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You Can’t Please Everyone: Negative Reviews Of Some Of The Best Loved Films In Cinema History

Oliver lyttelton.

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As you may have noticed, the review embargo on “ The Dark Knight Rises ” broke yesterday, and the word, including that from our own Todd Gilchrist , is mostly good. We say mostly, because as with most films, there are objections from a few reviews — Christy Lemire from the Associated Press , Marshall Fine at Hollywood & Fine , Christopher Tookey at the Daily Mail , Devin Faraci at Bad Ass Digest — coming in on the negative side of the fence. And as has become increasingly common in the last few years — particularly with Christopher Nolan ‘s films,  Pixar  movies, and even “ The Avengers ” — the fans are in uproar at the sheer concept that reviewers dare give a negative notice to “The Dark Knight Rises” (regardless of the fact that these fans haven’t yet seen the film for themselves).

Comment sections have been deluged with idiot children Bat-fans, not just angry about negative reviews, but merely “good” ones — Playlist contributor James Rocchi has attracted ire for his 3/5 take on the film over at Movies.com . With chatter around ‘Rises’ only to increase in the next few days, we thought it seemed like a good time to remind everyone: everything gets a bad review at some point.

Some films are more divisive than others, and there were a few films — “ Singin’ In The Rain ,” “ Seven Samurai ,” “ North By Northwest ,” “ The Godfather ” — that we couldn’t find bad reviews from serious critics for. But generally speaking, there’s an always an outlier, and we’ve collected reviews from the releases of ten of the most beloved and acclaimed releases in history to prove our point. That’s not to say that the reviews below are wrong — most make their points well, and some are positively insightful. The fanboy trend of being unable to let any criticism pass is an insidious one: you should seek to challenge your views on a film, not shout down people for pointing out any possible flaws.

But for those who say they don’t listen to critics, we’ve also grabbed some excerpts of user reviews from the IMDB boards, to again show that opinion isn’t a black and white thing. And also because they’re funny. Read on for more, and feel free to speak up in the comments section and let us know what movies have set you against the critical grain.

“Citizen Kane” “The picture is very exciting to anyone who gets excited about how things are done in the movies… and in these things there is no doubt the picture is dramatic. But what goes on between the dramatic high points, the story? No. What goes on is talk and more talk. And while the stage may stand for this, the movies don’t.” – Otis Ferguson, The New Republic

“I watch movies constantly, an i rarely see movies that i have troubles watching all the way through. For one of my classes at school, i needed to watch afi’s top 10 movies. This movie was ranked at number one and I have no idea why. This movie was so boring I had to watch it several times because i kept falling asleep and missing certain parts. Fine, it was clever having Rosebud, and the importance of youth, but i felt that this is an example of a movie, that could be told in about 5 minutes, rather than stretching it out into one of the longest and most boring movies that i have ever seen. Now, i was also shocked at the acting. i generally find that acting supports a relatively weak script, however in this movie’s case, i felt that the relatively weak script was supporting the awful acting. i personally was not very impressed with the acting strictly because the reactions felt very forced and everything was very overdone. all in all i was not impressed at all with this film, regardless of past ratings.” – tennisislife67, IMDB

“The Godfather Part II” ‘The Godfather, Part II’… is not very far along before one realizes that it hasn’t anything more to say. Everything of any interest was thoroughly covered in the original film, but like many people who have nothing to say, ‘Part II’ won’t shut up… Even if ‘Part II’ were a lot more cohesive, revealing and exciting than it is, it probably would have run the risk of appearing to be the self-parody it now seems. Looking very expensive but spiritually desperate, ‘Part II’ has the air of a very long, very elaborate revue sketch. Nothing is sacred… Mr. Pacino, so fine the first time out, goes through the film looking glum, sighing wearily as he orders the execution of an old associate or a brother, winding up very lonely and powerful, which is just about the way he wound up before. Mr. De Niro, one of our best young actors, is interesting as the young Vito until, toward the end of his section of the film, he starts giving a nightclub imitation of Mr. Brando’s elderly Vito.” – Vincent Canby, New York Times

I really don’t understand the obsession with the Godfather trilogy, brought up with society around me proclaiming it to be a classic I rented the first and found it just bearable! Determined on my task of watching all three I rented the second, I barely made it through, i found the storyline confusing and didn’t see any of the quotes used in ‘You’ve got Mail’! Please don’t think that the only films I watch are chick flicks, I do like more serious, older films but … oh dear… maybe I just can’t relate to Italian mafia families, I must have wiped this film from my mind as I can hardly remember the storyline! I do not which to be stereotypical but maybe this really is a film for men! Please tell me there are other people out there who feel this way about these films! I can’t understand how they always get to the top of ‘Great film Lists’! If asked by a friend whether to watch this film I would say no, unless I wanted to punish them! P.S I still haven’t watched number three!!  – laura5578, IMDB

“Casablanca” “The love story that takes us from time to time into the past is horribly wooden, and clichés everywhere lower the tension.” — William Whitebait, The New Statesman

“So I finally got around to watching Casablanca, one of the greatest movies ever made, or so I’ve always heard. Does it live up to its hype? In a word, no. It was maudlin and melodramatic; Ingrid Bergman was homely, no matter how many softening effects were used in the close-ups of her face (did a rodent gnaw off the sides of her nose? To say nothing of that masculine jawbone and those underdeveloped lips…); Humphrey Bogart was about as slick and charismatic as the Hunchback of Notre-Dame; and the story was undisguised war propaganda. One would have to have the mental age of 5 to think this movie was in any way great. Watchable, yes, but not great, and certainly not deserving of being on the IMDb top 250. The movie was fast-paced, which was both good and bad: good because it would’ve been unbearable to watch otherwise, and bad because it didn’t give the viewer time to get attached to any of the characters (which is just as well, since as I’ve said, it was war propaganda and so the less effective, the better). – le_chiffre-1 , IMDB

“Raging Bull” “Robert De Niro is one of the most repugnant and unlikeable screen protagonists in some time… the director excels at whipping up an emotional storm, but seems unaware that there is any need for quieter, more introspective scenes in drama… the scenes it does choose to show are almost perversely chosen to alienate the audience – Joseph McBride, Variety

Oh my is this film terrible. I really wanted to like this film, honest; in fact, I bought it before actually seeing it. Seriously though, this film is grossly pregnant; there is nothing there; it’s fluff; get it? Forgebodit!! Boxing movies are stupid enough as is, next to football flicks of course. However, I thought, “Well it’s a Scorsese flick, he’ll do something meaningful.” Nope!!! Just a bunch of swearing, violent, irrational, testosterone-junkie wops walking around beating their women saying forgebodit. Peachy, let me tell ya; in fact, I want my time back, dig. This film is boring, redundant, annoying, and meaningless. The cinematography is somewhat sharp, but then again, somewhat sharp is just dull. One last thing, just because a film is black/white does not make it art…K?…K. – Kevin Cordia, IMDB

“Lawrence Of Arabia” “It is such a laboriously large conveyance of eye-filling outdoor spectacle—such as brilliant display of endless desert and camels and Arabs and sheiks and skirmishes with Turks and explosions and arguments with British military men—that the possibly human, moving T. E. Lawrence is lost in it. We know little more about this strange man when it is over than we did when it begins… The fault seems to lie, first in the concept of telling the story of this self-tortured man against a background of action that has the characteristic of a mammoth Western film. The nature of Lawrence cannot be captured in grand Super-Panavision shots of sunrise on the desert or in scenes of him arguing with a shrewd old British general in a massive Moorish hall… The fault is also in the lengthy but surprisingly lusterless dialogue of Robert Bolt’s over-written screenplay. Seldom has so little been said in so many words… sadly, this bold Sam Spiegel picture lacks the personal magnetism, the haunting strain of mysticism and poetry that we’ve been thinking all these years would be dominant when a film about Lawrence the mystic and the poet was made. It reduces a legendary figure to conventional movie-hero size amidst magnificent and exotic scenery but a conventional lot of action-film cliches. – Bosley Crowther, The New York Times

The first thing I’m looking for in a movie is “historical accuracy”.Since the movie takes its name from the leading character Lawrence let me ask you a question to those who casted a top-ten vote for this movie?Do you really know how Lawrence looked like?Six foot two inch Peter O’Toole differed strikingly with the real Lawrence, who was almost nine inches shorter.Lawrence was not a gung-ho drama queen who lead a nation to freedom.Most scenes such as the attack on Aqaba were heavily fictionalized from the writings of Lawrence.You can easily question how much he is reliable.Lawrence mentions in his Seven Pillars of Wisdom that he was raped by the Turkish Bey which was called into question by the historians.(Check out the article : Lawrence of Arabia ‘made up’ sex attack by Turk troops By Elizabeth Day) Not only most scenes are heavily fictionalized but some characters are a bunch of fiction too like Sheriff Ali,Mr. Dryden and Colonel Brighton. The movie neither tells you anything from the Turkish point point of view nor does it tell anything about the real Arab points. Yes it’s a well-know truth that the Arabs were tricked into fighting against the Turks by the British and they have been paying the price by being belittled by the westerners for centuries.But the movie shows us only a bunch of Bedouin tribes which are desert dwelling nomadic people. Not every Arab is (and was)a Bedouin. The historians say that the real Lawrence actually shunned the limelight, as evidenced by his attempts after the war to hide under various assumed names but the British officers certainly did not the find the attack outrageous since the Great(!) British Empire can finally be positioned at a table with the French to take care of the rest of the Turkish empire.And according to Wikipedia the film’s portrayal of General Allenby as a cynical, manipulative superior to Lawrence is not entirely accurate either. Allenby and Lawrence respected and liked each other, and Lawrence once said of Allenby that he was “an admiration of mine”… There are people who claim that such fictionalization was necessary to dramatize the great Lawrence character but I say “watch out! The devil lurks in the little details” – shutterbug_iconium, IMDB

“The Searchers” “The Searchers” is somewhat disappointing. There is a feeling that it could have been so much more. Overlong and repetitious at 119 minutes, there are subtleties in the basically simple story that are not adequately explained… Wayne is a bitter, taciturn individual throughout and the reasons for his attitude are left to the imagination of the viewer… The John Ford directorial stamp is unmistakable. It concentrates on the characters and establishes a definite mood. It’s not sufficient, however, to overcome many of the weaknesses of the story.” – Ronald Holloway, Variety

I was bored, it’s Sunday and sat down really looking forward to this supposedly great western to fill the evening void. Maybe I’m not qualified to comment fully as I didn’t make it past half an hour. I figure if a film hasn’t grabbed me by then it probably won’t get any better. Usually a rubbish film will grab you then go downhill but this………. well, first off I’m English and even I know that those funny things sticking out the earth don’t come from Texas they’re somewhere in Utah. That’s the first insult. It may be great scenery but great scenery a great film it doth not make. And there’s nothing glorious about glorious Technicolor either. It’s like being hit on the head with a sledgehammer. Then, oh I dunno just that dumb acting from that time, those stupid children full of beans and cockadoodle dandy acting just irritate the hell out of me as if lots of energy will make up for real acting. Embarrassing. The story just plods along and doesn’t build any tension whatsoever with a lot of hammy acting by our stars more fit for a TV show. Then it’s just cliché after cliché and the end result is wishing the maker of this film would stop insulting my intelligence and pi** off. I disliked John Wayne as a small boy because I thought he was boring. I think he’s boring now. If you wanna watch a good Western with interest and real characters, story development, tension and drama that sucks you in watch Unforgiven. I’ll never forgive this pile of dross. – jackbenimble, IMDB

