Kickassia

This film was the first of the anniversary films that Channel Awesome created. Unfortunately, you can tell it is a first effort. The story is very, very simple in its ideas and execution. It definitely drags in parts, showing that there wasn't that much of a plan for the story.

However, for all of that, there is a charm to it, especially if you know the personalities of the internet critics involved. It is definitely low-budget and amateur, so keep your expectations at that level. I do enjoy it, because the comedy is fun, the music and camera work is decent, and I enjoy watching the internet personalities. Of the three Channel Awesome films, this one is definitely the worst, though it's still a decent first outing.

It's easy to look at this and say it's a run-of-the-mill passion project on par with the average student film, it pays tribute to fans with a series of cleverly written and executed set pieces with comedy classic to the source material that lands more often than fails. What lets it down however, is a failure to utilise the vast spectrum of personality featured in the Channel Awesome line-up, relegating a large chunk of the cast to fleeting and unremarkable background roles in a scenario which could have explored their different personas with more depth and intricacy.

One must remember when it comes to amateur movies, there has to be a level of expectation set prior to the viewing experience. One of the biggest things audiences have to accept is that the budget is significantly lower than normal professionally made movies. This will obviously affect the look of the film in a number of ways. The idea behind it though is that the people working on it are putting in as much effort as possible to make their endeavor the best it can be. For the crew behind Channelawesome.com, there's no doubt that they are a group of people that love what they do. With each sub-section of the site having different internet personalities covering various mediums, the range at which this team can expand is endless. As flawless and creative as it sounds, being ambitious has its uphill battles and making a feature length movie is no easy walkthrough. With that said, sacrifices have to be made.

A very large component to this feature length movie that was renounced is the story believe it or not. It's funny how Doug Walker (AKA The Nostalgia Critic), the guy who can't stand bad movies, makes a movie with no story. What a paradox. The film is about The Nostalgia Critic wanting to takeover a 1-acre plot of land called Molassia. That's really all that it is and it's done rather quickly. The rest is the NC and his followers going through the stages of a dictatorship, i.e. - oppression, then revolution. It's very bare bones to say the least. Joining the NC are a number of other recognizable internet personalities like the Cinema Snob (Brad Jones), The Nostalgia Chick (Lindsay Ellis), Linkara (Lewis Lovhaug), Spoony / Dr. Insano (Noah Antwiler), Joe Vargas (Angry Joe), Phelous (Phelan Porteous), Film Brain (Matthew Buck) and several others. For the characters listed above, it's difficult not to enjoy who they play because they're playing who they are on the main site. They all have their own special qwerks that make them, them. The only possible downside to this is that if you don't view the site from time to time, the viewer may feel more alienated than familiar with the cast.

But aside from the actors' respective character roles, the writing once again suffers from a lack of any clear motivations or background info. The reason for The Nostalgia Critic to want to go stark raving world domination crazy goes largely unexplained. That is except for the fact of just starting small and then slowly taking over the world. But to be honest, it's out of character because Doug Walker is still The Nostalgia Critic, so why and when did he get so maniacally evil? An example of background information going unused is the character of Spoony with the alternate personality of Dr. Insano. Where did Dr. Insano come from? There must be an origin for him. Anyone watching this for the first time with no other prior channelawesome experience won't have a clue how Dr. Insano materialized. However, even with this second giant defect, the comedy saves this almost script-less movie.

There are certainly a number of laughs to be had here. Whether it be The Nostalgia Critic yelling at high pitches, Film Brain being overly dramatic, The Cinema Snob talking with a snarky attitude, Spoony being too paranoid or Phelous being super sarcastic, the actors looked like they had fun doing their takes. Plus, the facial expressions these actors make are quite hilarious. Another good point is when the cast breaks the fourth wall by acknowledging the budget the film was on. It's not clever but it still is funny. Either that or watching goofy fight choreography with stock footage punching noises that sound like it was taken off a Mortal Kombat video game. Heck, they even got The Angry Video Game Nerd (James D. Rolfe) for a quick, as he would call it an "obligatory cameo". Rightfully so and well said. The only other element that feels obligatory and also bad is the special effects.

