The fiercest argument Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert had was over a dog.
In 1987, the two respected film critics confronted each other on their syndicated Siskel and Ebert At the Movies program over Ebert’s endorsement of Benji the Hunted, a saccharine family-friendly film about a wayward canine lost in the wilderness. It was not merely that Ebert enjoyed the movie but that he had expressed only lukewarm enthusiasm about Full Metal Jacket, a widely praised war film from Stanley Kubrick, during that very same episode.
“It’s about a dog in the wilderness,” Ebert said. “Beautiful photography, cute little cougar cubs … the magnificence of the other animals, the little kittens crossing the stream … this is a movie that kids would really enjoy.”
“You’re wrapping yourself in the flag of children,” Siskel said.
“You’re wrapping yourself in the flag of the sophisticated film critic!” Ebert protested.
“This is a show where you give Benji the Hunted a positive review and not Kubrick’s film,” Siskel shot back.
Of course, Ebert had only considered each film on its own merits, deciding that Benji the Hunted fulfilled its obligations as an adventure movie more than Full Metal Jacket succeeded as a war drama. Still, Ebert’s contrarian takes emerged every so often, prompting audiences and other critics to recoil just as Siskel had. Take a look at 10 other “bad” films Ebert endorsed.
Sudden Death (1995)
Being one of the dozens of Die Hard clones that limped into theaters rarely invited positive reviews; nor did the filmography of Belgian action star Jean-Claude Van Damme. Yet Ebert enjoyed this tale of a fireman (Van Damme) who must stop a terrorist (Powers Boothe) from blowing up a hockey arena in Pittsburgh.
“Of course, Sudden Death isn’t about common sense. It’s about the manipulation of action and special-effects sequences to create a thriller effect, and at that it’s pretty good,” Ebert wrote in his 2.5-star review. (The film got a thumbs up on his television program.)
Ebert was less kind to one of Van Damme’s follow-ups, 1997’s Double Team, which he dubbed “preposterous.”
Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997)
Few fans of the 1994 Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock hit Speed had kind things to say about the sequel, which appeared to be a mercenary ploy by studio 20th Century Fox. In place of Reeves was Jason Patric; instead of a speeding bus, he and a returning Bullock were trapped on a cruise ship.
Ebert enjoyed himself. “Movies like this embrace goofiness with an almost sensual pleasure,” he wrote. “And so, on a warm summer evening, do I.”
Audiences did not. The sequel made a paltry $48.6 million domestically, less than half of the $121 million grossed domestically by the original; Reeves himself would later marvel at the audacity of it. “I loved playing Jack Traven, and I loved Speed, but an ocean liner?” he said in 2021. (For the record: The bus in Speed had to stay above 50 miles per hour. Cruise ships often coast at roughly 23 miles per hour.)
Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009)
The physical comedy of Kevin James can be acquired taste, but Ebert apparently accepted it wholeheartedly. The critic awarded three stars (out of a possible four) to Paul Blart: Mall Cop, the comic actor’s self-explanatory film, in which the title character defends his shopping plaza from criminals. Ebert appeared to appreciate the PG humor of James as well as his willingness to be an action hero without the abs.
“Everything is a sitcom until Officer Blart goes into action, in an astonishingly inventive cat-and-mouse chase past myriad product placements, all of which find uses,” Ebert wrote. “The movie even discovers a new angle on the old hiding-in-the-ventilation-shaft routine.”
Blart was an apparent exception to Ebert’s First Law of Funny Names rule, part of a glossary of film terms he first assembled in the 1980s. “No names are funny unless used by W.C. Fields or Groucho Marx,” he said. “Funny names, in general, are a sign of desperation at the screenplay level.”
Home Alone 3 (1997)
Ebert’s evaluation of the Home Alone franchise is a study in contrasts. The critic had little positive to say about Home Alone (1990) and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), though both shared the same roster of star Macaulay Culkin, writer John Hughes, and director Chris Columbus.
Home Alone 3 boasted only one of those elements—Columbus and Culkin departed while Hughes wrote the script—but somehow the formula finally won Ebert over. “It was partly because of little Alex Linz, who has a genuinely sweet smile on his face as he watches his traps demolish the bad guys,” Ebert wrote of Culkin’s replacement. “And the booby traps, while painful, are funnier this time. Sure, people fall down dumbwaiters and through floors, and get hit on the head with dumbbells and flower pots, and end up in the frozen swimming pool, but Raja Gosnell’s direction sidesteps the painfulness and makes it OK. The stunts at the end are more slapstick and less special effects. And the result is either more entertaining than in the first two films, or I was having a very silly day.”