“2001: A Space Odyssey” “A major achievement in cinematography and special effects, “2001” lacks dramatic appeal to a large degree and only conveys suspense after the halfway mark…. The plot, so-called, uses up almost two hours in exposition of scientific advances in space travel and communications, before anything happens, [including] the surprisingly dull prolog… Film ends on a confused note, never really tackling the ‘other life’ situation and evidently leaving interpretation up to the individual viewer. To many this will smack of indecision or hasty scripting.” — Robert B. Frederick, Variety

“This is certainly one of the most boring and meaningless films I have ever seen in my life. I love science and science fiction both. They are in fact 2 of my main interests in life. This movie still bored me beyond description! The accolades being heaped upon this hunk of garbage is hilarious. The most amusing tendency among the fans of this movie is ridiculing those who think it is boring and meaningless as stupid, ignorant or both. I am a professional in the computer design and engineering business. I am not stupid. And guess what? This movie is still boring and meaningless… It’s a collection of very long, very boring scenes that never seem to end… For those who will attempt to dismiss my comment along with the other people they have dismissed let me be perfectly clear. I understood everything in the film. It is simply a terrible film. This pseudo-intellectual drivel is a director who thinks he’s quite brilliant in his high school level presentation and vision of the journey of man. Of course he is very wrong indeed!… It’s disjointed. It lacks cohesiveness. It adds elements of science fiction, horror, fantasy, and pre-teen created entertainment. It also fails to deliver in any of these categories. Stop attacking those who do not like this film. They aren’t nearly as stupid as is implied here… There is nothing brilliant about meaningless film that must be “interpreted” by the few viewers who claim they have the answer. Thats just incompetent lazy film making.” – tom_jones, IMDB

“Chinatown” “The most acclaimed private-eye saga since ‘The Big Sleep’ has the torpor of a wake… Evans and Polankski are masters of Hollywood ‘dramatic organization.’ They ram home what they see as major points… ‘Chinatown’ brings to question not only their lack of subtlety, but their hypocrisy… Polanski never favors compassion over carnage. He has none of Towne’s emotional stakes in the film… Polanski smothers Towne’s script. He never lets in any air… Polanski revels in artifice. Every shot in ‘Chinatown’ locks into a larger puzzle, and each character’s smirk hides a secret.” – Michael Sragow, New York Magazine

“Got two hours of your life to waste? Want to wonder watch the same actor who scared you in the Shining bore you to death? Want to wish you had not already cleaned out the cat’s litter? I have the film for you. Two hours of the most excruciating boredom watching male chauvinistic pigs who think there is nothing wrong in raping, beating or in general any other form of abusing women, sprinkle in some under-age sex with your own daughter (how ironic that three years later the film’s director will be charged with such an offence – was he planning his own future? Oh, sorry I forget 15 is too old for him) and add a cherry on top for being absolutely pointless and you have Chinatown. If anyone can tell me what Chinatown has to do with the film’s plot I will give you the cherry myself. And before you all start jumping on me I do understand the ‘rape’ refers to the water supply controversies of the early 1910’s. However, please, seriously, do not tell me that you enjoyed this film. I am only saying what everyone else is too scared to say – it really is not that good a film.” – b-jhoree, IMDB

“Die Hard” “On a technical level, there’s a lot to be said for ‘Die Hard.’ It’s when we get to some of the unnecessary adornments of the script that the movie shoots itself in the foot… the filmmakers introduce a gratuitous and unnecessary additional character: the deputy police chief (Paul Gleason), who doubts that the guy on the other end of the radio is really a New York cop at all. As nearly as I can tell, the deputy chief is in the movie for only one purpose: to be consistently wrong at every step of the way and to provide a phony counterpoint to Willis’ progress. The character is so willfully useless, so dumb, so much a product of the Idiot Plot Syndrome, that all by himself he successfully undermines the last half of the movie. Thrillers like this need to be well-oiled machines, with not a single wasted moment. Inappropriate and wrongheaded interruptions reveal the fragile nature of the plot and prevent it from working. Without the deputy chief and all that he represents, “Die Hard” would have been a more than passable thriller. With him, it’s a mess… you can’t go wrong if all of the characters in your movie are at least as intelligent as most of the characters in your audience.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

This film has almost everything that I despise. I do like the action, explosions, and Alan Rickman since he stars as Severus Snape in the seven Harry Potter flicks. Rickman is excellent at playing the bad guy. Bruce Willis thinks he is so cool; however, but nothing but a fool. So the two stars are for Rickman and the action. The subtraction of eight stars is for the ballooning votes that this movie has been given, the violence, the nudity, the vulgarity, Bruce Willis, the mindless acting by the majority, the length of the film, and finally not giving Rickman more lines. Yes, it’s a slight obsession with Rickman as it seems, but I had to think of eight reasons and ran out of ideas. So if you like or love this imbecilic claptrap, you will most likely disagree with me and jump to conclusions while forming stereotypes. I don’t blame you. I only wish Hollywood wouldn’t contribute to the degenerating of our civilization where people don’t care about humans they don’t know – jamesolio, IMDB

“Raiders Of The Lost Ark” “But “Raiders” is a machine-tooled adventure in the pulp-esoterica spirit of Edgar Rice Burroughs; it appears that Lucas and Spielberg think just like the marketing division… But Spielberg’s technique may be too much for the genre: the opening sequence, set in South America, with Indy Jones entering a forbidden temple and fending off traps, snares, poisoned darts, tarantulas, stone doors with metal teeth, and the biggest damn boulder you’ve ever seen, is so thrill-packed you don’t have time to breathe—or to enjoy yourself much, either… you know that Spielberg, having gone sky-high at the start, must have at least seventeen other climaxes to come, and that the movie isn’t going to be an adventure but a competition… there’s no exhilaration in this dumb, motor excitement… Yet, with the manicured wide-screen images and the scale of this production, klunkiness sticks out in a way that it didn’t in the serials, which were usually all of a piece… It’s a shocker when the big-time directors provide a rationale for the marketing division—when they say, as Spielberg does, that “the real movie-lovers are still children.” And there’s no doubt he means that in a congratulatory sense. The whole collapsing industry is being inspired by old Saturday-afternoon serials, and the three biggest American moviemakers are hooked on technological playthings and techniques.” Pauline Kael, The New Yorker

I’ve been avoiding Indiana Jones like the plague until tonight when I decided to see what it’s all about. And boy was I in for a treat! I was laughing so hard at every action scene! The music was so laughable, Harrison Ford played worse than Paris Hilton sings and every cliché imaginable was there. The plot is virtually non-existent during the first half of the movie and when the real action finally kicks in, you see Dr. Jones escaping from difficult situations with unbelievable ease, the ridiculous music score serving as another way of applauding his actions. Those were the best bits. Because then you have the totally random ending that turns your laughter into a WTF expression. The characters are paper-thin – not to mention Spielberg’s obsession with the Germans (or anyone non-American or non-Jewish) who have to be depicted as either superevil or superstupid. Unintentionally funny, totally predictable and a waste of money and film. How anyone with an average IQ can enjoy this is beyond me. – grybop, IMDB  

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• Battlefield Earth
• Warner Bros.

The Most Scathing (But Also Kinda Funny) Movie Reviews From Critics

Whether they specialize in summarizing and rating the latest Hollywood flicks or older classic films, moviegoers value the assessments critics provide online and in print. Good critics often spend years studying the film industry and journalism to contribute fair and unbiased evaluations for their readers, and audiences rely on their opinions when deciding to commit time and money to a film.

As honest and reliable sources in the entertainment industry, reviewers often expose the flaws and shortcomings of the movies they rate. While readers expect to get honest and sometimes unflattering film reviews from their trusted sources, they often assume critics will remain professional and courteous with their words. However, now and then, a critic will hate a particular film so much that they feel obligated to voice their unfiltered opinion. Although their most likely intent is to provide a seriously harsh analysis, the scathing reviews from these critics often come off to readers as quite comical. 

This list features 22 such instances of funny movie reviews from critics who despised the films they critiqued. Some aren't that surprising, as the movies did not go over so well with general audiences, either. (Yet they are still, ultimately, hilarious.) However, some of the featured films won numerous awards , becoming instant classics in the hearts of fans and seemingly every other critic who watched them. 

Vote up the most brutally insulting reviews from film critics that also made you laugh. 

Roger Ebert Likened Watching ‘Battlefield Earth’ To Taking A Bus With Someone Who Doesn’t Bathe

Giving the 2000 film only half a star, Roger Ebert thought sitting through Battlefield Earth was about as enjoyable as sitting next to someone who stinks for a few hours in a tight, enclosed space: 

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. The visuals are grubby and drab. The characters are unkempt and have rotten teeth. Breathing tubes hang from their noses like ropes of snot. The soundtrack sounds like the boom mike is being slammed against the inside of a 55-gallon drum… Hiring Travolta and Whitaker was a waste of money, since we can't recognize them behind pounds of matted hair and gnarly makeup. Their costumes look like they were purchased from the Goodwill store on the planet Tatooine… The Psychlos can fly between galaxies, but look at their nails: Their civilization has mastered the hyperdrive but not the manicure… Some movies run off the rails. This one is like the train crash in The Fugitive . I watched it in mounting gloom, realizing I was witnessing something historic, a film that for decades to come will be the punch line of jokes about bad movies. There is a moment here when the Psychlos' entire planet (home office and all) is blown to smithereens, without the slightest impact on any member of the audience (or, for that matter, the cast). If the film had been destroyed in a similar cataclysm, there might have been a standing ovation.

• Columbia Pictures

Roger Ebert ‘Hated Hated Hated Hated Hated’ Rob Reiner’s ‘North’

One descriptive “hate” just wouldn't suffice for Roger Ebert as he voiced his distaste for the 1994 film, North :

I have no idea why Rob Reiner, or anyone else, wanted to make this story into a movie, and close examination of the film itself is no help. North is one of the most unpleasant, contrived, artificial, cloying experiences I've had at the movies. To call it manipulative would be inaccurate; it has an ambition to manipulate, but fails. The film stars Elijah Wood, who is a wonderful young actor… Here he is stuck in a story that no actor, however wonderful, however young, should be punished with….. What is the point of the scenes with the auditioning parents? (The victimized actors range from Dan Aykroyd as a Texan to Kathy Bates as an Eskimo). They are all seen as broad, desperate comic caricatures. They are not funny. They are not touching. There is no truth in them. They don't even work as parodies. There is an idiocy here that seems almost intentional, as if the filmmakers plotted to leave anything of interest or entertainment value out of these episodes… 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.

The hate-heavy line from the review became so famous, Ebert's book collection of bad reviews is titled after it.

