Looks like Ebert didn't think much of T4.
Terminator Salvation :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews
... most of the running time is occupied by action sequences, chase sequences, motorcycle sequences, plow-truck sequences, helicopter sequences, fighter-plane sequences, towering android sequences and fistfights. It gives you all the pleasure of a video game without the bother of having to play it.
I'm fully prepared to dissent from this view, of course. I get the impression that after stuff like Lars von Trier's Antichrist, his mind is very much elsewhere right now. (And for those of you in the videogames-as-visual-art category, he gave you that much more ammo for the attack ... although I'm 110% sure he's pretty tired of that whole argument, too.)
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...from the man who gave Transformers a "thumbs-up".
Actually, I could sit here all day and list bad movies that Ebert has given good reviews to (The Cell got 4 stars?! Spawn got 3 1/2 stars?!) and the inconsistent treatment of movies with similar themes and content (morally chastising the makers of Wolf Creek while giving The Devil's Rejects a free pass, despite the fact that latter comes far closer to glorifying violence than the former, for example).
Despite all of that, I really do think that Ebert is one of the best minds in the world of film criticism, although I prefer J. Hoberman myself.
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I don't disagree with him often, but when I do I usually have a good reason. I thought "The Cell" was terrible but "Spawn" was amusing popcorn. Re: "Devil's Rejects", I haven't seen that although I get the feeling that was more because Rob Z. was working more in the "I'm making a horror film" than the "I am TELLING IT LIKE IT IS" mold. (I like Hoberman as well, too.)
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I'm actually of the opinion that both of those are well-done films. I would just like a little more consistency, or at least more explanations on why some movies that tackle similar topics and have similar approaches fail while others succeed.
I always wanted to ask you what you thought of Ebert's championing of Tarantino, considering how often you tend to agree with him otherwise.
Also, while I respect some of reasons he gives in his analysis of why video games can't be Art (and I personally think he made Clive Barker look pretty bad in the process, which surprised me considering the fact that Barker is a very learned man), I wonder what Ebert thinks of Postmodernism and installation-based art (or art created from natural formations in the Earth, for that matter), all forms of art that demand participation and choice from the viewer. Maybe he doesn't feel that these should be considered Art as well?
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Good questions all around.
With me, the big thing is that there is consistency of explanation: at the very least give us some idea of what turned you on or off. I disagreed with him on "Blue Velvet" (I don't think the movie is as important as people say it is, but I also don't think the movie is out-and-out repugnant.)
Ebert admires Tarantino for reasons I don't share. He thinks T. is a brilliant pop stylist; I think T.'s best quality is that he openly admits to being a cultural appropriator, but outside of that I don't have much use for him. I won't say "plagiarist", as some people have. That would imply he doesn't give credit, and he does. (I should know, since one of my future projects is a take-off on a work that is itself not within copyright, but I know better than to not credit the original!)
I don't know that video games even fall into the same category as stuff like installation-based artwork. I see them more like digital sports. They have their own category and in that category they compete with each other wonderfully. But to try and compare them against movies, books, narrative art, etc. is just total apples-and-kumquats.
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The original preview for Terminator Salvation suggested to me it would be a gimmicky action movie, what with the giant robot and all, though I wasn't turned off by that. Who doesn't love giant robots, so long as the film isn't altogether bad (like Transformers)? But while the second trailer showed promise, I can still see it being more chase scenes than I care to have in a movie. (With rare exceptions, I find chase scenes ridiculously boring.)
On the other hand, pertaining to the comments above, Ebert knows $#!+ about art. He likes to argue about it without having any real education in it or understanding of it. One of the biggest taboos you can do when discussing art is to declare something not to be art. Any real artist knows that potentially anything is art, and the idea that interacting with something immediately makes it not art is entirely ridiculous. He can be smart about some things, and I appreciate many of his reviews, but he can also be an incredible idiot.
As "Jeremiah" suggested above, Ebert's baseless definition also means that installation pieces are not art, because they're designed for interaction. Some video games may not be what one would personally consider "artful," but that's subjective and in no way indicative of video games altogether as art. Play Heavenly Sword and watch the accompanying animations, and tell me that's not art. Play all the way through Dead Space — perhaps the best sci-fi/horror game to date, and better as a story than most films in that genre — and tell me it's not art.
All in all, Ebert's rather hit or miss. In the end, he's just a journalist giving his opinion, and his opinions are as valid and flawed as the next person's. I'll probably wait until people I know personally give the movie a look and see what they think. After all, as per your previous entry, my friends seem to disagree with his view of Star Trek, and I tend to trust their opinions better than his.
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re: Ebert being just a journalist - he is, admittedly, but he's also one who often has opinions worth taking into consideration. In order to form one's own opinion you have to find out what others have to say. For a while I was more or less "in line" with him, and now I've found that I can dissent freely because I have my own takes that don't always include his POV.
"Salvation" will have to wait until after "Trek", though, as I'm seeing that tonight.
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