The 1954 classic Roger Ebert couldn’t stand but still appreciated: “This is a bad movie”
The critic that he was, Roger Ebert could still recommend movies he didn’t like.
He is listed as the single greatest film critic of all time, not just because of his taste in new releases, but because he was capable of engaging thoughtfully with any film, regardless of where it came from or what it was about. It was possible to gain insight from a negative review Ebert wrote, as he intellectualised what specifically didn’t appeal to him about it. It also helped that he had a deep reserve of knowledge about how the industry worked and could see where it was going many decades in advance.
Ebert might be held up as having impeccable taste, but he held many opinions that were considered to be divisive. He wrote negative reviews of films like Gladiator, Die Hard, The Usual Suspects, and The Thing, all of which would go on to become future classics; he even gave infamous ‘zero-star’ reviews to The Devils and Walker, both of which have found strong cult fanbases. However, Ebert was willing to praise the craft and cultural importance of films that he didn’t care for, especially if they proved that they could stand the test of time.
One of the most enduring, popular franchises in cinematic history is Godzilla, which has developed many sequels, spinoffs, reboots, and continuations in its different iterations. Although there are now separate timelines based on which studios are making the films, the original film from 1954 is the one that kicked it all off. It’s considered by many to be the best in the series, but Ebert was not a fan.
“This is a bad movie, but it has earned its place in history, and the enduring popularity of Godzilla and other monsters shows that it struck a chord,” he said, “Can it be a coincidence, in these years of trauma after 9/11, that in a 2005 remake, King Kong will march once again on New York?”
Despite his criticism of the plot, characters, and dialogue, Ebert recognised what Godzilla meant to Japan in the wake of World War II and the dropping of atomic weapons.
“There are shots of Godzilla’s victims in hospitals, and they reminded me of documentaries of Japanese A-bomb victims,” he added, “The incompetence of scientists, politicians and the military will ring a bell”.
That Godzilla himself is awoken by nuclear testing is a major theme of the original film, and one that slowly got lost as the character evolved into sequels, some of which turned him into a hero. While not all of the subsequent Godzilla films and crossover events were given wide releases in the United States, they continue to be very popular worldwide.
While one might expect a critic as prestigious as Ebert to be opposed to these sorts of films, he was certainly not a snob when it came to giant monsters. Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake of King Kong, which Ebert mentioned above, was a film that he gave four out of four stars to and named among the ten best of 2005. Although he sadly passed away in 2013, it would have been interesting to see what he would have thought of Godzilla Minus One, the acclaimed 2023 film that became the first in the franchise to win an Academy Award.