• Vertical Entertainment

'New York Post' Reviewer Johnny Oleksinski Would Rather Wake Up Beside A Severed Horse Head Than Watch ‘Gotti’ Again

In a reference to The Godfather, the film that spawned the modern mob movie, reviewer Johnny Oleksinski claimed he would choose being threatened with an animal carcass in his bed over sitting through Gotti for a second time:

I’d rather wake up next to a severed horse head than ever watch Gotti again. The worst movie of the year so far, the long-awaited biopic about the Gambino crime boss’ rise from made man to top dog took four directors, 44 producers and eight years to make.  It shows. The finished product belongs in a cement bucket at the bottom of the river… Travolta, who’s made a career out of Italian stereotypes, obviously thought the Dapper Don would be his Don Corleone. It’s his Chef Boy­ardee. His performance is a leather-faced freak show. And the plot is nonsensical… [It] is an excuse for ­Travolta to shmact and for his wife, Kelly Preston - playing Gotti’s wife, Victoria - to howl like Medea… It’s the worst mob movie ever, but I see a bright future in midnight showings. “The Gotti Horror Picture Show.”

• Universal Pictures

Gene Siskel Wanted The Lead To Get Eaten In ‘Jaws: The Revenge’

Chicago Tribune critic Gene Siskel thought Lorraine Gary's performance tanked 1987's Jaws: The Revenge : 

So, we need a good villain that everyone is afraid of [to carry a storyline]. Right, a great white shark. That solves the problem with the recent Jaws films in that lately the big fish has been eating nobodies. Remember Robert Shaw's old fisherman in the original Jaws ? Remember the police chief Scheider and the ichthyologist played by Richard Dreyfuss? Now those were three somebodies. We didn't want them to die. But in the just-released Jaws: The Revenge the shark's main course is intended to be Roy Scheider's widow, Ellen Brody, a frumpy middle-aged woman played by boring actress Lorraine Gary, who happens to be married to the president of MCA Universal, which finances the Jaws films and which explains her lead role. Let's put it this way: when you see and hear the nasal Lorraine Gary on screen you want the shark to eat her…

The film critic also commended a previous actor for refusing to act in the picture:

Roy Scheider wisely departed the Jaws films, having cashed enough paychecks without losing his self-respect.

• Sony Pictures Releasing

According To Christy Lemire, Even Bennifer Couldn’t Save ‘Gigli’ From Its Terrible Dialogue

Film reviewer Christy Lemire argued that Gigli was “unwatchable,” despite featuring Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck in the leading roles: 

Gigli - which spawned the phenomenon the gossip pages and celebrity magazines so lovingly refer to as “Bennifer” - is every bit as unwatchable as the deafening negative chatter would suggest… Even making a little game of it, and trying to pinpoint the exact moment when Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez fell in love, stops being fun after a while… Perhaps it's when he says, in an attempt to seduce her, "I'm the bull, you're the cow." Or when she beckons him into foreplay by lying back in bed and purring, “Gobble, gobble” - which could forever change the way you view your Thanksgiving turkey… If this were a movie starring two B-list actors, or two complete unknowns, it probably would have gone straight to video. After curious masochists and J.Lo fans check it out the first weekend, Gigli probably will have a drop-off in audience that rivals The Hulk - 70 percent - then go to video…  Cameos from Pacino, Christopher Walken as a detective and Lainie Kazan as Gigli's mother don't help, either. Did they owe someone a favor? What are they doing here? Pacino won his one and only Oscar with Brest, [the director and producer of the film], for 1992's Scent of a Woman , but couldn't he have just thanked the director instead?

• 20th Century Fox

Roger Ebert Had A Lot To Say About The ‘Vomitorium’ That Was ‘Freddy Got Fingered’

Esteemed Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert thought Tom Green should consider bringing rocks into the theater to throw at the audience in case they assaulted him for making such a horrible film:

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. Many years ago, when surrealism was new, Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali made Un Chien Andalou, a film so shocking that Bunuel filled his pockets with stones to throw at the audience if it attacked him. Green, whose film is in the surrealist tradition, may want to consider the same tactic. The day may come when Freddy Got Fingered is seen as a milestone of neo-surrealism. The day may never come when it is seen as funny. The film is a vomitorium consisting of 93 minutes of Tom Green doing things that a geek in a carnival sideshow would turn down.

• Summit Entertainment

‘Austin Chronicle’ Reviewer Marc Savlov Has Had Mosquito Bites More Passionate Than ‘Twilight’

Austin Chronicle reviewer Marc Savlov didn't fall for the shimmery, fangless vampires in Twilight :

I've had mosquito bites that were more passionate than this undead, unrequited, and altogether unfun pseudo-romantic riff on Romeo and Juliet . Based on the hideously readable (or so my dark beloved tells me) series of "don't call them young adult" novels by Stephenie Meyer, Twilight is the first in what promises to be a lengthy cinematic franchise featuring sexy vampire boys who just say, "No, I don't drink… you ." Teens of a certain mindset (not to mention Dark Shadows fans) will eat it up, as will those who've never borne witness to Christopher Lee's bodice-busting abilities. Goths of a purer (or is that im -purer?) bent will likely put a stake in it early on and exit this soggy take on Suck Valley High in favor of more sanguine affairs (Udo Kier? Frank Langella? Max Shreck!). Another annoyance is how Meyer and Twilight 's screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg play fast and loose with traditional vampiric lore. Not only do these bloodsuckers lack anything resembling fangs (!), but they don't even succumb to sunlight, instead bursting into shimmery sparkles like raver-fairies on acid.

According To AV Club Reviewer Keith Phipps, Only Two Things Could Have Made ‘Catwoman’ Any Worse

A.V. Club film reviewer Keith Phipps felt that the 2004 film was just an excuse for Halle Berry to parade around in a leather catsuit and that very few things could've made Catwoman any worse: 

Able to leap around with feline grace, wear revealing leather outfits without shame, and improvise cat-themed puns, she is Catwoman, even though she bears little resemblance to the Catwoman from the Batman universe. It's like naming a movie Spider-Man because it's about a guy with eight legs who shoots silk out of his *ss… Mononymical director Pitof cut his teeth on digital effects and music videos, and he directs Catwoman as though he was targeting the attention span of actual cats. He cuts rapidly, keeping the camera in constant motion lest viewers wander off in search of food or a quiet place to nap. It's the least exciting form of excitement imaginable, and the story doesn't prove much of a distraction… Relentlessly gaudy and in love with its PG-13 approximation of kink, Catwoman is essentially an excuse to pose Berry in ever-skimpier outfits. It's all too pre-fab to register as sexy, though, and even the fight scenes look like fashion shoots, complete with anonymous R&B bump 'n' grind musical accompaniment. The film could have turned out worse, but only via the addition of a Tom Green cameo, or an accident in which the actors caught on fire.

Peter Rainer Suggested Bringing Ear Plugs (And Nose Plugs) To See ‘Batman & Robin’

No actor playing a leading role in the 1997 film Batman & Robin escaped the wrath of Peter Rainer's review for the Phoenix New Times :

Bring earplugs to Batman & Robin . A pair of noseplugs wouldn't hurt, either. The fourth installment in the Batman franchise is one long, head-splitting exercise in clueless cacophony that makes you feel as though you're being held hostage in some haywire Planet Hollywood while sonic booms pummel your auditory canal… The addition of Batgirl (Val-gal Alicia Silverstone) - Alfred's niece, Barbara Wilson - doesn't significantly punch up the proceedings. She seems to be in the movie not so much to give young women in the audience a heroine, but, rather, to set straight our nagging thoughts about two guys wearing capes who live together.  Despite the film's pseudofeminist angle, this new Batman is as macho fetishistic as ever: The opening credits give us full frontal body armor and codpieces, and, in a touching display of gallantry on the part of the filmmakers, Batman's and Robin's body-suit nipples are far more pronounced than Batgirl's… What gets to you isn't Freeze's attempt to revive the wife he froze until he could cure her wasting disease. No, what touches the soul is [Arnold] Schwarzenegger's heroic attempt to get his mouth around the English language - still. Schwarzenegger is game enough to work his accent into a semblance of a comic style - he pronounces it “Bat-min” - but he sounds like a Prussian Mike Mazurki. When you can make out what's he's saying at all. [Uma] Thurman's Poison Ivy is a slinky creeper who spends most of the movie in various botanically tinted body stockings or magenta gorilla suits. With Freeze, Poison Ivy wants to take over Gotham City - the world - and save the plants. She's a cartoon nightmare of a Greenpeacer - or she would be if the filmmakers had any penchant for satire, or humor above the level of an after-school special… The people who made this movie - which, as always, is set up for a sequel - will be laughing all the way to the bank. But isn't there someone in that bank who can lock them all inside a safety-deposit vault and throw away the key?

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'Washington Post' Reviewer Jen Chaney Said 'National Lampoon's Gold Diggers' Will Prompt One To Bathe In '10 Gallons Of Disinfectant'

Jen Chaney held nothing back when she reviewed National Lampoon's Gold Diggers for The Washington Post in 2004. The reviewer asserted that audiences would walk out of the theater dumber than they were when they walked in after putting the actors' performances on blast:

Just how repellent is National Lampoon's Gold Diggers ? So stupefyingly hideous that after watching it, you'll need to bathe in 10 gallons of disinfectant, get a full-body scrub and shampoo with vinegar to remove the scummy residue that remains. Some movies leave a bad taste in the mouth. This one causes full-on halitosis… It's hard to say what's most offensive about Gold Diggers . Is it the tastelessness of seeing Lasser - that's "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" to you - and Taylor flaunting their aging bodies for cheap laughs? That's certainly a major factor. These sisters, who engage in randy stripteases and eat mounds of whipped cream off of their much-younger lovers' bodies, are so vile and uninteresting that they make Patty and Selma of The Simpsons look like the twins from the Coors beer commercials.  But what's even more egregious about this alleged comedy is the fact that it was released in theaters at all. Clearly this should have been a straight-to-DVD affair. Then again, that's unfair to the many mediocre movies released solely on DVD. Even they don't deserve to be lumped in with this sub-sub-sub-par waste of 87 minutes' worth of celluloid.

Gene Siskel Questioned Who ‘Howard the Duck’ Was Made For

Famed Chicago Tribune movie critic Gene Siskel hated the characters and special effects in Howard the Duck and urged director George Lucas to stick to low-budget films after this 1986 oddity: 

Who was this stupid film made for? It's not a Donald Duck cartoon for little kids - there are too many scenes of sex, violence, and rock 'n' roll that are both dimwitted and inappropriate for little ones. Instead, this $52 million bust-out appears to have been inspired by the special-effects-filled, blockbuster comedy, Ghostbusters ... The story has no center; the duck is not likable, and the costly, overwrought, laser-filled special effects that conclude the movie are less impressive than a sparkler on a birthday cake. George ( Star Wars ) Lucas supervised the production of this film, and maybe it's time he went back to making low-budget films like his best picture, American Graffiti.

Siskel gave the film one star.

