Goodbye Roger Ebert
Long ago I used to trust Roger Ebert’s movie reviews. I’ve Tivo’ed Ebert and Siskel and then Ebert and Roeper for as long as I’ve had a Tivo. Well, with his review of Spiderman 2, I’m done. The Jacuzzi he got for saying what he did about the movie had better be worth it.
From EBERT AND ROEPER’S TOP TEN OF 2004
Here’s some exurpts from his review (this is an audio clip from the TV show)
The number 4 film on my list is Spider-Man 2… I’m as amazed as you are that spidey made my top 10 list. This was a really good film. The best super hero movie ever made…
Come on! VC and I watched it and and we’ve got different movie tastes but had the same problems with the movie. Comments like:
- Ok, so you spend your evenings dangling from the tops of buildings from ropes. You have a rope failure that nearly kills you. What do you do? Dangle some more! Oh no! Another rope failure! Dooph!
- Oh man, when she opens up that pizza box, the one that Spidey has been tossing around for the last 10 minutes, it is gonna be GROSS! That’s gonna be pretty funny! Wait, hey…. we didn’t get to see the pizza!
- Isn’t conducting nuclear fusion tests in a downtown manhattan apartment just a little… unwise?
- Ok, so, you built these really friggin cool, giant mechanical octopus arms that would gleefully take control of your brain if proper safeguards weren’t taken… And you’re telling me that the only thing between you and oblivion is…. a little blue light on the back of your neck?!?!?!? Dude, you’re asking for it!
- The entire movie was all about how Peter was totally broke, failing school, and couldn’t keep a job because he was busy being a vigilante… Now that MJ and Peter are going to live happily ever after, how are they pay the rent?
- A new Green Goblin? That’s coo. Wait, the movie’s over. Ughf. A sequel.
Ok, enough with the critisisms… you get the idea. The important thing here is that this was not, by any stretch of the imagination “the best super hero movie ever made.” A legitimate review would have been something like, “A fun ride. Peter is shown to be a real hero with real-life problems. Social elements are stressed over super-powers. Fairly true to the comic, though a lot of details are skipped over for brevity. Very nice effects, ok story, mediocre execution, somehow, it dragged a bit.”
I’m taking Ebert and Roeper off my Tivo Season Pass.