My wife and I just saw Wanted. I usually like to read Roget Ebert’s reviews of movies I’ve seen to see what he thought.
I know he’s known for occasionally missing key plot points and having errors in his reviews, but he says something in his review for Wanted that I have no idea about.
He says this about how Wesley finds out he’s “special”
What? In the movie I saw, she showed up at the pharmacy and they got in that cool car chase right after a fire fight in the store.
He was clueless during the chase, there was no bar in the movie, and I have no idea what Roger Ebert saw. Is there a different version or is he crazy?
Guesses:
This is what happened in the Comic, granted in the comic the Fraternity is a super villain organization. And it only has minor resemblances to the movie… whatever. (Come to think of it, in an unusual turn of events the movie was actually MORE tragic than the comic)
He saw an earlier copy of the movie, they changed the scene because it tested better.
I find a glaring error in nearly every Ebert review. I’m sure they exist in every review, but I just haven’t noticed. At one point I had considered starting a web site devoted to them, but then he got ill and it would have been cruel.
No, it’s not. I don’t read his every review, but I try to read his reviews of films I have recently seen. And I’ve found an error in the majority of the reviews I’ve read. I don’t have stats, but it’s been months since I’ve read a review of his that didn’t have a review. The only way I can prove this is by keeping a log, and the only reason I’ll bother doing that is to do a web page. You you saying you haven’t noticed errors in the majority of Ebert’s reviews?
Well, this wasn’t supposed to be a pit thread, but…yes, I am saying that I have not noticed errors in the majority(51% or more) of his reviews. In fact, it is possibly under 10%(a still very large number).
In fact, I challenge you to cite errors in his reviews and compare those numbers to reviews that do not have errors. Feel free to go back as far as you need.
By the way, what did you mean by, “…since I’ve read a review of his that didn’t have a review.” Posting drunk?
Mods, I apologize. I was very clear in the original post that this was not a thread about Ebert’s errors, but was a thread about a very bizarre inconsistency.
I have to agree with gaffa; the majority of reviews I’ve read from Roger Ebert have at least identifiable plot holes, or claims that make it clear that he has missed a singificant plot development. I’ve never really understood the following Roger Ebert enjoys; he has, or at least had, a reputation for being a boorish drunk (see outtakes here) and a pretentious and self-important but unobservant reviewer. He also has a bad tendency in films to criticize them for some issue–particularly in a science or technology based point–where he is completely off base. And of course, he never passes up the opportunity to remind readers that he did a frame-by-frame analysis of Citizen Kane at University of Colorado Boulder back when they were still using candles for film projection, as if this makes him especially renowned. His revisionist vacillation also doesn’t impress me; his original review of Raiders of the Lost Ark was decidedly negative, but after the film got universally positive press he went on “At The Movies” and claimed it was one of the best movies he’d ever seen. Real integrity, there.
I think the example cited in the o.p. is dead typical of Ebert. I often read his reviews wondering if he even watched the same movie that I did.