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The Long Run Time Of 'Titanic' Left Critic Desson Howe Thinking, ‘Ok, Sink Already’

In 1997, Titanic was nominated for 14 Oscars and won Academy Awards in 11 different categories. However, not every critic agreed with the movie's sweeping success. Historical events aside, even the drama of Jack and Rose's love story aboard the ill-fated ship wasn't enough to keep critic Desson Howe entertained for three and a half hours:

After this magnificent setup, the movie springs an indiscernible but steady leak. DiCaprio and Winslet make a good-hair, great-body couple… But their story - though meticulously linked with the greater disaster - is only passably involving. (And the less said about Zane's pantomimically nefarious, gun-toting assistant, played by David Warner, the better.) The fanciful, choked-throat bliss the lovebirds are supposed to evoke dissipates in the heat of Cameron's manic passion for the Titanic itself. …the movie's too long. Who wrote the 11th Commandment that says epics should go on forever? Titanic is a good, often stunning movie caught in a three-and-a-half hour drift. As we marvel at the physical spectacle of the Titanic's last few hours, we're left staggeringly untouched by the people facing their last moments. This movie should have blown us out of the water. Instead we catch ourselves occasionally thinking the unpardonable thought: "OK, sink already."

• Buena Vista Pictures Distribution

Roger Ebert Found ‘Armageddon’ To Be An ‘Assault On The Eyes’

Roger Ebert warned potential audiences that they would most likely rather die than sit through Armageddon in his earth-shattering review of the Oscar-nominated film :

Here it is at last, the first 150-minute trailer. Armageddon is cut together like its own highlights. Take almost any 30 seconds at random, and you'd have a TV ad. The movie is an assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense and the human desire to be entertained. No matter what they're charging to get in, it's worth more to get out… Armageddon reportedly used the services of nine writers. Why did it need any? The dialogue is either shouted one-liners or romantic drivel. "It's gonna blow!" is used so many times, I wonder if every single writer used it once, and then sat back from his word processor with a contented smile on his face, another day's work done… Staggering into the silence of the theater lobby after the ordeal was over, I found a big poster that was fresh off the presses with the quotes of junket blurbsters. "It will obliterate your senses!" reports David Gillin, who obviously writes autobiographically. "It will suck the air right out of your lungs!" vows Diane Kaminsky. If it does, consider it a mercy killing.

The famous critic hated Armageddon so much that he ranked it as the worst movie of 1998, even beating Spice World for the dishonorable prize.  

CNN Reviewer Paul Tatara Found ‘Absolutely Nothing’ Enjoyable In ‘Joe Dirt’

According to CNN reviewer Paul Tatara, Joe Dirt is a film permeated with bad acting and no real plot:

The newspaper ads promoting Joe Dirt - a miserable, free-form trailer-trash parody starring David Spade - boast that the picture has received "0 Directors Guild Awards, 0 Producer's Guild nominations, and 0 Golden Globe Awards." This self-deprecation might be amusing if Joe Dirt suggested that the people who made it are talented individuals who simply dropped the ball. But this script never had a chance of being converted into a decent picture, and they filmed it anyway. So, rather than be criticized for blowing it, either the producers or the studio decided to pretend it was all intentional. The question needs to be asked, then: Why do American audiences accept the stance that silly movies have to be terrible by definition? There's nothing enjoyable about Joe Dirt . Absolutely nothing. Spade's generic nonperformance is the centerpiece of a very wobbly story, and he simply isn't enough of an actor to keep you interested… Joe Dirt 's flashback structure is just as lazy as the humor. It allows director Dennie Gordon to hop, skip, and jump through the material without having to develop the characters or build even a semblance tension. It's not asking too much, by the way, to expect such things… even when you're watching a patently absurd movie. Check out Raising Arizona (1987) to see how overt stupidity can be handled with verbal wit, momentum, and a welcome implication that the audience itself isn't composed of idiots. If Raising Arizona is sophomoric, Joe Dirt is struggling through pre-school.

And in case Tatara's audience didn't quite pick up on his outward distaste for the comedy, he continued his rant in the description of the rating: 

There's not enough gumption in Joe Dirt for it to be genuinely offensive. A dog's testicles get stuck to a porch, and septic tank goo spews onto Joe's head. Is it possible to close America until further notice? Rated PG-13. 92 minutes.

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Bosley Crowther Called Warren Beatty’s Performance In ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ ‘Mannered Play-Acting Of A Hick’

New York Times film reviewer Bosley Crowther hated the acting in Bonnie and Clyde and didn't understand the massive public approval that the fictionalized story of two notorious offenders received: 

The performance that Warren Beatty gives of a light-hearted, show-offish fellow with a talent for stealing cars and holding up banks at gunpoint is mannered play-acting of a hick that bears no more resemblance to [Clyde] Barrow than it does to Jesse James. And the sweet prettified indication of Bonnie that Faye Dunaway conveys is a totally romantic exoneration of that ugly and vicious little dame. Likewise, the scattering of poor people in Texas and thereabouts that Arthur Penn has put forth as grateful recipients of the beneficences of Bonnie and Clyde - including a gauzy, grey-haired image of Bonnie's disapproving old Maw - is a skillful but loaded collection of stereotypes of poverty… It… is a grossly romantic, sentimental and arbitrary setting up of a collision of comedy and violence, which spews noise and sparks but not much truth.

The reviewer just couldn't get past the public's good opinion of the criminals or the positioning of society as the antagonists, even arguing:

By this same line of reckoning, one could build up a theme of sympathy and sadness on the thought that the system was the enemy of a character named Lee Harvey Oswald who had a penchant to fire high-powered rifles at moving targets, or that the irony of Hitler's terror was that he was so confused by his early rejection that he didn't realize the awfulness of the violence he caused.

Most other publications heaped praise upon the film, and though he'd been considered “the dean of movie critics” for the previous 29 years, Crowther's “retirement” from The Times was announced shortly after his review.

'Washington Post' Reviewer Desson Howe Said ‘Encino Man’ Was ‘Less Funny Than Your Own Funeral’

The plot line and joke sequences in Encino Man flatlined for The Washington Post 's Desson Howe:

A lot is riding on Hollywood Pictures' Encino Man . A youth comedy about a caveman who appears in 20th-century California, it scrambles hopefully after the success of the Bill & Ted and Wayne's World movies, its comic knuckles smashing every bump on the ground. If this Cro-Magnon-dumb film scores, prepare yourself for an avalanche of "isn't teenspeak b*tchin'?" movies… Less funny than your own funeral, its mission is to introduce us to yet another strain of post-surfer Cal slang. The new idioms are uttered by likable MTV personality Pauly Shore and unlikable pug Sean Astin, outcasts at Encino High… The mirth, you should be warned, never stops… If there's a funny line in the movie, it comes from Astin's father, Richard Masur. Frustrated at the ceaseless dudespeak around the dinner table, he finally sputters, "Speak English."

Kenneth Turan From The ‘Los Angeles Times’ Thought ‘Fight Club’ Was A ‘Witless Mishmash Of Whiny, Infantile Philosophizing’

Los Angeles Times reviewer Kenneth Turan questioned why anyone would even want to talk about Fight Club :

Fight Club , a film about men who like to fight, is an unsettling experience, but not the way anyone intended. What’s most troubling about this witless mishmash of whiny, infantile philosophizing and bone-crunching violence is the increasing realization that it actually thinks it’s saying something of significance. That is a scary notion indeed… These initial parts of Fight Club are structured in part as satires on the modern mania for consumerism and the cult of New Age sensitivity. Certainly these areas are ripe for sending up, but this film is so contemptuous of anything human, so eager to employ know-it-all smugness, that the cure plays worse than the disease… In one of the more curious footnotes to modern culture, Fight Club plays at times like the bombastic World Wrestling Federation version of Susan Faludi’s Stiffed , also a treatise on men who have “lost their compass in the world” and suffer from “the American masculinity crisis."… Though the film employs dubious plot twists to quasi-distance itself from the weirder implications of a philosophy the Columbine gunmen would likely have found congenial, it’s to little effect. Aside from the protracted beatings, this film is so vacuous and empty it’s more depressing than provocative. If the first rule of Fight Club is “Nobody talks about Fight Club,” a fitting subsection might be “Why would anyone want to?”

Roger Ebert Criticized The Implausible Plot Holes In ‘Home Alone'

After summarizing the plot of Home Alone as a storyline that encompasses ideas of “scary nostalgia,” Roger Ebert expressed his inability to look beyond the plot holes of the now-classic holiday film:

Home Alone is about an 8-year-old hero who does all of those things, but unfortunately he also single-handedly stymies two house burglars by booby-trapping the house. And they're the kinds of traps that any 8-year-old could devise, if he had a budget of tens of thousands of dollars and the assistance of a crew of movie special effects people... A real kid would probably be more frightened than this movie character, and would probably cry. He might also try calling someone, or asking a neighbor for help. But in the contrived world of this movie, the only neighbor is an old coot who is rumored to be the Snow Shovel Murderer, and the phone doesn't work. When Kevin's parents discover they've forgotten him, they find it impossible to get anyone to follow through on their panicked calls - if anyone did so, the movie would be over… The plot is so implausible that it makes it hard for us to really care about the plight of the kid.

Gene Siskel Called ‘The Shining’ ‘Downright Embarrassing’ In The 'Chicago Tribune'

Though widely appreciated today as one of the best horror movies of all time, The Shining , which made significant deviations from Stephen King's best-selling novel, was less appreciated at the time of its release. One contemporary critic who was far less than impressed was Gene Siskel, reviewing for the Chicago Tribune :

Stanley Kubrick's latest film, The Shining , which is being billed as the "ultimate horror film," turns out to be much less. In fact, it's a crashing disappointment. The biggest surprise is that it contains virtually no thrills… The Shining is more boring- and on a couple of occasions downright embarrassing - than anything else… One of the major problems with the film is that neither Jack nor Wendy do much changing. Right from the beginning she’s a mess, and he’s under terrific tension. There’s virtually no development of character, and we don’t have a clue why they married each other. There’s no attraction between them… At the end, as we watch the film's climactic chase scene, we expect to be overwhelmed by a horrifying image or mood. Instead, we are bored by a chase that is the stuff of amateurs. When Kubrick, late in the film, includes a shot of cobwebbed corpses sitting around tables in a parlor, we think we are looking at some kind of cheap-o horror film from the ‘50s.

In another abridged review of the film, Siskel concluded , “Jack Nicholson parodies himself while Kubrick fails to provide any thrills.”

• Warner. Bros.

Michael Dempsey For ‘Film Quarterly’ Called ‘The Exorcist’ ‘The Aesthetic Equivalent Of Being Run Over By A Truck’

Instead of being converted into a fan, film reviewer Michael Dimpsey expressed his repulsion for The Exorcist in the Summer 1974 edition of Film Quarterly :

The Exorcist is the trash bombshell of 1973, the aesthetic equivalent of being run over by a truck. Evidently a lot of people think that great art is supposed to be like this; if it shocks them, it must be brilliant. The movie is shocking alright - the press has been full of stories about fainting, vomiting, fleeing viewers - but you'd have to be a block of wood not to be shocked by the spectacle of a child systematically turned into a yellow-eyed, slime-spewing, head swiveling monster.  Despite their pontificating about Greek tragedy, the mystery of faith, and Good vs. Evil, director William Friedkin and writer-producer William Peter Blatty have actually made a gloating, ugly exploitation picture, a costlier cousin of those ghoulish cheapies released to drive-ins and flea pits almost weekly in major American cities… Blatty's hackneyed writing… only makes the character's loss of faith look like constipation. 

• Loew's, Inc.

