Author: Roger Ebert

There is a word for this movie, and that word is: “Ick.”

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

Watching Mad Dog Time is like waiting for the bus in a city where you're not sure they have a bus line.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

The movie has been signed by Michael Bay. This is the same man who directed The Rock in 1996. Now he has made Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Faust made a better deal.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

“This sucks on so many levels.” — Dialogue from Jason X. Rare for a movie to so frankly describe itself. Jason X sucks on the levels of storytelling, character development, suspense, special effects, originality, punctuation, neatness and aptness of thought.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

You used to be able to depend on a bad film being poorly made. No longer. The Punisher: War Zone [sic] is one of the best-made bad movies I’ve seen… Its only flaw is that it’s disgusting.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

Pearl Harbor is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours…

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

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.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

It's the worst kind of bad film: the kind that gets you all worked up and then lets you down, instead of just being lousy from the first shot.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

This is an old idea, beautifully expressed by Wordsworth, who said, ‘Heaven lies about us in our infancy.’ If I could quote the whole poem instead of completing this review, believe me, we’d all be happier. But I press on.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

If I ever do a festival of films that deserve to be overlooked, Friends & Lovers is my opening night selection.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

This movie is not merely bad, but incompetent. I get tapes in the mail from 10th graders that are better made than this… I have often asked myself, “What would it look like if the characters in a movie were animatronic puppets created by aliens with an imperfect mastery of human behavior?” Now I know.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

Boat Trip arrives preceded by publicity saying many homosexuals have been outraged by the film. Now that it's in theaters, everybody else has a chance to join them. Not that the film is outrageous. That would be asking too much. It is dim-witted, unfunny, too shallow to be offensive…

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

The best thing about it is that it runs for only 75 minutes.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

Young men: If you attend this crap with friends who admire it, tactfully inform them they are idiots. Young women: If your date likes this movie, tell him you’ve been thinking it over, and you think you should consider spending some time apart.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

I urgently advise hospitals: Do not make the DVD available to your patients; there may be an outbreak of bedpans thrown at TV screens.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

Going to see Godzilla at the Palais of the Cannes Film Festival is like attending a satanic ritual in St. Peter's Basilica… it was the festival's closing film, coming at the end like the horses in a parade, perhaps for the same reason.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

I will one day be thin… but Vincent Gallo will always be the director of The Brown Bunny.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

It was W. C. Fields who hated to appear in the same scene with a child, a dog, or a plunging neckline – because nobody in the audience would be looking at him. Jennifer Aniston has the same problem in this movie even when she’s in scenes all by herself.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

The movie is being revived around the country for midnight cult showings. Midnight is not late enough.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism

Battlefield Earth is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It's not merely bad; it's unpleasant in a hostile way.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter
Reviews/Criticism