Ebert was definitely an outlier in that opinion. The movie was otherwise well reviewed, a big office hit, and won Connery an Oscar despite playing a supposedly Irish character with a clearly Scottish accent. :)
My recollection is that the HD DVD had better encoding quality than the Blu-ray. I haven't watched either in years, though (and can't even recall the last time I tried to use the HD DVD player). This is definitely a title that could be served well with a fresh remaster for 4K HDR.
Paramount...