headed, Ebert can be as insightful and just sheer fun a thinker on films as anyone out there. His (rare) commentary for Dark City is a great commentary. If Ebert weren’t so basically smug and self-righteous he’d be a guy who actually might in himself make an argument for professional critics. Sadly, that’s not the case.
I was thinking about this this morning as I scanned his Friday movie reviews in the Chicago Sun-Times. (This is one reason I know Ebert’s work so well; he’s been based in Chicago since I was a kid.) Summing up the remake of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, he basically lays out everything you need to know in one sentence, one that sadly can be used to describe a great deal of the insanely expensive Hollywood films made today: “There’s not much wrong with Tony Scott’s The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, except that there’s not much really right about it.” I have to say, he could have left it at that, and you’d in fact know everything you need to know about the film.*
[*Although the next sentence bemused and bewildered me: “Nobody gets terrifically worked up, except the special effects people.” The subhead of the review also calls the film “CGI-filled.” As a huge fan of the original film, I can only wonder where they hell they squeezed in a lot (or nearly any) CGI work. Presumably this version is filled with explosions and making train wrecks, an idea that frankly just makes me weary.]Then I started scanning his review for Away We Go, which I’d never heard of. The review starts promisingly, noting that the two main characters are just nice, intelligent people, of the sort you don’t see enough in in films today. “For every character like this I’ve seen in the last 12 months,” Ebert writes, “I’ve seen 20, maybe 30, mass murderers.” Again, a very telling point, and one I am in much sympathy with. I actually considered keeping an eye out for this movie, if on DVD if nothing else.
Then, however, we get Bad Ebert, as he mentions “lukewarm reviews accusing [the characters] of being smug, superior and condescending. These are not sins if you have something to be smug about and much reason to condescend.”* And there you go. All of the sudden you couldn’t pay me to see this movie. Knowing Ebert as I do, that last sentence translates to “they’ve been accused of being assholes, but only by those inferior wretches who the couple SHOULD be assholes to.” Further translation: These are people like me, and heaven knows, I’m smug and condescending; but it’s more than justified, because, after all, I do have much reason to condescend.
[*Notice that Ebert uses the adjectives “smug, superior and condescending” in the first part of that quote, but only justifies the ‘smug’ and ‘condescending’ parts in the second. Why? Because the superior part he holds to be equally true, but bad form to actually come out and say. He’s a good enough wordsmith, though, to leave the implication entirely obvious.]