Tonight I watched the summer reloaded edition of Ebert and Roeper. Basically they reaired past reviews of the "blockbusters" of this summer.

On it they aired the Reviews of Terminator 3 and 2 fast 2 Furious back to back. In his review of T3, he gave it a thumbs down because he felt it was just one chase scene and action sequence after another. In the review of 2 Fast 2 Furious, he recommended it because it was just one chase scene and action sequence after another.

As I said many times before, he has no consistancy in his reviews and has lost his mind. This is further proof.

thoughts?

WTF? He gave a thumbs up for that POS 2F2F?

He has stated that he changed the way he reviewed films. Apparently he's given up on Hollywood's ability to create a deep movie and rates movies on pure entertainment value now.

I'm not sure what that says about his past reviews. Does that cancel them all out?

To be honest I could care less about movie critics though.

I've noticed that lately. Of most of the summer blockbuster flicks, he's given them positive reviews.

Laff..yet another pronouncement of the death of Ebert's sanity. Too funny.

My guess is though that he's reviewing the movies based on different things (genres? not sure what word I'm going for here, but I'll state the point).

When watching T3 (T2? which movie review is it...you mentioned both of them), he's expecting more than just chase/action scenes...he wants to be "challenged" mentally and expects some serious(?) story etc. In that aspect, for him, the movie failed.

However, when watching 2 Fast 2 Furious, he's expecting nothing much in the way of thick plot etc., just a bunch of action/chase sequences, and in that capacity, it met his expectations.

Just a thought (albeit a rather incoherent one...my mind is rather distracted at the moment....).

I've always found it entertaining people needed someone else to give them an opinion about a movie so they could have something to talk about at the water cooler. Just go see the movie yourself and form your own opinion. Then come back here and share it with the rest of us so we may vigorously disagree with you and call you names.

it was the ALIEN'S* hypnotic suggestion that made Ebert give 2F2F a

* WARNING: Links to MATURE Forum.

I love the first sentence of his Sun Times review for 2 Fast 2 Furious, which he then went on to give 3 stars out of 4:

"John Singleton's '2 Fast 2 Furious' tells a story so shamelessly preposterous all we can do is shake our heads in disbelief."

Edit: he gave T3 2 1/2 stars, so I guess that is his thumbs up/down threshold.

Question..

Did Ebert have a stroke or something? I notice he tends to talk out of the left side of his face. Sorta like Jim Ross from WWE, who has Bells Palsy.

Are you serious?! It seems like he's finally resigned to whore his !

That's pretty much what he said on Leno a week back. Yeah, everyone was shocked about how he gave it a thumbs up so he confessed as to why.

Total BS. Something obviously happened behind the scenes. (*coughselloutcough*)

I actually read Ebert's review of T3 and the thumbs down seems to stem from his disappointment with the film. Like Harpo787 stated, the frist two terminators actually required some thought, they challenged the audience while T3 was just one big car chase. He put it in terms of the difference between sci-fi films and action films. TF&F wasn't thought provoking, heck it wasn't even good IMHO so there weren't any expectations for 2F2F. So actually I think he is being very consistent. Imagine that, someone actually expecting to turn their brain on while watching a film - blasphamy.

I don't doubt this is true, and it explains precisely why many think Ebert is insane. But - honestly - how can a movie critic use this logic and be so well respected? So if the movie aspires to be in the "Flaming Bag of Poo" genre, and it succeeds at that, he gives it extra points???

I realize "Ebert Is Insane" threads can turn into a heated discussion of people proclaiming it is just one man's opinion; go see the movie and decide for yourself; yadda, yadda, yadda. But isn't it Ebert's job to recommend movies so we don't have to waste our time and/or money to find out for ourselves?

You don't even have to agree with Ebert (or any other critic for that matter) 99% of the time. But if the critic CONSISTENTLY gives good reviews for certain types of movies and bad reviews for others - you can get a feel whether to go by his review or not to see it. But if Ebert gives Charlie's Angels half a star and the sequel two and a half - then what the heck is he using as criteria to review these things? A dart board???

