I used to thoroughly enjoy Roger Ebert’s movie reviews, back before he added “angry liberal” to his job title. Still, his impact on the film industry and the popular culture is undeniable; what other name do you think of when you hear the phrase “film critic”? A favorable blurb from Roger Ebert remains a highly prized addition to any movie poster.
Just because I admire his writing skill and knowledge of cinema doesn’t mean that I always agree with him, though. Like many of the Hollywood elite, Ebert often confuses degeneracy with “edginess” or mislabels pretentiousness as “artistry.” So I took notice when I saw his negative review of a film that opened this weekend. The film, whose very title removes it from G-rated consideration, is being lavished with praise from almost every other internet and print critic. The plot involves a group of ordinary people who decide to put on costumes and fight crime. Sounds like just another comic book movie, right? The devil’s in the details. In this movie, the “heroes” are a group of teens and a twelve year-old girl (eleven when she filmed it) who wallow in very R-rated profanity and blood-soaked violence from beginning to end.
Just read the following passages from Ebert’s review: “A movie camera makes a record of whatever is placed in front of it, and in this case, it shows deadly carnage dished out by an 11-year-old girl, after which an adult man brutally hammers her to within an inch of her life. Blood everywhere. Now tell me all about the context.” And later: “Big Daddy and Mindy never have a chat about, you know, stuff like how when you kill people, they are really dead. This movie regards human beings like video-game targets. Kill one, and you score. They’re dead, you win.” He also makes valid points about the appeal of the plot and clever marketing to children who have even less business seeing this junk than grownups—just wait until the DVD goes viral at your kids’ middle school this fall.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d almost think Ebert was writing for Plugged In Online (whose review you can read here. Be advised it goes into painful detail). Make no mistake, I find the existence of the film (and its effusive critical reaction) mildly depressing. Yet perhaps this potential teachable moment will serve as a wake-up call. In its mad dash to the bottom of the depravity barrel, Hollywood seems to have outraced one of its most powerful champions of violence-as-art. Even Roger Ebert gets it: There are certain lines you do not cross with children.
My hope is that discerning moviegoers vote with their feet and stay away in droves this weekend, but I’m not holding my breath. I mean, it’s kids in costumes fighting bad guys. Everybody loves a good comic-book movie, right?
ROCKntheTruth 
The movie didn’t make Ebert a conservative; he was never all that liberal to begin with.
Memo: If you base any kind of factual assertion on anything posted by, linked to by or existing in the same universe as Andrew Breitbart, you run at least a 50% chance of being badly, embarrassingly wrong. Where facts are concerned, he just flat does not care.
Lex,
I’m sure you understand that the title of the post was facetious. The point I was making was that the content of the movie in question had to be particularly offensive to bring Mr. Ebert into agreement with Christians and social conservatives.
If you honestly believe Ebert is “not all that liberal” I can only conclude you have a very limited exposure to his non-review writing. His many tweets and blog entries speak for themselves and have nothing to do with Andrew Breitbart.
Thanks for reading and commenting, though!