Russell Maloney Of 'The New Yorker' Labeled ‘The Wizard of Oz’ A ‘Stinkeroo’ With ‘No Trace Of Imagination’

After talking about Walt Disney owning the fantasy realm of movies, The New Yorker 's Russell Maloney roasted MGM's Academy award-winning classic film:

…I sat cringing before M-G-M’s Technicolor production of The Wizard of Oz which displays no trace of imagination, good taste, or ingenuity. I will rest my case against The Wizard of Oz on one line of dialogue. It occurs in a scene in which the wicked witch is trying to persuade Dorothy, the little girl from Kansas, to part with a pair of magic slippers. The good witch interrupts them, warning Dorothy not to give up the slippers, whereupon the wicked witch snarls, “You keep out of this!” Well, there it is. Either you believe witches talk like that, or you don’t. I don’t. Since The Wizard of Oz is full of stuff as bad as that, or worse, I say it’s a stinkeroo. The vulgarity of which I was conscious all through the film is difficult to analyze. Part of it was the raw, eye-straining Technicolor, applied with a complete lack of restraint. And the gags! Let me give you just one. Dorothy is telling the Wizard about the fate of the wicked witch. “She just melted away,” Dorothy says. “ Liquidated , eh?” the Wizard comes back, quick as a flash. He’s a card, that Wizard; you ought to hear him ribbing the boys in Dave’s Blue Room some morning. Bert Lahr, as the Cowardly Lion, is funny but out of place. If Bert Lahr belongs in the Land of Oz, so does Mae West… I don’t like the Singer Midgets under any circumstances, but I found them especially bothersome in Technicolor.

A 'New York' Magazine Review Thought ‘The Thing’ Was Disgusting And Boring

A movie critic for New York magazine didn't find the 1982 version of The Thing particularly scary, or even interesting:

John Carpenter's monster movie is more disgusting than frightening, and most of it is just boring. Unlike the 1951 Thing , an entertaining B movie, Carpenter and screenwriter Bill Lancaster exploit the original premise of John W. Campbell Jr.'s 1938 science-fiction story, “Who Goes There?”… Intending to create total paranoia, Carpenter makes the monster as hideous as possible, and releases a torrent of blood and viscera. But the filmmakers never dramatize the feelings of their indistinguishable characters, and the threat is entirely external. Set in drab rooms and hallways, and shot without a distinctive visual rhythm, The Thing is about as impersonal as a movie can be.

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Daring to revisit fan-panned movies that deserve two thumbs down.

50 of the funniest, most searing movie reviews ever written

• Movie reviewers have had some pretty scathing takes on films throughout the years. 
• One reviewer referred to a film as like "Grease: The Next Generation" acted out by the food-court staff at SeaWorld.
• Another riffed "Some movies leave a bad taste in the mouth. This one causes full-on halitosis."

For many viewers, a movie can simply exist as something to fill a void of upwards of 90 minutes. Film critics, who spend their lives scribbling notes in dark theaters, ask for a little more.

" I have a colleague who describes his job as 'covering the national dream beat,' because if you pay attention to the movies they will tell you what people desire and fear in their deepest secrets," the late Roger Ebert wrote in 1992 . "At least, the good ones will. That's why we go, hoping to be touched in those secret places. Movies are hardly ever about what they seem to be about. Look at a movie that a lot of people love, and you will find something profound, no matter how silly the film may seem."

Sometimes the best thing to come out of a movie is a blistering review. INSIDER rounded up 50 of the funniest, most searing movie reviews ever written.

Critics said that heartbreak was preferable to watching "Valentine's Day."

"'Valentine's Day' is being marketed as a Date Movie. I think it's more of a First-Date Movie. If your date likes it, do not date that person again. And if you like it, there may not be a second date." —   Roger Ebert , Chicago Sun-Times.

Critics eviscerated "Twilight," but the movie still made more than $390 million at the box office.

"I've had mosquito bites that were more passionate than this undead, unrequited, and altogether unfun pseudo-romantic riff on 'Romeo and Juliet.'" — Marc Salov , The Austin Chronicle.  

"The Other Woman" wasn't a hit with critics.

"I know what you're thinking ... 'Enough beating around the bush. Just tell us whether you liked it.' Consider this, which I will say in terms this movie would understand, if you were on an airplane, 'The Other Woman'   might not be preferable to simply staring into your empty airsick bag, but it has enough nicely executed physical comedy that in the event you become ill, it is definitely preferable to staring into your occupied airsick bag." — Linda Holmes , NPR.

"The Emoji Movie" has an 8% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

"This is a movie about how words aren't cool, but you can still expect a girl to fall at your feet in response to mild wordplay. Please keep up. Or throw whatever device you’re reading this on into the ocean. Send me a postcard ... tell me what it’s like to be free." — Kaitlyn Tiffany and Lizzie Plaugic , The Verge.

Netflix is making a sequel to "Bright" despite the fact it was totally panned by critics.

"While I had the misfortune to see 'Bright' in a theater, most people will simply press 'play' out of curiosity on their Roku remote. I am willing to concede that this might elevate the experience a little ... the ability to take a quick trip to the kitchen or restroom after shouting 'no, don't pause it' to your partner on the couch will be liberating." — Jordan Hoffman , Vanity Fair.

"Battlefield Earth" was a box-office bust and a critical failure.

"'Battlefield Earth' saves its scariest moment for the end: a virtual guarantee that there will be a sequel." — Desson Howe , The Washington Post.

The basic plot of "Milk Money" perplexed critics.

Roger Ebert imagined what the conversation between studio executives would have looked like when they greenlit the movie:

"Studio Executive A: Kind of like 'Working Girl Turns a Trick?'

"Studio Executive B: Cuter than that. We start with three 12-year-old boys. They're going crazy because they've never seen a naked woman.

"Studio Executive A: Whatsamatter? They poor? Don't they have cable?"

Even fans of the HBO series prefer to pretend "Sex and the City 2" doesn't exist, according to critics.

"When viewed as a rom-com, 'Sex and the City 2' is terrible and crappy and a horrific inversion of everything the show once was. But when viewed as a science fiction film, 'SATC2' is subversive, stylish and chilling. Like The Island from 'Lost,' we may never know The City's true identity — Is it a VR computer program? A malevolent interdimensional god? Satan?" — Cyriaque Lamar , i09.

Making fun of "Gigli" became a national past-time.

"Even making a little game of it, and trying to pinpoint the exact moment when Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez fell in love, stops being fun after a while. Perhaps it's when he says, in an attempt to seduce her, 'I'm the bull, you're the cow.' Or when she beckons him into foreplay by lying back in bed and purring, 'Gobble, gobble' — which could forever change the way you view your Thanksgiving turkey." — Christy Lemire , The Associated Press.

"The Adventures of Pluto Nash" wasn't a hit with critics.

"It's good to know that, if we have to leave Earth someday, we won't have to go without our kitsch. Forensics experts will be digging through the rubble of this fiasco for a long time, trying to reconstruct the accident. How did so many lines fall flat? Why were the action scenes so corny and unconvincing? Who put the stink on this?" — Jack Mathews , New York Daily News.

"Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2" has a 2% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

" At its best/worst, 'Superbabies' hallucinatory idiocy inspires open-mouthed horror at what happens when an ill-conceived premise leads to even more jaw-droppingly misguided execution." — Nathan Rabin , AV Club.

Critics thought "Gotti" was so bad it was almost criminal.

"I'd rather wake up next to a severed horse head than ever watch 'Gotti' again. The worst movie of the year so far, the long-awaited biopic about the Gambino crime boss' rise from made man to top dog took four directors, 44 producers and eight years to make. It shows. The finished product belongs in a cement bucket at the bottom of the river." — Johnny Oleksinski , New York Post.

Critics got personal with their contempt for "Jaws: The Revenge."

"In the just-released 'Jaws: The Revenge' the shark's main course is intended to be Roy Scheider's widow, Ellen Brody, a frumpy middle-aged woman played by boring actress Lorraine Gary, who happens to be married to the president of MCA Universal, which finances the 'Jaws' films and which explains her lead role. Let's put it this way: When you see and hear the nasal Lorraine Gary on screen you want the shark to eat her." — Gene Siskel , Chicago Tribune.

"One Missed Call" didn't warrant anyone's attention, according to critics.

"The kid in front of me spent most of the movie playing Tetris on his phone. I didn't care enough about the movie to ask him to stop, or to find a cooler game." — Wesley Morris , The Boston Globe.

The critical response to "Jack Frost" was icy.

"With emotions as sincere as the soap flake snow on its sets, 'Jack Frost' goes on to show how much fun it is to have a snowman as a loving, though dead, father … As one more Hollywood effort to look on the sunny side of fatality, 'Jack Frost' is so sugarcoated that it makes other recent efforts in this genre look blisteringly honest." — Janet Maslin , The New York Times.

"The Snowman" left critics cold.

"'The Snowman' is like if aliens studied humanity and tried to make their own movie in an attempt to communicate with us. This simulacrum contains all the requisite pieces of a movie, but humanity got lost in translation." — Barbara VanDenburgh , The Arizona Republic.

Critics saw "Batman & Robin" as more of a cash-grab than a movie.

" The people who made this movie — which, as always, is set up for a sequel — will be laughing all the way to the bank. But isn't there someone in that bank who can lock them all inside a safety-deposit vault and throw away the key?" — Peter Rainer , The Phoenix New Times.

"Cool World" was almost universally hated by critics.

"The plot of Michael Grais' and Mark Victor's screenplay is even more nonsensical than it needs to be, revolving around frequent unmotivated trips between parallel cartoon and live-action universes, and around the question of whether cartoon women will have sex with human men." — Janet Maslin , The New York Times.

"Titanic" won 11 Academy Awards, but critics thought it took its sweet time getting to the point.

"'Titanic' is a good, often stunning movie caught in a three-and-a-half hour drift. As we marvel at the physical spectacle of the Titanic's last few hours, we're left staggeringly untouched by the people facing their last moments. This movie should have blown us out of the water. Instead, we catch ourselves occasionally thinking the unpardonable thought: 'OK, sink already.'" — Desson Howe , The Washington Post.

"Howard The Duck" was a one-note movie that prompted critics to question for whom exactly the movie was made.

"The story has no center; the duck is not likable, and the costly, overwrought, laser-filled special effects that conclude the movie are less impressive than a sparkler on a birthday cake. George 'Star Wars' Lucas supervised the production of this film, and maybe it's time he went back to making low-budget films like his best picture, 'American Graffiti.'" — Gene Siskel , The Chicago Tribune.

"Catwoman" is considered by critics to be one of the worst superhero movies ever made.

"The film could have turned out worse, but only via the addition of a Tom Green cameo, or an accident in which the actors caught on fire." — Keith Phipps , The AV Club

Critics thought "Mac and Me" was a discount version of "ET: The Extraterrestrial."

"'Mac and Me,' which opened yesterday at the Guild and other theaters, has a final police shootout and a fiery explosion in which Eric is the victim. When a doctor announced that Eric was gone, a small boy behind me said, 'He ain't dead,' with all the calm assurance of an experienced moviegoer who knows perfectly well that if E.T. came back, so would Eric. Cloning is a dangerous thing." — Caryn James , The New York Times.

Only a sucker would bother watching "Sucker Punch" after reading reviews.

