Because I'm Roger Ebert

by: Reach for the Sky

Here is Roger Ebert's review of Kick-Ass. Don't read it if you haven't seen the movie, because it wantonly displays massive spoilers. Here's the jist of it: Ebert doesn't like it because an 11-year-old girl kills people. He's doesn't think its funny because child violence exists, and that somehow makes the entire movie awful and horrible. 

"This movie regards human beings like video-game targets. Kill one, and you score. They're dead, you win. When kids in the age range of this movie's home video audience are shooting one another every day in America, that kind of stops being funny."

Did I trip and land in an alternate dimension where a movie's quality is determined by how just fluffy and lovely it is? For one, the fact that it is a comedy does not mean that every scene is intentionally funny. I'll admit, the trailer was very misleading about its promises of comic violence and slapstick, when in fact the movie is quite dark and bloody. But lets remember that movies where people get boo-boos and go to white-cloud-land have a helpful little sticker that tells you whether kids should see it or not. As for the little serial killer girl, (slight spoiler) the point was that she sort of skipped her childhood, thus being forced into a more mature role. Offensive nature aside, he completely overlooked the actual quality of the movie so he could go on his soap-box about teen violence. Which is annoying.

This isn't the first time Ebert's opinions have been hotly contested. Here are a few movies many people, possibly yourself, would disagree with him on.

Knowing, for which he gives far too much credit for the imaginary implications he pulled from it.

Lightning Thief, If you haven't seen this, trust me when I say that any review of this movie that isn't absolutely scathing is immensely charitable. I you have seen it, you already know this.

District 9, who's praises he didn't sing to the heavens, which means he's the devil incarnate he doesn't know a god thing when he sees it. That was not a typo.

In short, this guy is incredibly famous, for reasons I can not comprehend. He is just a reviewer, who makes mistakes and falls for the same poetic crap that nets Oscar-bait its Academy Awards. There is no reason there should be a book called Roger Ebert's Four Star Reviews 1967-2007, or at least there's no more reason than for there to be a book called Reach's Four Star Bathroom Breaks 1967-2007.