The Critical Drinker

Offering a knowledgeable and delicate look at various cultural, none alcoholic beverages from around the world, The Critical Drinker uses his insight to give sensitive reviews and opinions on each and every freshly squeezed sustainably organic juice, herbal brew and plant based detox wellness drink that he can find to critique.

Nah, just kidding. Prepare to have your expectations subverted.

He's a permanently leathered Scotsman, with a no holds barred attitude on what he doesn't like and what doesn't work in today's film industry and a genuinely constructive analysis of how and why he thinks that to be the case. Parts of his channel too are his 'The Drinker Recommends' and 'The Drinker Fixes' series, for which he uses his day job experience and skills as a fiction author to examine what makes the good, good and, if needs be, offer suggestions on how to change some of the absolute dross which is pumped out onto the big screen these days.

A true wordsmith with a hilariously cynical, 'I just can't be bothered' undertone to his style and very self aware play on The Drinker character that he has developed in a very short time on his rapidly growing YouTube channel and all done without a single plea to 'smash the like button, share and subscribe' too...quite the opposite in fact. For all his pleading to just 'go away now', the subscribers continue to come in their droves.

There's not much to say beyond the headline... i wish hollywood would hire him before they turned their rubbish scripts into rubbish movies.

Mainstream cinema has gone downhill with the blockbuster hyperactive but forgettable spectacle taking precedence over meaningful, emotive and character driven scripts.

The critical drinker provides a great analysis with some good laughs along the way - give this gentlemen a TV show!

Critical Drinker has potential but wastes it entirely.

He used to make videos about why movies these days are bad and gives us reasons why. I desperately watched these videos to try to learn how to be a better writer when my friend was gone. My friend used to critique my writing.

Here's the thing. It didn't work. Making a bunch of generalizations about characters does a good story not make but he's the writer guy and that's ok.

Every video is pretty much the same. Insert (Generic Superhero movie, Summer popcorn flick,A24 indie) Give a spiel about (The message) Pretend to know better. Pretend to care. Complain about (Insert minority group or woman) for a duration of 3 minutes (Insert sound effect). Complain about the CGI (Insert Go away now)

Is anyone surprised though that these movies he reviews are mediocre? How many times are you gonna get mad at Superhero movies?

Sometimes he's funny. Other times he just panders to dudes that are forever stuck in 2002."I love Spiderman and LOTR so therefore you must love it" Acts like he's seen Morbius. (He has not seen Morbius)

I get this guy's generic reviews in my feed. It's as bland as an 80's guitar riff and formulaic as a Scooby Doo episode.

And a fanbase so rabid they make Sonic fans blush.

But where else are you gonna get movie reviews? Ben Shapiro? Go away now.

That's all I can say. Really one of the few critics I agree with pretty much always.

From what I have seen here, people either give CD 1s or 10s. And, to be honest, I understand why.

The thing (AKA the gimmick) with Critical Drinker is that he presents himself in his reviews as that kind of drunk guy you'd find sitting at the bar, rambling about all sorts of topics, while also using humor to keep his story interesting. But, most importantly, his opinions are honest. There's no sugarcoating, pretending to like something just because everyone does or pretending that he hates something just because everyone does. All the things he says feel genuine (unless he really is that good of an actor, which I doubt). And, as with all honest opinions, people are either going to agree or disagree.

Is Critical Drinker hard right contrarian? No, he makes an argument that just because something is considered to be progressive, diverse or has strong female protagonist doesn't automatically means it's good or should be shielded from criticism. At the same time, he still praises those movies that do things such as diversity or strong female protagonist right. For him, storytelling comes first. If storytelling is good, those things aren't problematic. If storytelling is bad, then they're part of the problem.

Now, do I necessarily agree with this philosophy? No, of course not. He thrashed some movies that I liked and praised some movies that I didn't. But that doesn't mean his show is automatically bad. It's normal for people to have different opinions.

The only criticism that I can kinda agree on is that he does sometimes can go too far. For example, calling actor or actress names because the character they play is bad and/or obnoxious. Calling out actors and actresses feels wrong and is, in my opinion, something that critics should always avoid. Even those actors and actresses that are unlikeable, condescending or bad people. As a movie critic, your job should be to criticize their acting and their characters, not them as people. Of course, you can have a channel that is fully dedicated to mocking celebrities, that's completely fine if you're into that kind of thing, but if you're criticizing the movie - then criticize the movie. And that is the reason why I'm not giving this 10/10.

Beside that last point, Critical Drinker is still an entertaining series, one that I do follow and look forward to new reviews. Because what beats a drunken Scotsman thrashing movies? Not many things, let me tell you.

8/10.