Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie

I guess I should start off my saying that I've been a big fan of AVGN for at least 5 or 6 years now, so this review may be subconsciously biased for or against due to this fact.

As a fan of the web series, I just didn't feel like the movie lived up to the episodes. The writing (particularly dialog, but also plot points at times) was pretty bad. The acting itself was good for the most part, it was just the writing.

The jokes are completely unfunny. Reminiscent of classic AVGN, sure, but not up to par at all. Most of the similarities come from jokes that were recycled from the web show, and the new material was facepalm worthy. A lot of clichés were used, which is fine for a film like this where they were obviously just trying to mock clichés and cliché films, but it wasn't pulled off satisfactorily.

The effects were hit or miss. I didn't of course expect Hollywood-level special effects, and I realize that similar to the cliché thing, they wanted some degree of cheese as a throwback to old low budget cult classics, but some of them were painfully bad. There was one scene where there were robots walking around that were clearly people dressed in cardboard boxes wrapped in tin foil. Some of the other effects however were surprisingly well done, and I applaud them on that.

The plot holes were really hard to ignore. Where did Cooper (AVGN's new sidekick) come from, for instance? He has never been a part of the AVGN universe in the past, and no back story at all is given as to how or why his character ended up in the film. There was also a romantic hookup between two characters that had no prior chemistry and never expressed a love interest toward each other at all previously, which was just bizarre and felt way out in left field.

Lastly, I felt a strong sense of arrogance in the way that the AVGN character was portrayed, given that James wrote the movie. From the very beginning, he's touted as the voice of all gamers the world over, and THE authority on game critique - even to the point where there was one scene where a crazed fan bought an unwanted item simply because "AVGN spit on it". I felt this strong self importance and shameless self-promotion vibe coming off of much of the film.

I think the movie had potential, but I think opportunities were missed. I also feel that a lot more care could have been taken in the actual writing, and many scenes should not have made the cut for one reason or another, where they could have filled the extra time from the cuts with scenes that filled the plot holes.

I realize that this was an ambitious project with a low budget, but I feel that they probably tried to over extend, spending too much of the budget on things that were either unnecessary or could have been cheesed down slightly, and they cheesed out too much on things that could have had a bit more of the budget put into them.

I'm giving it a 4/10 mostly just for effort, but it's actually just a pretty bad film and would only get a 4 or higher from a fan, as it has no redeeming qualities to anyone not familiar with AVGN.

AVGN episodes are a lot of fun. James Rolfe took all his frustrations, funny and odd moments one experiences while playing those old, retro games and created a series that not only old school gamers enjoy, but also the younger generations, because it introduces them, in a humorous way, how gaming used to be. It's a clever idea and executed in an efficient way. The show makes fun of the "so bad it's good" moments and, most importantly, feels genuine. The movie however... well where do I start?

Its not that much of a problem that the movie immediately feels amateurish. That is pretty much to be expected, after all this is a low-budget production and his first time at a project this big. The same goes for the plot, acting, writing, special effects etc. Some of it is deliberately that way. But even at the lowered expectations, I can't help it not to feel disappointed. The main issue here is that it tries to be so much more than it actually is. For a series that is about a guy expressing his frustrations on an old game (or movie) it sure strays far away form it. And this is where it loses all the charm that makes the series work. It never leaves enough room for the nerd to do what he always does. Too much of it is wasted on the build-up and on things that just aren't relevant to the series. His hilarious rants are replaced by incredibly cheesy dialog, lame jokes and bad slapstick. There isn't even an actual game in it, instead you get some imitation called "Eee Tee", which is understandable since they would have to get the license, but the let-down here is that the movie is all about getting him to review it, and not about the review itself. There isn't much game in it. What is kinda a saving grace for a movie like "The Wizard" is completely absent here.

It goes for the so-bad-its-good-humor, but being that the movie is so self-aware about it, it always ends up feeling forced like it deliberately lets something shitty happen and then just expects you to laugh it up. The first half of the movie drags on and almost bored me out. The second half was better, mainly due to the action, Godzilla-style scenes, which were fun, but ultimately are wasted because it ends absurdly quick with a poor conclusion.

So was the movie worth the wait and the sacrifices? Probably only for the die-hard AVGN fan(boy)s. Everyone else will likely agree that the amount of episodes he could've made in the meantime would've been so much more worth it. For James and his crew I hope it's a valuable lesson and that he stays humble about it. AVGN isn't exactly movie friendly material, so I at least can applaud his attempt. It is ironic that the movie thematizes the "shitty is the new good" idea yet tries to promote the same thing for itself, while completely failing to deliver any good laughs or at least make it feel authentic. The fun the crew apparently had while making it, never showed on the screen. Trash can be fun if done right, but that's not the case here. It's just so bad it's bad.

Well, it finally arrived, after years of waiting. Sadly for James, it turns out that many people didn't like his character's outing to the big screen. However, I can't help but thinking a lot of the disgruntlement is misplaced. Don't get me wrong, it's not what most people would consider a good film, but I think I should offer an explanation of why it turned out the way it did.

First, this is more of a Cinemassacre feature than an Angry Video Game Nerd feature and you will be more inclined to like it if you have spent your time watching the endless movie reviews on the Cinemassacre website. James is a fan of what a lot of people would describe as trash and a lot of this film contains schlock content - dumb characters, corny jokes and silly special effects. Bad / over the top acting and silly dialogue therefore isn't really the point for this type of film - it's a given. If you don't like this sort of thing, then you aren't going to like this movie, period.

