Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie

I know it is not a big production movie and I really enjoy that it knows it is a low budget film and makes fun of it, but it is just boring. It is slow, most of the jokes are not that funny, nor corny enough to make them memorable. Having a "Jar Jar Binks" didn't work for Lucas, and also didn't help The Nerd to have Cooper Folly. I think he could have done something different that would be more entertaining for that character.

Again, the effects are cheesy, but that is fine with me. I really like the location shots and I think they did a lot with their budget and the effects really matched the tone of the movie. The main problem is that it is too freaking slow. Probably I am being harsh because I watched Wayne's World a few weeks ago and I was expecting something more on that style, or probably their jokes were not over the top enough to be funny.

Honestly, I hope the nerd comes back to direct a movie and I really hope that this movies opens a lot of doors for him, but hopefully next time someone else will write it. Also, I don't see a bright future for the other actors.

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 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.

The Good- The plot of the movie (as ridiculous as it is) is actually interesting and somewhat intricate. Some of the modest effects work well and even when they don't it's funny anyway. There are a few genuine laugh-out-loud moments here.

The Bad- This movie is at least 20-30 minutes too long. Story arcs languish horribly instead of moving from point A to point B. The quizzical move to insert some generic sidekick instead of longtime friend Mike Matei is beyond me. The chemistry would have been far better had they gone that route. The jokes come at you like a tired pitcher's fastballs, no zip on them whatsoever. It's basically patch work AVGN phrases slapped together in a different order. The script could have used some tightening up and the dialog could have used a lot of work. There are some interesting set-ups that could have been funny but they let those opportunities go by the wayside. Also, he doesn't really seem all that angry here, it's more like the grouchy video game nerd.

The Deal- If you are sick in bed with the flu, then this wouldn't be the worst way to spend your time. It's ironic that he dedicates the movie to his fans and gives them a diluted version of the character. It is impressive that he got the movie made at all. And you can see James's influences throughout the film. The passion is there. However, the ability to pace a movie is not (somewhat surprising). It's not an awful movie, but much like a senior citizen with a walker, it takes awhile to get where it's going and when it does it's not sure what to do. Or, in the spirit of AVGN, it's like being constipated on the bowl for a half-hour and when you finally crap it comes out slower than words out of a post-retired Muhammed Ali's mouth. I think the AVGN well has been tapped.