“There’s a story there. I’m from Chicago and Roger Ebert was a neighbor of my dad’s and he would see him at the grocery store,” Bendinger told the AP. “Apparently after that review, my dad confronted Roger in the Carnival Grocery like, ‘Hey, I’m Jessica’s dad and I really don’t like what you wrote.’ People like to quote the ‘Citizen Kane’ line but my dad was [mad].”
As “Bring It On” director Peyton Reed added, “The ‘Citizen Kane’ line came later! Ebert wrote the review and reassessed it. Maybe your dad got through to him.” The New York Times film critic A.O. Scott gave “Bring it On” a more positive review, to which Bendinger said, “I remember refreshing to see if The New York Times online had posted. The A.O. Scott review came up at some point and I burst into tears that he got it.” Roger Ebert wrote in his original “Bring It On” review: “I might have enjoyed the movie if it had developed along the lines of ‘Animal House’ or ‘American Pie.’ Instead we get a strange mutant beast, half Nickelodeon movie, half R-rated comedy. It’s like kids with potty-mouth playing grownup.” While Ebert did note the film has the “seeds of a sharp and observant high school satire,” he added, “I’ll bet anything Jessica Bendinger’s original screenplay was a lot smarter than the dumbed-down PG-13 version we get here. The movie as it now stands is too juvenile and insipid for older teenagers and has way too much language and sex for kids 13 and below.” Ebert’s review might have been negative, but it didn’t stop “Bring It On” from becoming a teen movie classic with audiences. Read Bendinger’s full interview with the AP here. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
