Great as a Web-Series... Bad as a Movie...
I wouldn't say that the movie was totally bad. It had it's moments... but I was a bit disappointed in it over-all. I thought that it was uneven.
My friend from middle school put it best. When he was talking to these two kids at lunch, he pointed at one of them and said, "He's funny stupid, you're just stupid stupid." Another words, I get that the movie was an intentionally over-the-top comedy... but there's such a thing as being TOO over-the-top and SO out there to the point of being lame and stupid... not funny stupid, but just plain 'ole stupid.
I think that the main problems stemmed from the storyline. There were plot points that were pretty dumb, and parts that made me scratch my head in disbelief. Some of the characters were lame as well.
The movie had a lot of stuff crammed into it, but for some reason it still managed to feel hollow. The climax was weak...
To be fair, I think anything that James and his crew could've came up with would've been a let-down no matter what. It never fails, when you're adapting something, whatever it originated as is usually always gonna be better. This movie was of course adapted from a web-series, and that's what AVGN works best as. As a movie it's just kind of a mess.
I feel kind of bad saying all this knowing how hard James and his crew worked on the movie, and how much he sacrificed... I still think that he's a good film maker, it's just that the Nerd character is done much more justice by the original web-series format. I'm interested in seeing a feature from James that is specifically made for the screen, and not an adaptation.
Additional Thoughts:
- The movie was light on laughs. I think a lot of what was intended to be funny just ended up coming across as lame.
- It wasn't very faithful to the series.
- It was lacking in the sense of an imminent threat/conflict to drive the plot... there was one, but it was ridiculously lame.
I'm gonna give this movie the mediocre rating of a 5 out of 10 stars. As I said earlier, it had it's moments. There were brief chuckles here and there, some cool practical effects, and I even thought the acting was good for the most part... but in the end the good points all collapsed under the weight of what was a poor and incoherent story.