John Candy's Final Movie Was A Western Comedy That Roger Ebert Absolutely Hated

In 1994, John Candy made what would ultimately become his penultimate movie: "Wagons East!" It was a fairly anticlimactic end to one of the great comedy careers in film history, something from which Roger Ebert didn't shy away in his review. In fact, the critic dubbed the Western comedy as Candy's worst ever movie.

In 1939, John Ford's "Stagecoach" reinvigorated the Western (and inspired Citizen Kane) after a decade where the genre was mostly associated with B-movie schlock. Three years later, Roger Ebert was born. As such, the esteemed critic lived through the rise and fall of the Western, which played out over the ensuing decades, during which time he bestowed some glowing reviews upon plenty of Oaters. Ebert once gave a perfect score to a controversial and disturbing '70s Western that kicked off the so-called "Acid Western" genre and similarly gave top marks to a Western starring a Batman actor. 

John Candy's "Wagons East!" was not the recipient of any such praise. In fact, the Western comedy managed to elicit some of the most potent opprobrium yet from Ebert, who felt the film was "one of the least amusing comedies [he'd] ever seen" with an "amateurish" screenplay and a lack of any "pacing, excitement, location or humor." He also highlighted perhaps the saddest aspect of the whole miserable affair: John Candy just seemed sort of bummed throughout. 

Over the course of film history, Westerns have come in many different forms, from the simplistic John-Wayne-good-guys-vs.-bad-guys Oaters of the mid-20th Century to the somber revisionist stylings of Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven" — an iconic Western that was also a spiritual sequel to Eastwood's best role. Then, there are Western musicals, some of which even featured Eastwood himself, such as his most unconventional Western, "Paint Your Wagon." That 1969 musical did not meet with Roger Ebert's approval. The critic gave the film two out of four stars and described it as "a big, heavy lump." But even that was nothing compared to how Ebert felt about the Peter Markle-directed "Wagons East!"

By 1994, John Candy had become a beloved star of family-friendly comedies, from "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" to "Uncle Buck." 1994's "Wagons East!" was unfortunately a Western flop that maintains a 0% Rotten Tomatoes score to this day. The 1860-set film saw Candy play alcoholic wagon master James Harlow, who at one point oversaw the fateful Donner Party trip of 1846, which infamously ended in cannibalism. The group of settlers who hire him in the film, however, know nothing about his involvement in this prior tragedy, and enlist Harlow to help them make the trip back east.

Those settlers are made up of ex-doctor Phil Taylor (Richard Lewis), prostitute Belle (Ellen Greene), and gay bookseller Julian Rogers (John C. McGinley) — all of whom are supposed to form a comedy trio that plays off Candy's inherent likability. Instead, Candy is unusually dour in the film, and his compatriots don't do much to redeem things, prompting a notably harsh, half-star review from Ebert.

Roger Ebert loved a lot of movies, but "Wagons East!" wasn't one. Sadly, John Candy passed away at the age of 43 in the same year the film debuted. Only one more movie starring the comedy legend would be released: 1995's Michael Moore-directed "Canadian Bacon." That wasn't exactly a triumph either, but when Ebert came to pen his assessment of "Wagons East!" it looked as though that movie would represent the dismal final entry in the Candy canon.

The critic took the Western musical to task, lamenting the way in which Candy was robbed of any "big moments, funny speeches, punch lines, or things to do." The film does showcase an uncharacteristically somber Candy, who does his best in scenes that seem sapped of all their rhythm by a cast that wasn't entirely sure of what to do with Matthew Carlson's script.  As Ebert put it in his review, "No opportunity is missed for sticking in something that's supposed to be funny, but isn't."

Ultimately, the critic found that "Wagons East!" made the loss of John Candy "all the more poignant" simply because it was the last film he completed before his passing. "It is possible he never appeared in a worse one," wrote Ebert, who added, "The producers claim he finished all his key scenes before his unexpected death on the location, but that's hard to believe, because his character is an undefined, vague figure, and isn't even required to be funny most of the time." If you fancy checking out a film that Ebert claimed "reduces itself to shots of an ill-assorted group of characters awkwardly performing in contrived situations" then "Wagons East!" is available on both Tubi and Pluto for free.