"In the end, though the metaphor of mental institution as battleground is an interesting one to explore, that is not the analysis at the heart of this movie. Nope, 'Sucker Punch' is a two-hour $82 million fetish film examining how hot sad schoolgirls look when holding weapons. Snyder should have just made a porn movie — it might have been better, and it definitely would have been cheaper and more honest." — Dodai Stewart , Jezebel.

"Movie 43" prompted devastating reviews.

"It's as if 'Movie 43' was itself a feature-length f--- you to Hollywood, a movie made simply to show how bad a movie a studio could be induced to make and actors could be persuaded to act in." — Richard Brody , The New Yorker.

The best thing critics could say about "Fifty Shades Freed" was that the trilogy was finally over.

"Universal has had some fun with its marketing campaign, using the tag-line, 'Don't miss the climax.' It's a shame, though, that the posters exhibit considerably more ingenuity than the film itself." — Brian Lowery , CNN.

"A Christmas Prince" falls squarely in the category of "so bad it's good."

"It's a Netflix original movie, but it feels like a violation of nature that it somehow isn't from Lifetime or the Hallmark Channel. Nathan Atkins is credited with the screenplay, but this film is such a perfect amalgam of established tropes that I am not entirely convinced that isn't a pseudonym to keep us from discovering that Netflix has created the artificial-intelligence technology to generate a script using auto-complete." — Dana Schwartz , Entertainment Weekly.

"A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding" seemed to revel in shoddiness.

"It plays like a piece of Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan fan fiction, written by a child who actually doesn't know who they are but has watched the 'Princess Diaries' films." — Carly Mallenbaum , USA Today.

Critics thought "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" was far too depressing for a superhero movie.

"An even less charitable way to put it is that a clearly excited 7- or 8-year-old kid sitting in front of me busted out crying and had to be whisked out of the theater by his father within the first five minutes. Perhaps he was unnerved by the harsh, operatic violence of Bruce Wayne's parents getting murdered — the mom's pearls get tangled around the gun, somehow, which allows for some very tight and poignant slow motion — or maybe he was offended by the notion that a 2016 Batman movie felt it necessary to depict Bruce Wayne's parents getting murdered. Either way, this kid bounced." — Rob Harvilla , Deadspin.

Critics thought "Transformers: The Last Knight" was simply too incoherent to describe.

"I'll admit, I've been dreading the thought of trying to at all explain the plot of this movie — even in broad, simple terms. I honestly had anxiety dreams last night about this moment. It's like staring at a projected kaleidoscope for two and a half hours and then trying to tell someone about the plot." — Mike Ryan , Uproxx.

Many thought "The Brown Bunny" was tedious and only remembered for its inclusion of one explicit scene.

"It's not really a movie. I suppose it's what could be called a recorded behavior. It simply reproduces, with some crude fidelity, the hapless anguish of a grieving man as he copes with his loss. It has no characters, it has no conflict, it has nothing that could be called a plot. It offers no reason to watch it — that is, no reason within the picture." — Stephen Hunter , The Washington Post.

Critics were thoroughly disgusted by "The Human Centipede," but they were also bored by it.

"This is one of those movies where victims repeatedly have opportunities to escape but choose not to, guaranteeing still more grotesque degradation, full of gore, torture, and sexual humiliation — and contains not an iota of wit or intelligence to justify any of it." — Michael Ordoña , The Los Angeles Times.

"Avatar" is still the highest grossing movie of all time, but not everyone was a fan.

"' Avatar' isn't about actors or characters or even about story; it's about special effects, which is fine as far as it goes. But for a movie that stresses how important it is for us to stay connected with nature, to keep our ponytails plugged into the life force, 'Avatar' is peculiarly bloodless. It's a remote-control movie experience, a high-tech 'wish you were here' scribbled on a very expensive postcard. You don't have to be fully present to experience 'Avatar'; all you have to do is show up." — Stephanie Zacharek , Salon.

Critics thought "I Know Who Killed Me" was embarrassing for everyone involved.

"Pretentious and inane, 'I Know Who Killed Me' arouses unexpected sympathy for its embattled star. 'Should we populate the movie with competent, strong performances, or were we looking for stars?' asks the producer, Frank Mancuso Jr., in the film's production notes. Out of the mouths of producers." — Jeannette Catsoulis , The New York Times.

Critics thought there was nothing redeeming about "Sorority Boys."

"I'm curious about who would go to see this movie. Obviously moviegoers with a low opinion of their own taste. It's so obviously what it is that you would require a positive desire to throw away money in order to lose two hours of your life. 'Sorority Boys' will be the worst movie playing in any multiplex in America this weekend, and, yes, I realize 'Crossroads' is still out there." — Roger Ebert , The Chicago Sun-Times.

"Forrest Gump" won multiple Academy Awards, but it still prompted some biting reviews.

"With two decades of perspective on 'Forrest Gump's triumph, you get the sense that '90s audiences were relieved to see a film that said it was OK — even honorable — to ignore all the bad stuff about war. So, too, was the Motion Picture Academy, which 12 months after lauding 'Schindler's List'   decided, 'Screw it, let's give the awards to the movie that sells cookbooks.' — Amy Nicholson , LA Weekly.

Critics absolutely hated "Life Itself."

"'Life Itself' thinks you're stupid. Or, if not stupid, unable to understand how a movie should work. It's a movie made for people who can't be trusted to understand any storytelling unless it's not just spoon-fed but ladled on, piled high, and explained via montage and voiceover" — Kate Erbland , IndieWire.

"Ridiculous 6" felt intentionally offensive.

"There's the broad racism and misogyny of the piece. After the controversial walk-offs, Netflix claimed that this was 'satire.' It's not. There's nothing satirical about Sandler's bad Native American accent, which totally comes and goes, by the way, or Schneider's Hispanic caricature. Saying that this is satire is like the drunk guy at the bar telling you how many black friends he has after telling a racist joke. Don't fall for it." — Brian Tallerico , RogerEbert.com.

"The Village" felt like a waste of time to some.

" [M. Night Shyamalan] directs the material as if he'd written it (which he did), and not a single friend dared tell him the truth." — Mick LaSalle , SFGate.

The extreme level of product placement in "Crossroads" was an issue for critics.

"It turns out that 'Crossroads' is not a music video, not yet a movie, but more like an extended-play advertisement for the Product that is Britney." — Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post.

Critics thought "Grown Ups" was a lazy attempt at comedy.

"The movie is symptomatic of a social attitude that might be called the security of incompetence. There's something reassuring about a bad movie that doesn't ask you to think or feel or even pay attention ... we can all be happy D-minus students huddled together in communal self-disgust in a D-minus world." — Stephen Holden , The New York Times.

Critics thought "Grown Ups 2" was so bad that it made them appreciate the first movie.

"In 'Grown Ups 2,' which is set on the last day of school, our heroes are now all living in the same small town together, and everybody's pretty happy, so there's little to motivate the action. It makes the first movie look like 'The Maltese Falcon.'" — Bilge Ebiri , Vulture.

Some thought "Suburbicon" was too smug for its own good.

"You absolutely can fault [George Clooney] for wrongheadedness in making a movie that condemns racism, and specifically segregation in the postwar housing boom, albeit in the most broad, perfunctory, awareness-ribbon-wearing way while barely allowing its black characters to speak. 'Suburbicon' might be the biggest embarrassment to pious Hollywood liberalism since 'Crash' won best picture in 2006." — Chris Klimek , NPR.

"Mother!" may not have been enjoyable, but it certainly was memorable.

"I admired the camerawork, the wide-angle close-ups of flaring nostrils, and the pandemonium of the crowd scenes in the second half of the film when it goes haywire and insanity reign. It's an odd sensation to still remember moments of technical brilliance in a movie I never want to see again." — Rex Reed , The Observer.

Some thought "Freddy Got Fingered" was an embarrassment for everyone involved.

" 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." — Roger Ebert , Chicago Sun-Times.

Critics thought there just wasn't anything funny about "Joe Dirt."

"Why do American audiences accept the stance that silly movies have to be terrible by definition? There's nothing enjoyable about 'Joe Dirt.' Absolutely nothing. Spade's generic nonperformance is the centerpiece of a very wobbly story, and he simply isn't enough of an actor to keep you interested." — Paul Tatara , CNN.

Critics thought "Fantastic Four" was the opposite of fantastic.

"My notebook usually remains near my lap, but at this movie, it made involuntary trips over my mouth to cover all of my gasping. The entire experience is shameful — for us, for the filmmakers, for whoever at the studio had the job of creating the ads, in which the cast appear to be starring in hostage posters." — Wesley Morris , Grantland.

"From Justin to Kelly" was embarrassingly amateur, according to critics.

"How bad is 'From Justin to Kelly?' Set in Miami during spring break, it's like 'Grease: The Next Generation' acted out by the food-court staff at SeaWorld." — Owen Gleiberman , Entertainment Weekly.

"National Lampoon's Gold Diggers" has a 0% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

"Just how repellent is 'National Lampoon's Gold Diggers?' So stupefyingly hideous that after watching it, you'll need to bathe in 10 gallons of disinfectant, get a full-body scrub and shampoo with vinegar to remove the scummy residue that remains. Some movies leave a bad taste in the mouth. This one causes full-on halitosis." — Jen Chaney , The Washington Post.

"Venom" was a tonally-uneven, muddled mess, according to most critics.

"For all of its cult potential, and my God, is this film rife with it, it is 'Venom's' insidious political intonations, which were entirely avoidable, that become the least palatable aspect of the film. And this is a movie where you see Tom Hardy eat out of a garbage can." — Sarah Tai-Black , The Globe and Mail.

"North" almost universally disliked by critics and prompted one of Roger Ebert's movie memorable reviews.

"' North' is one of the most unpleasant, contrived, artificial, cloying experiences I've had at the movies. To call it manipulative would be inaccurate; it has an ambition to manipulate, but fails … 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." — Roger Ebert , Chicago Sun-Times.

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The 25 most scathing and hilariously mean film reviews from the poison pens of movie critics

WHICH films made the list of the 25 most scathing and hilariously mean film reviews from the poison pens of movie critics?

FILM reviewers will tell you it’s not their glowing praise for works of cinematic brilliance that get cinema-goers excited — it’s their scathing reviews and witty put-downs that really garner the most attention.

Every reviewer, in some small way, is trying to top Dorothy Parker’s immortal line about Katharine Hepburn’s acting ability, which she said ran “the gamut of emotions from A to B”.

Scathing reviews are so popular that when Roger Ebert of Siskel and Ebert “Two Thumbs Up” fame died in 2013, the obituaries almost came second to long and reverential lists of Ebert’s greatest critical pans. This was a critic who said Freddy Got Fingered didn’t merely scrape the bottom of the barrel, it “doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as barrels”. And his war of words with actor/director Vincent Gallo about The Brown Bunny culminated in the line: “I had a colonoscopy once, and they let me watch it on TV. It was more entertaining than The Brown Bunny .” (Showing his strength of character, he later recanted and gave a re-edited version of the film the thumbs up.)

While our own Leigh Paatsch is thoughtful about those films that deserve it, he reliably produces witty take downs of films that don’t. Watching 47 Ronin he wrote that two questions sprang immediately to mind: “Where has Keanu Reeves been all these years? And why couldn’t he have stayed there a little longer?” And he neatly summed up Pain and Gain starring Dwayne Johnson and Mark Wahlberg as: “No gain, Mostly Pain”.

