A Horrible Experience of Unbearable Length

Roger Ebert's I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie and Your Movie Sucks, which gathered some of his most scathing reviews, were best-sellers. This new collection continues the tradition, reviewing not only movies that were at the bottom of the barrel, but also movies that he found underneath the barrel.

A Horrible Experience of Unbearable Length collects more than 200 of his reviews since 2006 in which he gave movies two stars or fewer. Known for his fair-minded and well-written film reviews, Roger is at his razor-sharp humorous best when skewering bad movies. Consider this opener for the one-star Your Highness:

Your Highness is a juvenile excrescence that feels like the work of 11-year-old boys in love with dungeons, dragons, warrior women, pot, boobs, and four-letter words. That this is the work of David Gordon Green beggars the imagination. One of its heroes wears the penis of a minotaur on a string around his neck. I hate it when that happens.

And finally, the inspiration for the title of this book, the one-star Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen:

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a doglike robot humping the leg of the heroine. If you want to save yourself the ticket price go, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.