Reaction
Renaissance Man received many negative reviews upon release. Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film one and a half stars out of a possible four. Ebert said that "the touch that was used so well in director Penny Marshall's previous films Big and A League of Their Own are totally missing in Renaissance Man and this feels like a cross between Dead Poets Society and Private Benjamin but does not have the warmth or spirit of those films". He also wondered what Devito's character teaching Shakespeare's plays had to do with the training of the military recruits. Although Ebert disliked the film and gave it a thumbs-down on his television show, Ebert's partner Gene Siskel enjoyed the film as pleasant fare and gave it a thumbs-up.
The film flopped at the box office, grossing only US$24 million domestically on an estimated budget of US$40 million. It was hindered by competing with summer blockbusters such as Speed and The Lion King.
After failing to draw in much of an audience as a comedy, the film was marketed as a drama and re-released a few months later under the title By the Book, again without much box office success.
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Famous quotes containing the word reaction:
“Sole and self-commanded works,
Fears not undermining days,
Grows by decays,
And, by the famous might that lurks
In reaction and recoil,
Makes flames to freeze, and ice to boil.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In a land which is fully settled, most men must accept their local environment or try to change it by political means; only the exceptionally gifted or adventurous can leave to seek his fortune elsewhere. In America, on the other hand, to move on and make a fresh start somewhere else is still the normal reaction to dissatisfaction and failure.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression and which, because of the irreversibility of the action process can be expected and even calculated, the act of forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)