Here are some more of our all-time favourite critical put-downs.

“It is a film so awe-inspiringly wooden that it is basically a fire-risk.”

Grace of Monaco , Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian.

“(Director Joe) Wright (has) this unashamed love of the proscenium but did it need to be so arch?”

Anna Karenina , Tim Robey, The Telegraph.

“I entered the theatre in the bloom of youth and emerged with a family of field mice living in my long, white moustache. (The film) is an entirely inappropriate length for what is essentially a home video of gay men playing with giant Barbie dolls.”

Sex and the City 2 , Lindy West, thestranger.com

“I’m not familiar with the Bulletproof Monk comic book that sparked this movie but this is because I have known the soft caress of a woman and am thus excluded from the target demographic.”

Bulletproof Monk, MrCranky.com

“Love him, hated Hur”

Ben Hur , comedian Mort Sahl.

“An explosion in a stupid factory”

A Good Day To Die Hard , Larushka Ivan-Zadeh, Metro

“ Forrest Gump on a Tractor”

The Straight Story — David Cox, Film4/The Guardian

“On the IMDB trivia page it says ‘The most amazing thing about Pirates 3 is that they started filming without a completed script’. No, they finished filming without a completed script.”

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End , Mark Kermode, The Observer.

“No.”

Isn’t It Romantic? , Leonard Maltin.

“Perhaps the closest Hollywood has yet come to making ‘Ow! My Balls!’ seem like a plausible future project.”

Grown Ups 2 , Andrew Barker, Variety

“Director Todd Phillips delivers a film so different from the first two, I’m not even sure it’s supposed to be a comedy.”

The Hangover 3 , Richard Roeper, The Chicago Sun-Times

“What can you say about a sequel that Steve Guttenberg won’t even appear in?”

Police Academy 5 , Leonard Maltin

“Only — repeat only — for those who thought Police Academy 5 was robbed at Oscar time”

Police Academy 6 , Leonard Maltin

“Armageddon got some astronomy right. For example, there is an asteroid in the movie, and asteroids do indeed exist.”

Armageddon , Phil Plait, the “Bad Astronomer”

“Nicole ‘does’ sexy with all the erotic charge with which one ‘does’ the washing up. I’d rather gargle battery acid than have to watch Birthday Girl again. ”

Birthday Girl , Sukhdev Sandhu, The Daily Telegraph

“(Revenge of the Sith) marks a distinct improvement on the last two episodes, The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones … but only in the same way that dying from natural causes is preferable to crucifixion.”

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith , Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

“It’s marginally better than The Cat in the Hat, though that’s like saying suffocation is mildly more amusing than drowning.”

Garfield: The Movie , Sean O’Connell, Filmcritic.com

“M. Night Shyamalan has nothing to say, but he’s going to keep right on saying it until people make him stop.”

The Village , Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

“Absolute cack: appallingly written, witlessly directed and sung as if by mice being tortured. It makes Teletubbies look like The Iliad in comparison.”

Mamma Mia! Stephen Pollard, The Spectator

“(Nick) Nolte looks as though he died five years ago and nobody bothered to tell him, and he runs (or staggers) with the tatty grace of the walking dead.”

The Good Thief , Marc Savlov, The Austin Chronicle

“Built to make money but hardly worthy of serious examination. Avatar isn’t only critic-proof, it resists serious criticism. You might as well analyze a beach ball.”

Avatar , Philip Martin, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

“A misfire of inanities. This is a failure of epic proportions. You’ve got to be a genius to make a movie this bad.”

The Bonfire of the Vanities , Joel Siegel on ABC TV (US)

“Eleven years and several progressively more dreadful movies after Signs, director M. Night Shyamalan would be lucky to get a gig directing traffic.”

After Earth , Lou Lumenick, New York Post

“If there are ten films worse than Bride Wars this year, I quit ... Everyone will tell you it’s a chick flick. Only in the sense that if you ground it up and fed it to battery hens it might be better served than running it through a projector.”

Bride Wars , Mark Kermode, The Observer*

(*And many thanks to Kermode , whose very funny book Hatchet Job: Love Movies, Hate Critics , sparked the idea for this article).

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Roger Ebert’s 10 Funniest Bad Movie Reviews

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There's no doubt that film critics are important . Their reviews have become an important tool for audiences, a go-to resource that helps viewers discern which films are worth their time and money. And one of cinema's most iconic and important critics was Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times. Most people associate him with his "thumbs up, thumbs down" critique. But for movie buffs and filmmakers, Ebert was better known for his honest and impassioned evaluation of movies, intermingling his opinions with legitimate film history and knowledge. He supported many up-and-coming filmmakers before they hit the big time, like Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee, and his reviews often filled theater seats for the movies that he championed.

But Roger Ebert is perhaps just as well known for his negative reviews as his positive ones. His bad reviews were often hilariously brutal and scathing, tearing films apart with laugh-out-loud jokes and sarcasm, and provided more entertainment than the movies he critiqued. Ebert's negative reviews became so popular that he published legitimate compilations of them, like 2000's I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie and 2007's Your Movie Sucks. Let's go through Ebert's impressive 46-year career and laugh at some of his funniest negative reviews.

10 'Charlie's Angels' (2000)

Charlie's angels.

2000's Charlie's Angels was the first in a trilogy of films that brought the iconic 1970s TV series to the big screen . Like the TV show, it follows three female private investigators, who kick ass and solve crimes for unseen millionaire, Charlie Townsend. Many male viewers spent the movie drooling over its sexy leads. Roger Ebert, however, was not one of them.

What Ebert Had to Say

"'Charlie's Angels' is eye candy for the blind," Ebert wrote in his review. "It's a movie without a brain in its three pretty little heads, which belong to Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu. This movie is a dead zone in their lives, and mine."

Supporting star Bill Murray also snagged a bullet: "The cast also contains Bill Murray, who likes to appear unbilled in a lot of his movies and picked the wrong one to shelve that policy."

Even the Angels' fashion choices weren't safe from Ebert's review: "They perform his missions while wearing clothes possibly found at the thrift shop across the street from Coyote Ugly." Ebert gave Charlie's Angels half a star, so there must've been something he liked to spare it from a zero. It's just unclear what that something was.

The Movie That Everyone Involved Disowned and Roger Ebert Walked Out of Has Finally Been Restored to Its Intended State

The Ultimate Cut of the controversial X-rated Caligula is now available on Max.

9 'Armageddon' (1998)

Armageddon sends a team of ragtag, deep-core drillers, which includes Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, and Steve Buscemi, into space to nuke a massive asteroid that threatens to destroy Earth. It's a far-fetched premise but can apparently work in real life. Audiences found Armageddon to be an entertaining ride with action, comedy, and some tear-jerking moments.

Like many critics, Roger Ebert destroyed this movie like it was an asteroid hurtling toward Earth. We challenge you to read his review's opening paragraph without cracking a smile:

"Here it is at last, the first 150-minute trailer. 'Armageddon' is cut together like its own highlights. Take almost any 30 seconds at random, and you'd have a TV ad. The movie is an assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense and the human desire to be entertained. No matter what they're charging to get in, it's worth more to get out."

Ebert concludes his distaste for Armageddon with this funny last paragraph, which also takes aim at critics who positively reviewed the movie. "Staggering into the silence of the theater lobby after the ordeal was over, I found a big poster that was fresh off the presses with the quotes of junket blurbsters. 'It will obliterate your senses!' reports David Gillin, who obviously writes autobiographically. 'It will suck the air right out of your lungs!' vows Diane Kaminsky. If it does, consider it a mercy killing."

8 'Freddy Got Fingered' (2001)

Freddy got fingered.

Tom Green was a big name in comedy during the early 2000s. He wrote and starred in a little comedy called Freddy Got Fingered, which was also his first, and last, directorial effort. A semi-autobiographical film, it follows a childish slacker who deals with his abusive father while dreaming of becoming a professional cartoonist. Freddy Got Fingered is probably Tom Green's biggest movie -- and also his worst. Many critics called it one of the worst films ever made, including Roger Ebert.

Ebert drops many funny lines in his zero-star review of Freddy Got Fingered.

"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."

He then goes on to explain why, comically stating, "The film is a vomitorium consisting of 93 minutes of Tom Green doing things that a geek in a carnival sideshow would turn down."

7 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen' (2009)

Transformers: revenge of the fallen.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is the second installment of the action-packed Transformers film series and continues the Autobots' war against the villainous Decepticons. It was a tremendous box office success. It surpassed its predecessor and grossed over $836 million, despite abysmal reviews from critics. And one of them, naturally, was Roger Ebert.

The film historian kicked off his one-star critique with this hilarious opening:

"'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen' is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination."

6 'Little Indian, Big City' (1994)

Little indian, big city.

Never heard of Little Indian, Big City ? That's probably because it's a French film that had a limited English language release. Perhaps you're more familiar with its 1997 American adaptation, Jungle 2 Jungle, which stars Tim Allen and follows the same premise: a businessman discovers that he has a teenage son, who's been raised as an Indian.

Roger Ebert makes his feelings on Little Indian, Big City very clear in the first paragraph of his review:

"'Little Indian, Big City' is one of the worst movies ever made. I detested every moronic minute of it. Through a stroke of good luck, the entire third reel of the film was missing the day I saw it. I went back to the screening room two days later, to view the missing reel. It was as bad as the rest, but nothing could have saved this film."

Ebert continues to berate the movie, hurling comedic insults at Little Indian, Big City , all the way up to the very last paragraph. " There is a movie called 'Fargo' playing right now . It is a masterpiece. Go see it. If you, under any circumstances, see 'Little Indian, Big City', I will never let you read one of my reviews again."

5 'The Village' (2004)

The village.

Directed by M. Knight Shyamalan, The Village is set in a small Pennsylvania village in the 1800s. Residents of the village live in fear of sinister creatures living in the woods around them, leading them to be very isolationist, not allowing people to leave. The film follows a young couple who attempt to leave the village in order to procure medical supplies from the surrounding towns. Bryce Dallas Howard and Joaquin Phoenix star as the couple, Ivy and Lucius, with a further cast that includes Adrien Brody, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, and Brendan Gleeson. 

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The Village was the fourth film by director M. Knight Shyamalan, whose movies are largely known for their plot twists . It's set in a 19th-century village, whose small population lives in fear of the monsters that prowl the woods beyond it. Or so it seems. The Village was a turning point in Shyamalan's career, whose last three films -- The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs -- had scored well with critics and audiences. The Village marked a decline in the quality of Shyamalan's films, an opinion that Roger Ebert shared in his review.

Ebert had this to say about the plot twist in The Village:

" It's so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don't know the secret anymore. And then keep on rewinding, and rewinding, until we're back at the beginning, and can get up from our seats and walk backward out of the theater and go down the up escalator and watch the money spring from the cash register into our pockets."

4 'The Brown Bunny' (2003)

The Brown Bunny follows a motorcycle racer on a cross-country ride, who's haunted by the memories of his former lover. It's a small, independent flick that was written, produced, and directed by Vincent Gallo. Oh, and he starred in the movie, too. The Brown Bunny made a big splash during its grand premiere at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival -- and for all the wrong reasons. The movie stirred up controversy for featuring a graphic scene where Chloë Sevigny gives real oral sex to her co-star.

