The crass comedy Roger Ebert detested: “The worst movie playing in any multiplex”
Comedy is an entirely subjective art form that lives only in the eye of the beholder. Movies, TV shows, and stand-up performances that leave some folks split at the sides will struggle to draw much more than a smirk out of others, and vice versa. In the case of Roger Ebert case, he hated one comedy film so much that he was confident enough to label it as the single worst thing to be playing on the big screen.
In his defence, he was hardly fighting against the tide. The picture in question was resoundingly trashed by almost everyone unfortunate enough to see it. If there was a positive to be drawn, it’s from the fact that there weren’t too many of them after the detestable exercise in aiming for laughs and missing by miles fell flat at the box office and barely recouped its budget.
Based on his particular distaste for the work of Adam Sandler and his cohorts, most famously his feud against Happy Madison regular and bastion of bad taste Rob Schneider, it had been obvious for a long time that Ebert wasn’t the biggest fan of lowbrow or gross-out comedies geared towards the lowest common denominator of humour.
Still, calling it “the worst movie playing in any multiplex in America this weekend” when it first hit the big screen was a bold call, especially when there was some truly dire competition. For one thing, Britney Spears’ horrendous Crossroads was still in wide release, not to mention Kung Pow: Enter the Fist, John McTiernan’s wretched Rollerball, limp fantasy sequel Queen of the Damned, and the first instalment in the Resident Evil franchise, which Ebert also hated.
It wasn’t a banner frame for high-quality cinema, then, but Ebert was steadfast in his belief that Wallace Wolodarsky’s Sorority Boys was at the bottom of the pile. It’s easy to see why when a trio of frat boys decide that after being framed for a theft they didn’t commit and getting kicked out of their fraternity, disguising themselves as female coeds and joining a sorority was the best way to find salvation.
“I’m curious about who would go to see this movie,” Ebert pondered in his review. “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.” Scathing, but that was only the tip of the iceberg.
Ebert further lambasted Sorority Boys because “the movie contains no wit, only laboured gags involving falsies, lipstick, unruly erections, and straight guys who don’t realise they’re trying to pick up a man.” It was hardly a progressive flick, but even by the comedic standards of the 2000s, the critic couldn’t stomach what he was seeing.
“I should be a good sport and go along with the joke,” Ebert mused. “But the joke is not funny. The movie is not funny.” That pretty much says all that needs to be said about Sorority Boys, which is every bit as awful as he said it was.