Again, it's understood the budget was limited for this production but some of it really looks out of place. Maybe post-production was rushed? It just didn't look right in certain scenes. Then again, camera-work was decent for its finite budget. Cinematography by Rob Walker (Doug Walker's brother) maintains a steady hand for his shots and even gets a number of interesting action choreography. Although, it is hypocritical that there are several shots where the camera is hugging an actor's face. For anyone who doesn't know, Doug Walker loathes that kind of camera-work with a passion so how he let that go, I'm not sure. Weird isn't it? The final ingredient that worked in this film's favor was the music provided by Michael "Skitch" Schiciano. Accept for a couple scenes, which involved borrowed music, much of his composition sounded original. Again due to cost issues, there's a good chance that the way the music was orchestrated was on a very tight budget. Understandable and considering the final product, it deserves a pass.

For Doug Walker's earlier film entries under his alter ego The Nostalgia Critic, the end result is a watchable romp for its comedic moments, its diverse bunch of internet personalities, appropriate music and camera-work (although its special effects are quite shoddy). As for a story, a plot barely exists with little back-story or motivations fleshed out.

I have no idea how TGWTG fans can even stomach this thing. Myself included, as a die-hard follower of the team I can say it was particularly disappointing. Despite the fact they went great lengths to try and accommodate some sort of jokes which are fresh and new, most of the time we are forced to endure the same sort of rehashed jokes from respective shows and the usual gimmicks. With couple people on the team doing a decent job at keeping up an atmosphere, the script fails completely and ruins the whole thing for everyone...

This movie is a great example that what makes a short form of fast paced 'critical'-piece funny, won't really work in a longer version, tiring the audience. The goofyness and slapstick becomes boring after first 10 minutes, transforming into unbearable drag where a bunch of clearly talented and charismatic individuals are forced to humiliate themselves like some sort of circus clowns, while the "awkward moment" humour just keeps on boggling every scene with unbearable repetition. 90% of jokes are almost exactly that:

Couple people talk about some ridiculous subject or a problem, then they start coming up with ideas/solutions, suddenly someone gives an suggestion that is a joke for everyone to ridicule, painting a person who actually agrees with that as an awkward individual. That very moment someone thinks it's a really a good idea or accepts the given suggestion as a norm, thus creating an "awkward moment", where everyone pause. In the end the scene is completed with a mildly funny pun, mostly in form of cheesy one-liner. If you ever wanted to participate in a drinking game, do watch Kickassia and each time the pattern above appears, take a sip of beer, you'll be smashed alcoholic for the rest of your life after first 20 minutes.

Then it get's only worse... The plot is miserable and action on screen barely follows any coherent idea, it's neither involving, nor funny, and worse yet is the constant braking of 4th wall. I wouldn't mind it if it was applied properly, to enhance the juxtaposition of the jokes, but instead it's used in most dreadful of ways, where after almost every 'skit' characters turn towards audience and go "Hey! It was a joke! Got it?! It was a reference to one of the tropes in our show! Remember? Remember?! It was really funny! Cause it was a joke! You got it? Got it, right?!" - of course, that's to put it bluntly, but you get the idea.

This is a dreadful watch even for a fan. It retains no value and only proves that producers could take some lessons from other directors, like Uwe Boll for instance, who by comparison, looks really good now.

It seems the last two reviewers weren't fans of the Nostalgia Critic to begin with. Kickassia is the second-anniversary collaboration of all the members of ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com. A site which has its own sense of humour, its own community. And if you're not part of that community, this movie may seem unfunny, out-of-place and bad. But really, to fans of TGWTG.com, it's incredible! It's the perfect collaboration! Everyone keep there inside jokes, most of the jokes are very funny and the acting is good for the most part. Of course, it's not going to be that Oscar-worthy nominee or the so-bad-it's-good kind of movie either, it's just people having fun filming a long funny video for their fans and nobody else. Reviewing this as a movie would be like reviewing each of Shane Dawson's videos like they were shorts! The Internet as whole other kind of humour that people should get use to. It's not immature or stupid, it's just different. And a lot of people seem to have a problem with difference these days.