Good grief, people. Please post your star reviews of every film you've ever seen, and I'm sure we could poke just as many holes and declare you "insane."

I have to agree with Harpo on this and the way he explained it is the way I explain things to my friends.

When people ask me about T3 I noramally tell them it was a good movie but not great. Now, if we didn't have T2 to follow up then T3 would be AWESOME but it is my opinion that other than the ending of the movie it felt like T2 remade but with less drama and story line. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie but T1 and T2 made my expactations very high for T3 and on that scale I wasn't blown away.

When it comes to other movies like 28 Days Later (haven't seen 2F2F so I'll talk about what I've seen) I'm overjoyed and blown away by the film and it shows in my opinion given to others. The reason is that my expectations are not set super high by 2 awesome movies before it. Another good example of what I'm talking about would be maybe picking a movie out of a series of films like Aliens. To many Aliens 3 sucked but if we didn't have the first two films then I think they would be quite happy with the film!

Well, I'm not trying to say here that T3 deserved a thumbs down but just saying I understand how you rate movies on expectations.

He felt that the filmakers were trying to do something more, and in his opinion (I disagree with him on this) the did not achieve what they wanted to do.

Here he felt that all the filmmakers wanted to achieve was a thrill ride for viewers, and that they did achieve that.

Since the original t1 & t2 were more than action films, I can understand him being upset that t3 was just a chase film. And that it didn't work on any other level.

Still doesn't explain why he gave 2 fast thumbs up, though.
On one level I can understand liking a film that only sets out
to be one thing and doing it well, like a fast and furious film, but, it was still 2 fast 2 furious. I wouldn't be supporting john singleton's career if I were him. That guy hasn't made a good film since Boyz.

Oh yeah, the first two Terminator films were so thought provoking. When Arnold drove the truck into the police station, it symbolized the growing trend of Anti-establishment spreading through urban cities in the 80's. Or when Linda Hamilton crushed the Terminator under the press and told it that it was " Terminated ", it provoked thought on the growing presence of women in the work force. Or in T2, during the showdown in that deserted mill/factory. I took that to represent the growing number of blue collar workers throughout the country that were losing their jobs at the time. Oh, and that whole theme of robots controlling the world in the future. I mean, man, that is deep. Don't forget the whole " choice vs. fate " thing. Who cares if it's poorly written and childish? That's what science fiction is all about. I had to turn my brain on to understand these epics.

Higher Learning?
Rosewood?
Baby Boy?

HAHAHAHAHAHA! WONDERFUL post Sean!

In my original post I ment T3, not T2, and it was since edited. I never said I could type.

The purpose of this thread is to point out Eberts inconsistancies, and to provoke meaningful (ehem) discussion about why he needs to have his eyes plucked out by vultures.

Hehe.. I think it has a little to do with Cannes '03 to be honest, and more directly - that so-called steamy pile of **** "Brown Bunny".

From his review of The Italian Job:

and

Though, 2F2F may have predated Cannes.. not sure.

That said - I agree with his comments on T3.. IMO nothing terribly wrong with the movie, just isn't exactly exciting.

yes, all three of those films were pretty dissapointing.

I am not sure why Ebert gave T3 a thumbs down. He professes that he grades each movie in a series individually, (for example take his ratings of AOTC (2.5 stars) versus Phantom Menace (3.5/4 stars or something really high). Somebody wrote in and asked about that, and he said he does not have a meter where he judges each film in a series against each other.

Yet in his review (at least on the TV show) he said he liked T3, but compared to T1 and T2, it did not have as much thinking. Seems a bit hypocritical. If T3 was a stand-alone film named " 2 Robts 2 Furious - would he have given it a thumbs up?

As opposed to the constant brilliance of the posters on this board?