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.
