Wrote too long a review.

So I just watched the movie, and I had to get my feelings off my chest.
Which I did before taking IMDB's 1000 word limit into consideration. So before I do an edit and trim a large portion of my review down, I thought I might as well post what I had to say in here, not that I'm trying to start a new debate on anything particular or something - it's mostly just so my work isn't entirely lost. And somebody in here might find some of it interesting:



This is probably the biggest let-down to dedicated fans since "The Phantom Menace", of course in a far smaller scale - but in terms of pure disappointment, I really can't think of anything else where dedicated fans got something so completely different and all out bad from what they were hoping for (and where some fans for some weird reason still force themselves to like it).
And I should know because I was/am a huge fan of the original web-series - I stumbled across The Angry Video Game Nerd way back in 2006 when he still was calling himself The Angry Nintendo Nerd, and his videos barely had any views or hype. I was instantly hooked and have more or less seen every video James Rolfe has done ever sine (a lot of them more than once), so when James first announced he was making an actual AVGN movie I was definitely thrilled.

Forward time a couple of years and the movie is finally out - and boy what a let down..
I don't really know where to begin?
Perhaps at the biggest problem - which really isn't the movies horrible script, humor, acting, editing, sound or non existing atmosphere and ambiance (but Ill' get to that too) . But with the premise and its title itself - you see, this isn't really a AVGN movie, not even close. It's more of a (horrible) road-trip/buddy-comedy with a guy that looks like the Angry Video Game Nerd in it. And this is where the movie really fails - I mean I think a lot of fans were suspecting it to be cheesy, and expected bad effects, editing and acting - but they were still expecting to see a movie about the Angry Video Game Nerd - doing what he does best. And The Nerd at his best (IMO) is mostly when he's bashing all these stupid and weird points and design flaws in nostalgic games from our childhoods in this hilarious angry but still informative fashion . I mean his catchphrase "What were they thinking" is just so spot on, because a lot of the games he's raged on, really makes you wonder how they ever got released.

But the movies has noting of this (unless you count the credits). And It's not that I think fans were expecting a two hour movie of pure video-game ranting. After all, a lot of his reviews has small story-lines, cheap effects and different settings. But I think people still were expecting this to be a crucial part of the movie . But what I really don't think people were expecting, was this weird, convoluted story about the nerd in a meaningless plot with a bunch of people (with zero acting skills or charisma) who never has set foot in any of his reviews (or cross-over reviews), just randomly jumping from point A to M in a story that either is going nowhere or just pulling out totally random encounters and events as it unfolds.

I mean from a narrative point of view, this is probably the worst movie I have ever seen - the story really feels like they are making it up as they go a long. Though the story starts out somewhat reasonable about the Nerd not wanting/wanting to review the infamous Atari game E.T and trying to debunk the legend about it being buried in a desert. But before the plot hardly takes off, "the story" is all of the sudden about The US Army, Area 51, rebellious scientists, fanatic fans, robots, aliens, sudden love and ancient robot gods - most of which is just introduced on the spot. Way too often weird events, characters and plot-devices jump out from out of nowhere, and just as often they are hardly explained or redeemed.
Like the main antagonists two henchmen - all of the sudden they are just totally gone from the movie - even though they are featured quite a bit in the first half. Even the movies main plot (reviewing .ET) hardly makes any sense - at first The Nerd refuses to review the game. The reason he refuses is only covered briefly in some weird dream sequence, and makes absolutely no sense, since the dream is more about aliens and zombies. And it's one of his most requested games, and he basically reviews anything else bad from back then he gets requested. The movie then constantly jumps from James wanting to review the game, to not wanting to review the game, while you hardly ever understand his personal grief with reviewing the game in the first place.
Especially not when he then finally reviews it at the very of the movie, and it turns out he actually don't think it's as bad as a lot of other games. And more or less just shrugs it off.

And then we have with the main cast? Firstly - the Nerd is joined by this black kid who never has set foot in his universe before, and just feels extremely out of place, since he's thrown in like he always has been his best friend or something. Not that the movie shouldn't introduce new characters, but the movie just throws this kid at you without even introducing him first. If The Nerd is to have this new sidekick who fans never have seen in his videos before - at least have the decency to introduce him to the audience, like set up a meeting for them or something.
It would be like when The Simpson's Movie came out, and Homer and Marge all of a sudden had this 4.th kid, like he always was just there, and still have him be a major part of the movie.
I mean James has his own friends and crew, who often appears in his videos. And he's done a few crossover reviews too. So why not give somebody like The Nostalgia Critic or Pat The NES Punk actual supporting roles, instead of just pointless cameos? I couldn't imagine that they would have said no to bigger roles. Then the movie would at least feel more like it was taking place in the universe we actually know. Plus The Nerd suddenly don't even recognize his own friends or past collaborators, which again makes this feel even less like an actual AVGN movie.

