Deadline is reporting that Movieline’s chief film critic Elvis Mitchell has been fired. The company hasn’t made a formal announcement as to why he was terminated but it’s likely due to a number of factors, with his recent Source Code review being the straw that broke the camel’s back. If you remember, a while back we told you that Mitchell had written a phony Source Code review so to speak.
In his review he criticized the film for something that wasn’t in the final cut. What he pointed out was in an old draft of the script, not in the final version. Source Code‘s director Duncan Jones called him out on it and rightfully so. Since then, Movieline acknowledged the issue and Mitchell was supposed to write a formal explanation. That never happened and now his contract has been terminated.
Personally, I’m happy to see this. Mitchell deserves it but then again, so do a lot of other critics. This happens all the time. Critics just write reviews on films they either haven’t seen or on films that they haven’t seen the final version of. Mitchell got caught though and it’s about time. I’ve never liked the guy anyways and I never understood what the big deal about him was. No doubt he’ll end up somewhere else shortly but I’m still pleased that Movieline acted on this and booted him out of there.
What do you think?