The Sylvester Stallone movie Roger Ebert hated with a passion: “Moronic beyond comprehension”
They say one bad movie can be more than enough to kill a career, but nobody bothered telling Sylvester Stallone. It’s nothing short of incredible that he’s remained a star for almost 50 years despite starring in a slew of films that have blighted the eyes and cursed the nightmares of anyone unfortunate enough to see them.
It absolutely helped that he had Rocky Balboa and John Rambo in reserve, though, with Stallone’s reliably bankable franchises doing a sterling job of ensuring he could always bounce back from a couple of flops. Even when he was in danger of finally being consigned to the scrap heap as a relic of a bygone age, it was his two signature characters who dragged him back from the brink.
A three-time Academy Award nominee, a remarkably durable presence, and an action icon he may be, but Stallone’s filmography is stacked to the rafters with sins against cinema. He’s got 12 Razzies from 34 nominations to prove it, and every good movie he’s ever made has been offset by shite like D-Tox, Staying Alive, Avenging Angelo, Driven, Assassins, and countless more.
One of his many duds was on the receiving end of a barrage from Roger Ebert, which is the least it deserved. Stallone wouldn’t disagree after he went on the record calling Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot the worst offence in a litany of the onscreen crimes he’s committed. Unlike the picture itself, at least the critic’s scathing attack was entertaining.
Describing it as “one of those movies so dimwitted, so utterly lacking in even the smallest morsel of redeeming value that you stare at the screen in stunned disbelief,” Ebert wasn’t done there. “It is moronic beyond comprehension,” he continued. “An exercise in desperation during which even Sylvester Stallone, a repository of self-confidence, seems to be disheartened.”
It was supposed to be a comedy, which left him especially baffled. “There isn’t a laugh in this movie,” he wrote. “Not a single one, and believe me, I was looking. The situation isn’t funny, the characters aren’t funny, and the dialogue’s idea of humour is lots of closeups of sweet little Estelle Getty using naughty words.”
If Stallone has a leg to stand on, it’s that he was tricked into making it. At the height of his rivalry with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the ‘Austrian Oak’ pulled the genius-level trolling move of having his team leak rumours that he was interested in signing on after reading the script in the hopes Sly would be so blinded by the desire to get one over on his adversary that he jumped in with both feet without looking.
It worked a treat for Schwarzenegger after his subterfuge led Stallone directly into a complete, utter, and unmitigated disaster, and they probably had a good laugh about it once they buried the hatchet and became friends.