And while we're at the universe, why not have some of his earlier weird encounters be in the movie? Like having someone like Bugs Bunny, Spider-Man, Freddy Krueger, The *beep* Pickle, The Glitch Gremlin or Super Mecha Death Christ be some of his friends or enemies (maybe they held back on some of the trademarked ones do to scare of legal consequences, but they could just change their names and appearances a bit like they did with the actual E.T game - it's not like the personalities of The Bugs Bunny or Spider-Man from the reviews in any way reminded of their actual counterparts anyway). That would at least have given the movie a little touch of familiarity, and these old encounters were often hilarious. But instead the movie just throws a bunch of generic soldiers, robots and aliens at us, who never has set foot in his reviews or in any game before.

And then there's the humor - which is probably the most forced and cringe-worthy humor I haver ever seen - and this is coming from someone who has laughed out hard, even by myself, to a lot of his reviews. But like I said at the beginning, this doesn't really feel like The Nerd. When he really shines, it's when he's pointing out all these absurdities in all of these obscure old games - like the whole world is against him, and he's at the point of madness. But he doesn't really play or rant on any games in the movie, actually he's not even really angry, not even frustrated. He just feels like this one-dimensional shallow character, who mostly just moans about not wanting to do an E.T review.
So instead the humor mostly consist of dialog that would make even Hannah Montana feel like South park (like; "Nerds before birds." - really?). And old clichéd movie references and forced 4.th wall moments, like; "Oh we're in a car-chase, and now there's boxes on the road". Or the most awkward and un-funny "Hey we're doing something fun and innocent and other people think we're having sex"-scene probably ever filmed.

Another (though be it more personal) problem I have with the movie is James Rolfes extremely narcissistic and egocentric portrayal of himself. I mean the movie more or less constantly points out that he is this "big Internet celebrity" - from the plot, to the dialog, to the settings, you are basically reminded throughout the entire film, to the point where it almost seems liked he's crowning himself as the the biggest and most important voice in all of video-gaming. Not that the movie necessarily shouldn't involve that he has fans in some way (like when some of his his reviews shows of fan-art, where it seems more like a thanks to the fans), but when it starts to feel like an self-centered egotistical choice, you start to loose sympathy for the people behind and in the movie.
I mean if Metalica (or whoever), started to make albums or movies about how famous and rich they are, how important they are to heavy metal and how many autographs they sign and so on (and even clearly exaggerated), I think they would loose a lot of fans..
And since he's not actually THAT famous, (personally I don't know too many that knows about him, I guess you gotta be into old school gaming and Internet video-reviews first), it just makes all the constant parts about his fame seem even more forced.

Another point is the low budget and all the bad effects, sounds, acting, editing, and what else comes with the territory of making a low budget movie. Though I don't really have too much of an issue with this. I guess you can put it this way; if the film have had a bigger budget, and thereby better effects, settings, actors and so on - would it actually have been a better movie, if everything else was the same? No, I actually think it would make it even worse (if that's even possibly), since some of the bad acting and cheap effects, actually comes of as somewhat charming and creative, and in a way gives the movie a LITTLE excuse for being so bad.
So if the movie have had a higher budget the randomness, plot holes, horrible script, humor and feeling of letdown would probably just shine even more clearly.
But all this is just hypothetical - after all the movie had a budget of over 350.000, which actually isn't THAT small. I mean well known and often considered good movies like Pi, Eraserhead, Blair Witch Project, Clercks, Another Earth, Paranormal Activity, Super Size Me, Primer and Once (just to name a few) actually all had smaller budgets - some even way smaller, like only 20 or 30.000. Hell even most 80's and 90's B-cult horror movies, and a lot of classic foreign films have way smaller budgets.
A highly recommendable movie called The Signal from 2007 (not the one from 2014) only had a budget of 50.000, and though it deals with a doomsday plot-setting and lots of effects, this one actually almost looks like a Hollywood blockbuster compared to AVGN: The Movie, though its budget only is a 6th of what James had to play with. And if you start to compare it to movies with just a couple of hundred thousands more budget-wise (Monsters from 2010 with a budget of only 500.000 is a good example), the difference really starts to become painfully obvious.
So if you take this into consideration, the small budget isn't actually something you can hide behind. Not the excuse it easily could be, if it had worked just SOMEWHAT on a technical level. But this actually just makes you think where the hell all the money went. Compared to the movies I just mentioned, it seems like they should be able to do just a LITTLE better than burning toy-cars, amateur/homemade-looking-CGI, men in card-box robot-suits and green screen that makes blue-screen from the 70's look good.
I know some of the humor and intended charm of the movie is supposed to be these cheap effects, and the stuff they're tributing. But when the movie just falls so completely flat in its entire production-value and just looks and sounds so extremely bad, it starts to fell more like a cheap and lazy way out, rather than something creative or too intentional.

Well I guess I could go on, cause I'm still really choked that something which sounded so good and promising on paper turned out to be perhaps one of the worst films ever made. I've seen a couple of the so-called "worst movie of all time"-movies. But to me personally this one really takes the spot - and not in a cool or funny way like an Ed Wood movie, or in a so bad it's good way, this is just straight up unwatchable. Actually I had to force myself to sit trough it in over three viewings (though I felt I owed to myself and James to watch it to the end, since I've been following him for so many years). Off course my opinion is somewhat biased since I am a huge fan of his older and other stuff, and I really had high expectations. Though I guess I would have liked the movie even less if I hadn't heard about him before - who knows?
But I'll guess stop here before my review just ends up in nitpicking.