(Credits: Far Out / Rebert (Roger Ebert)
Sun 12 April 2026 16:15, UK
You’re never going to watch endless five-star movies in your life, as nice as that would be. But watching a bad movie is sometimes what’s needed to remind you of how good a movie can be.
And of course, you can often stumble upon a ‘so bad it’s good’ movie from time to time, although the definition of that might differ depending on who you ask. Roger Ebert – the legendary film critic who essentially became America’s defining critical voice, the one of the people – understood this concept, but sometimes, he argued, films were so bad that they surpassed this ‘so bad it’s good’ title and went back to just being plain awful.
This was the case for a certain Reese Witherspoon action rom-com that he absolutely derided, finding it utterly unconvincing and a total waste of time. It’s a tricky thing to combine the rom-com with action, so when that doesn’t work out, what we’re left with is a tonal mess. In this case, he was referring to the 2012 film This Means War, with Ebert beginning his review scathingly, “If there’s anything I hate more than a stupid action comedy, it’s an incompetent stupid action comedy. It’s not so bad it’s good. It’s so bad it’s nothing else but bad.”
Ebert could be funny, but he could often be a little too truthful, like when he wrote the rather unnecessary sentence, “Reese Witherspoon is as cute as a button on Raggedy Ann’s overalls, but irresistible raw sex appeal is not one of her qualities.” Ouch.
Talking about the relationship between the warring men at the centre of the narrative, both of whom are fighting over Witherspoon’s Lauren, Ebert continued, “Although Reese is not convincing as the woman they go to war over, she would be ideally cast as a straight roommate giving them advice about their romance. Because surely they’re gay.”
In fact, Ebert’s reviews weren’t always politically correct, you could say. “Often they review the surveillance videos together. Is there something about that not entirely consistent with a heterosexual competition? Lauren is obviously only the nexus for their plexus,” he added.
The film came from McG, the director behind Charlie’s Angels and Terminator Salvation, and like most of his back catalogue, This Means War was not revered by critics. With Tom Hardy and Chris Pine playing the sparring suitors while Academy Award winner Witherspoon starred as the object of their affections, you’d think that the film might have some potential, but it really had nothing to save it from complete disaster.
For a movie supposedly founded on comedy, This Means War doesn’t have much going for it in terms of good humour. In fact, it really has very little going for it at all. Mixing spy action, buddy comedy, and romantic comedy in one just doesn’t work here, even with a strong cast attached to it. At least for them, it performed well at the box office, grossing $156.5 million against a budget of $65 million. That’s not too shabby for such a God-awful film.
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