Siskel was taken aback by the change in heart, asking Ebert on their television show, “Are you OK?” Ebert responded by maintaining that the film empowered kids and that “this is the one where they finally got it right.” (Three more Home Alone films would follow, none featuring Culkin nor Ebert’s endorsement.)
Cop and a Half (1993)
Anyone grappling with Ebert’s taste must ultimately face an uncomfortable fact: He was charmed by this 1993 Burt Reynolds comedy in which a veteran cop (Reynolds) is partnered with a precocious child (Norman D. Golden II) who demands to be treated like a real policeman in exchange for key evidence he possesses.
Ebert found the film “essentially sunny and good-hearted” and even went so far as to take another shot at Home Alone 2. Cop and a Half, he wrote, was “more entertaining” than the Culkin hit. When Siskel later insisted he reconsider his opinion on Cop and a Half, Ebert refused.
(One interesting bit of trivia: Culkin was originally approached to play the kid cop role, a deal that purportedly fell through when the actor’s reps turned down a $1.5 million offer.)
If Looks Could Kill (1991)
Richard Grieco was a television star thanks to 21 Jump Street and its spin-off, Booker. In the early 1990s, he was being positioned for film stardom—but that didn’t happen thanks in part to the box office disappointment of If Looks Could Kill, a comedy in which his character is mistaken for a spy during a high school field trip to France.
Ebert appeared won over by the geniality of the movie, though his three-star review wasn’t without doubt. “Did I enjoy the movie?” he wrote. “My reactions were in a constant state of adjustment … By the time the chateau was in flames and the helicopter was chewing its way across the burning roof I was ready to concede that, yes, I was enjoying it.”
Audiences made no such concession. The film debuted in 11th place its opening weekend, throttled by the likes of The Silence of the Lambs and Ebert’s often-maligned Home Alone.
Firewall (2006)
Harrison Ford was entering a period of box office decline when he made Firewall, a tepid techno-thriller in which his security chief is blackmailed by a villain (Paul Bettany) to hack into a bank’s servers to transfer millions.
The film was generic, but that seemed to be all right with Ebert, who awarded it three stars. “What I enjoyed was the professionalism that Ford, [Virginia] Madsen and Bettany brought to the job,” he wrote. “Either you want to see such a movie and will make the usual allowances, or you should stay away. When a perfect thriller is made, I will be the first to inform you.”
Green Lantern (2011)
Most everyone (including star Ryan Reynolds) has few kind words for this adaptation of the popular DC Comics character, an intergalactic space cop who can manifest things with a cosmic-powered ring. While he didn’t rave about it, Ebert nonetheless found it diverting.
“There’s a whole lot going on,” he wrote. “We don’t really expect subtle acting or nuanced dialogue. We appreciate an effective villain. We demand one chaste kiss between hero and heroine, but no funny stuff. We enjoy spectacular visuals like the Green elders, who are immortal and apparently spend eternity balancing on top of towering pillars. Green Lantern delivers all of those things, and for what it’s worth, I liked it more than Thor.”
Battleship (2012)
A noisy, big-budget version of the board game, Battleship doesn’t have many admirers. But Ebert didn’t seem to take issue with being subjected to a film based on a Hasbro title. “The film is in the tradition of the Transformers movies, also based on Hasbro games, and you get the feeling that Hasbro showed director Peter Berg some Michael Bay movies and told him to go and do likewise,” he wrote. “To his credit, Battleship is a more entertaining film than the Transformers titles, because it has slightly more fully fleshed characters, a better plot and a lot of naval combat strategy.”
Welcome to Mooseport (2004)
Ebert endorsed this comedy about a former U.S. president (Gene Hackman) who settles down in a small town in Maine and subsequently winds up running for mayor opposite a local plumber (Ray Romano). The film was neither critically nor commercially well-received, allowing Ebert’s contrarian sensibilities to emerge.
“Whether the movie works or not depends on the charm of the actors,” Ebert wrote. “Hackman could charm the chrome off a trailer hitch. Romano is more of the earnest, aw-shucks, sincere, well-meaning kind of guy whose charm is inner and only peeks out occasionally.”
Co-star Maura Tierney would later joke that Welcome to Mooseport led to Hackman’s retirement from film acting. It was his final film, but not, presumably, due to its quality. Hackman later said health issues led him to take a step back from performing.
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