The reality, though, is that people love the Nerd character first and foremost above Cinemassacre and sadly he does suffer mildly in the context of this movie. His dislike of E.T. is taken from an amusing irrational hatred into irrational behaviour and his insistence that he won't review the game is a card played a little too strongly. Still, I really don't think the criticisms that there are ego issues going on here are valid. The Nerd is an enormously popular character and people have flocked to cinemas nationwide across the states to support their hero. James showed his popularity in the movie for the purposes of a joke, being that the fictional public assumed that the Nerd videos are for comedy/fun (which obviously they are), which dismayed the fictional Nerd character who simply hated the games - he is famous for the wrong reason. I think this has been wildly and widely misinterpreted as James stroking his own ego and I think that's unfair. It's driving to the plot point to the film.

The plot, of course, is ridiculous and silly. It's a fun concept but gets bogged down by being the film being too long, which makes the plot too slow. Things do get rather confusing towards the end as the Nerd's companions go off on their own mini-adventures but to no real consequence. People just want to see the Nerd. As for the ludicrous monster that appears towards the end, we are right back in Cinemassacre territory with plastic models and men in rubber suits - the ridiculousness is the point.

Regardless of the target audience, the film is at least partially a comedy and it does raise a few smirks. As the laughs are more frequent and punchier in the Nerd episodes, this has left a lot of people disappointed. What we all love is seeing the Nerd spit venom at "***** games", but he's not doing that here until the credits of the film (which is probably the most entertaining and interesting part). The various cameos and fan moments are kind tributes, but are mostly goofy and unnecessary.

I suppose I can summarise by saying that this is not the Nerd movie many of us were hoping for, but just a B-movie starring the Nerd. It was an ambitious project in which an amateur film-maker had the means to pay homage to the films he loved. Unfortunately this was at the expense of the character that the audience loved, which is what everyone really wanted to see. However, I have a huge amount of respect for the project as a whole. What James has achieved with his Nerd character is impressive and a lot of blood, sweat and tears went into this movie. There's a lot of heart here and that context gives it a special charm. Standing it by itself though, against slicker and meaner films, it's an easy target for criticism. But to do so in the overly aggressive way that others have is to miss the point entirely.

That's what I think anyway.

Whereas other low budget films like "Tokyo Gore Police", "Vampire Girl VS Frankenstien Girl", "Machine Girl", "Bad Taste" and the original "Evil Dead" were very low budget, they are memorable because of how extreme and screwed up they were.

They have moments that would have you talk to your friends about; "Oh there's a moment where this gruesome scene happens" and so on.

AVGN The Movie has nothing screwed up or extreme about it.

It doesn't have any exciting scenes that you're dying to tell your friends.

It is cool that James has finally made his first feature film. But he's not a professional filmmaker, he's more of an internet video maker.

The jokes in this are quite poor. Since neither James or Kevin are professional comedy writers, we have some really lame jokes that are obviously from first timers who have never written comedy before.

James himself is not an actor and yes, his bad acting adds a charm to the Nerd. That's fine for 15 minutes, but when you keep up the bad acting for 2 hours, the charm wears out very fast.

Yes, the overuse of the Nerd making references to fecal matter is just tiresome. It was tiresome in the show and it is no better here.

The cinematography is lame and feels like a straight to DVD film than an actual movie. Even the trailer looked cheap and bad.

This movie looks more like something you would see on the Sy-fy channel than a theatrical feature.

The special effects in this movie are bad, but are intentionally so for the sake of comedy, like in Austin Powers, Team America, The Lego Movie, Harry Hill's work and The Young Ones. But those movies and shows were actually funny.

Here, the joke doesn't work. It could be the really bad HD and straight to video feel that puts off the charm of the bad effects.

Also the sloppy editing. There are some unfinished looking shots here.

The movie is self aware it's low budget and tries to make fun of itself, but it's just not funny. I'm not a fan of self deprecation. It's too "winking at the audience" for me.

I will have to admit, the score is very good. The opening theme is amazing and I like the theme "Birds Before Nerds".

If this was an internet movie like the TGWTG Anniversary specials, it would've worked. But here, it's an internet movie trying to be theatrical and fails.

AVGN works as an internet series, but not as a movie.

I've been a fan of the AVGN for years, and love his web episodes. I think some of the comedy in them was genius. I also love his short videos where he talks about other stuff from the 80s (TMNT show/films, Rocky, Ghostbusters etc). Consequently, I was so happy that he got to live his dream of making a feature length indie film, through many months of hard work. I was going to see this in the theatre but it was sold out in my city. I was even ready to buy the Blu-Ray to support him, but couldn't wait for it to come out so I watched this in advance of the disc release.

After watching the film, I have to say I was pretty disappointed. Most of the comedy was bad, and the story seemed convoluted. Too many ideas were crammed in and much of it didn't work. There were weird story elements that didn't make sense, the characters were too one dimensional and not likable, and many of the pay-offs were unearned. I could go on but I feel bad bashing James because I like his other work so much.

In the end I respect James for what he did. I just wish I could have liked this film more than I did.