In his review of the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, Ebert called The Brown Bunny, "the worst film in the history of the festival...I have not seen every film in the history of the festival, yet I feel my judgment will stand."

There are so many funny gems in this review, like this one: "Of Vincent Gallo...it can be said that this talented actor must have been out of his mind to (a) make this film and (b) allow it to be seen." And also this one: " That this film was admitted into Cannes as an Official Selection is inexplicable. By no standard, through no lens, in any interpretation, does it qualify for Cannes. The quip is: This is the most anti-American film at Cannes, because it is so anti-American to show it as an example of American filmmaking."

The Ebert-Gallo Feud

The Brown Bunny became infamous for Gallo's public feud with Roger Ebert. Outraged by Ebert's criticisms, Gallo incited a war of words with the film historian, calling hm a "fat pig with the physique of a slave trader." Ebert hit back with a remark that further twisted the knife in Gallo's wound: "It is true that I am fat, but one day I will be thin, and he will still be the director of 'The Brown Bunny.'"

The feud didn't stop there. Gallo later claimed that he put a hex on Ebert's colon, cursing him with cancer (which Ebert would ironically get diagnosed with in 2002, though it wasn't in his colon). Ebert quipped back with one of his funniest lines: "I had a colonoscopy once, and they let me watch it on TV. It was more entertaining than ‘The Brown Bunny.'” The two film lovers eventually settled their feud and got on amicable terms. Ebert even reviewed a recut version of The Brown Bunny and recanted his initial opinion, giving this new version three stars.

3 'Battlefield Earth' (2000)

Battlefield earth.

Battlefield Earth is infamous in the world of cinema . And that's partially because the film is based on the sci-fi novel of the same name by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, so you know things are going to get weird. Battlefield Earth follows a rebellion against the aliens who have ruled Earth for 1,000 years. It was produced by John Travolta, a fellow Scientologist, who also starred in the film. Battlefield Earth was a critical and commercial disaster. It didn't just bomb at the box office; it bankrupted Franchise Pictures, one of the studios that produced it.

The only good thing to come out of Battlefield Earth was one of Roger Ebert's funniest reviews. "Some movies run off the rails. This one is like the train crash in 'The Fugitive'," he wrote. "I watched it in mounting gloom, realizing I was witnessing something historic, a film that for decades to come will be the punch line of jokes about bad movies." And Ebert was right. Battlefield Earth is widely regarded as one of the worst movies ever made.

2 'Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo' (2005)

Deuce bigalow: european gigolo.

Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo is the comedy sequel to Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo. As its title suggests, male sex worker Deuce Bigalow (Rob Schneider) is bringing his talents to Europe. He visits his former pimp in Amsterdam, where he gets entangled with a serial killer who's killing off male prostitutes. Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo didn't fare as well as its predecessor, earning far less money and receiving worse reviews. Care to guess the film's most vocal critic? We'll give you one guess.

"How much he charges I'm not sure," Ebert wrote in his zero-star review, referring to Deuce's sexual services, "but the price is worth it if it keeps him off the streets and out of another movie. 'Deuce Bigalow' is aggressively bad, as if it wants to cause suffering to the audience." Ebert later goes on to say, "It sounds to me like a movie that Columbia Pictures and the film's producers...should be discussing in long, sad conversations with their inner child."

Ebert wasn't the only film critic who bashed Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times called Schneider a "third-rate comic." Offended, Schneider claimed that Goldstein wasn't qualified to review the film since he wasn't a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. This response set up Ebert, who has won a Pulitzer, for the slam dunk:

"But Schneider is correct, and Patrick Goldstein has not yet won a Pulitzer Prize...As chance would have it, I have won the Pulitzer Prize, and so I am qualified. Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks."

Those last three words would later inspire Ebert's 2007 book, Your Movie Sucks.

10 Movies on Netflix That Roger Ebert Loved

Famed critic Roger Ebert loved these films and they're available to stream now on Netflix.

1 'North' (1994)

North is the most infamous movie that you've probably never heard of. Sick of his neglectful parents, a young boy leaves home and travels the world in search of the perfect parents. It features one of the most impressive, star-studded ensembles, which includes Eljah Wood in the titular role, along with Jon Lovitz, Jason Alexander, Alan Arkin, Dan Aykroyd, Kathy Bates, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bruce Willis, and a 9-year-old Scarlett Johansson.

This action-adventure comedy was directed by Rob Reiner, who's pumped out plenty of stellar comedies during his career. North, however, isn't one of them. It's since gone down in cinematic history as one of the worst films ever made.

Roger Ebert has written many scathing reviews during his career . And North is one of his funniest, most vicious evaluations. Don't believe us? Here's a snippet that shows just a sliver of Ebert's contempt for North.

"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."

Remember Ebert's book that we mentioned earlier, I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie ? Well, the title was inspired by his review of North. "'North is a bad film - one of the worst movies ever made," Ebert presses on. "But it is not by a bad filmmaker, and must represent some sort of lapse from which Reiner will recover - possibly sooner than I will." Ouch.

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• Roger Ebert

Bad reviews for good movies

There's just no pleasing some

It's hard to make everyone happy. Just yesterday, we bought Snickers bars for the whole office and it turned out that one person was on a diet, another didn't like caramel (?!) and someone else had a nut allergy or whatever.

Even if you're a talented filmmaker and you've made a movie that everyone is pretty much in love with, you're still not guaranteed an easy ride.

Here are 30 examples of critics who've hated movies that everyone else loved.

Click on each image to read more

With thanks to Rotten Tomatoes .

"When you see good actors in a project like this, you wonder if they signed up as an alternative to canyoneering"

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

"An empty-headed horror movie with nothing to recommend it"

Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

" Star Wars is a junkyard of cinematic gimcracks not unlike the Jawas' heap of purloined, discarded, barely functioning droids"

Peter Keough, Boston Phoenix

Schindler's List

"A theme park ride masquerading as master's thesis"

Luke Y Thompson, New Times

The Godfather Part II

"Part II's dialogue often sounds like cartoon captions...its insights are fairly lame"

Vincent Canby, New York Times

The Dark Knight

"Plodding, puffed-up kitsch mistaking itself for profound psycho noir that the source material won't support"

Jurgen Fauth, About.com

"So chic, studied and murky it resembles a cross between a Nike commercial and a bad Polish art film"

David Ansen, Newsweek

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

"An uneven movie with yawns aplenty"

David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor

Blade Runner

"A very dark and far too long thriller with many dull moments that would serve the film better by moving along a bit faster."

Chris Hicks, Deseret News

"All the squealing tyres, flying bullets and falling bodies cannot save Heat from drowning in its own banalities"

Andrew Ross, Salon.com

"Most of the jokes are groan-worthy, and some are downright racist."

Josh Larsen, Larsen On Film

" Mad Max is ugly and incoherent, and aimed, probably accurately, at the most uncritical of moviegoers"

Tom Buckley, New York Times

The Warriors

"A bad joke shoddily disguised as a gritty urban thriller"

Rob Vaux, Flipside Movie Emporium

"Inappropriate and wrongheaded interruptions reveal the fragile nature of the plot and prevent it from working...a mess"

Requiem For A Dream

"If this is the future of cinema, I'd rather be home watching television"

Christopher Kelly, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

"The screenplay of Rocky is purest Hollywood make-believe of the 1930's, but there would be nothing wrong with that, had the film been executed with any verve."

Vincent Calby, New York Times

The Goonies

"I find nothing entertaining about kids screaming for two hours"

Jeffrey Westhoff, Northwest Herald

"It is a spotty, uneven drama"

Bosley Crowther, New York Times

"Dramatically unsatisfying"

Joseph McBride, Variety

Trainspotting

"Full of repugnant junkies so unpleasant that I was hoping they'd all OD just so I could escape this torture test"

Chuck O'Leary, Fantastica Daily

Blue Velvet

"It made me feel pity for the actors who worked in it and anger at the director for taking liberties with them"

"It's almost like [Scott]'s trying as hard as he can to make the worst movie of all time"

Chuck Randolph, Matinee Magazine

"As pointless as it is shocking"

Rex Reed, New York Observer

"It's astonishing that so much money, talent, technical expertise and visual imagination can be put in the service of something so stupid"

Bob Graham, San Francisco Chronicle

The Big Lebowski

"This movie seems to me almost a mishmash of the worst bits that were left out of previous Coen Brothers outings"

Widgett Walls, Needcoffee.com

Gone With The Wind

"Badly written...a bore"

Arthur Schlesinger, The Atlantic

2001: A Space Odyssey

"Pretentious, abysmally slow, amateurishly acted and, above all, wrong"

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post

"It is a coarse-grained and exploitative work which depends on excess for its impact. Ashore it is a bore, awkwardly staged and lumpily written"

Charles Champlin, Los Angeles Times

The Empire Strikes Back

" The Empire Strikes Back is about as personal as a Christmas card from a bank"

Vincent Canby, The New York Times

"One way to salvage some fun with this blunderbuss would be to fall asleep while watching and dream up a better movie yourself. Try it. You'll avoid a headache"

Kelly Vance, East Bay Express

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TAGGED AS: Horror , movies , remakes , worst

(Photo by Screen Gems. Thumbnail: Warner Bros /courtesy Everett Collection.)

The 30 Worst-Reviewed Remakes of All Time

Second time’s the harm for these Rotten remakes, with each critically-trashed film here scored well below 30% on the Tomatometer. It’s probably no surprise there’s plenty of horror remakes on here (especially during those flare-ups when Hollywood would plunder overseas for material to adapt for American audiences) but since we’ve already got a worst horror movies list , let’s focus on the remakes that made critics scream without the tacky jump scares. Die Hard director John McTiernan virtually killed his career with the Rollerball reboot, and love made Guy Ritchie do some screwy things, like putting Madonna in Swept Away . Nicolas Cage double-dipped with Bangkok Dangerous and The Wicker Man , putting his image in a tail-spin until his rehabilitation in recent years. Tom Cruise proved he CAN’T do it all with The Mummy , immediately unravelling the Dark Universe. And the FBI may pay you to surf, but they’re certainly not wasting taxpayer dollars on a decent action flick in Point Break.

One Missed Call (2008) 0%

Cabin Fever (2016) 0%

Kite (2014) 0%

Rollerball (2002) 3%

Flatliners (2017) 4%

The Fog (2005) 4%

Jacob's Ladder (2019) 4%

Swept Away (2002) 6%

Yours, Mine & Ours (2005) 6%

Taxi (2004) 9%

Bangkok Dangerous (2008) 9%

When a Stranger Calls (2006) 8%

Shutter (2008) 11%

Martyrs (2015) 9%

Pulse (2006) 11%

Get Carter (2000) 11%

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) 14%

The Women (2008) 13%

Red Dawn (2012) 15%

Black Christmas (2006) 13%

The Mummy (2017) 15%

The Wicker Man (2006) 15%

Godzilla (1998) 20%

Hellboy (2019) 17%

The Haunting (1999) 17%

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) 21%

The Grudge (2020) 20%

The Tourist (2010) 20%

The Pink Panther (2006) 21%

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