{"id":528085,"date":"2026-04-13T06:53:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T06:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/528085\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T06:53:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T06:53:15","slug":"the-incompetent-movie-roger-ebert-absolutely-despised","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/528085\/","title":{"rendered":"The “incompetent” movie Roger Ebert absolutely despised"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Roger<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Rebert (Roger Ebert)<\/p>\n

Sun 12 April 2026 16:15, UK <\/p>\n

You\u2019re never going to watch endless five-star movies in your life, as nice as that would be. But watching a bad movie<\/a> is sometimes what\u2019s needed to remind you of how good a movie can be.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And of course, you can often stumble upon a \u2018so bad it\u2019s good\u2019 movie from time to time, although the definition of that might differ depending on who you ask. Roger Ebert \u2013 the legendary film critic who essentially became America\u2019s defining critical voice, the one of the people \u2013 understood this concept, but sometimes, he argued, films were so bad that they surpassed this \u2018so bad it\u2019s good\u2019 title and went back to just being plain awful.<\/p>\n

This was the case for a certain Reese Witherspoon action rom-com that he absolutely derided, finding it utterly unconvincing and a total waste of time. It\u2019s a tricky thing to combine the rom-com with action, so when that doesn\u2019t work out, what we\u2019re left with is a tonal mess. In this case, he was referring to the 2012 film This Means War, with Ebert beginning his review scathingly, \u201cIf there\u2019s anything I hate more than a stupid action comed<\/a>y<\/a>, it\u2019s an incompetent stupid action comedy. It\u2019s not so bad it\u2019s good. It\u2019s so bad it\u2019s nothing else but bad.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ebert could be funny<\/a>, but he could often be a little too truthful, like when he wrote the rather unnecessary sentence, \u201cReese Witherspoon is as cute as a button on Raggedy Ann\u2019s overalls, but irresistible raw sex appeal is not one of her qualities.\u201d Ouch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Talking about the relationship between the warring men at the centre of the narrative, both of whom are fighting over Witherspoon\u2019s Lauren, Ebert continued, \u201cAlthough Reese is not convincing as the woman they go to war over, she would be ideally cast as a straight roommate giving them advice about their romance. Because surely they\u2019re gay.\u201d <\/p>\n

In fact, Ebert\u2019s reviews weren\u2019t always politically correct, you could say. \u201cOften they review the surveillance videos together. Is there something about that not entirely consistent with a heterosexual competition? Lauren is obviously only the nexus for their plexus,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

The film came from McG, the director behind Charlie\u2019s Angels and Terminator Salvation, and like most of his back catalogue, This Means War was not revered by critics. With Tom Hardy and Chris Pine playing the sparring suitors while Academy Award winner Witherspoon starred as the object of their affections, you\u2019d think that the film might have some potential, but it really had nothing to save it from complete disaster.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For a movie supposedly founded on comedy, This Means War doesn\u2019t have much going for it in terms of good humour. In fact, it really has very little going for it at all. Mixing spy action, buddy comedy, and romantic comedy in one just doesn\u2019t work here, even with a strong cast attached to it. At least for them, it performed well at the box office, grossing $156.5 million against a budget of $65 million. That\u2019s not too shabby for such a God-awful film.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Rebert (Roger Ebert) Sun 12 April 2026 16:15, UK You\u2019re never going to watch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,29516,2839,26091,38263,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-528085","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movie","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-reese-witherspoon","12":"tag-roger-ebert","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}