When the comedy film Weekend at Bernie's came out in 1989, the critical response was relatively mixed. While it was by no means considered the worst film ever, it was generally described as tacky, one-note, and done in poor taste. Roger Ebert really disliked the film, giving it only one star and summarizing the issue that many took with it: "Weekend at Bernie's makes two mistakes: It gives us a joke that isn't very funny, and it expects the joke to carry an entire movie." The film holds a middling score of 54% on Rotten Tomatoes, and an abysmal 32% on Metacritic.