Smosh: The Movie is a 2015 Science Fiction buddy comedy film directed by Alex Winter (of Bill & Ted fame) and starring Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla of Smosh fame, with several more prominent YouTube personalities (including Markiplier, Jenna Marbles, Grace Helbig, Harley Morenstein) in supporting roles.
The film follows fictionalized versions of Ian and Anthony, two losers who still live with Ian's parents. They are given invitations to their high school reunion, and Anthony thinks he can have a second chance with his high school crush. However, his plans are threatened when an old embarrassing video of him from high school finds its way onto YouTube and starts climbing up in views. To try and take the video down, Ian and Anthony go to the website's headquarters, and resort to entering into the website itself via Cyberspace.
The film originally premiered on July 23, 2015 at VidCon in Los Angeles, California before becoming available on-demand the following day under distribution by 20th Century Home Entertainment.
Mmm, oh yeah, these are very good trope examples—SHUT UP!
- As Himself:
- "Stone Cold" Steve Austin plays himself, first as one of Anthony's daydreams, then in an ice cream commercial.
- Markiplier and Jenna Marbles play themselves.
- Bait-and-Switch: Ian thinks that the guy who runs YouTube wouldn't just talk to them without an appointment, nor would his name be "Mr. YouTube". The secretary then tells both of them that Mr. YouTube will see them now.
- Bait-and-Switch Compassion: Ian accidentally opens the door and smacks a man carrying a bunch of drinks, spilled them all over himself. When it seems Ian is going to apologize, all he has to say is how hilarious it was.
- Body Uploading: Steve YouTube keeps a physical portal into the YouTube website behind his closet door.
- The Cameo: Harley Morenstein (of Epic Meal Time fame) plays the disgruntled mailman.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Big Bad, Steve YouTube, tries to trap Ian and Anthony in YouTube forever because their antics increase viewership in all the videos they find themselves in.
- Evil Is Petty: Steve YouTube says that one of the reasons he plans on trapping Ian and Anthony in his website forever is because they didn't think his penis joke was that funny.
- Fictional Video Game: One of the videos Ian and Anthony find themselves in is a Let's Play video of Markiplier playing Gorilla Chainsaw Massacre, a game where you play a gorilla with a chainsaw as the Villain Protagonist.
- For the Lulz: Ian seems to think that his pranks are hilarious and does them all the time when he's bored (which is all the time).
- Foreshadowing: Throughout the movie, Ian voices how "awesome" Anthony's embarrassing video is, and Anthony learns that Ian records him in his private moments For the Lulz. So it should come as no surprise when it's revealed that he was the one that uploaded the embarrassing video Anthony was trying to get rid of this whole time.
- Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube!: The crux of the movie is that Ian and Anthony find a recording of Anthony singing the Magic Pocket Slave Monster theme and hurting himself trying to backflip, so they go to You Tube headquarters to try and have it deleted. Since the video has only 301 views, it's clear Anthony is overreacting.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Anthony tells Ian to let him do all the talking when they make it to YouTube Headquarters because Ian has terrible people skills. Ian claims that he has great people skills and tries to demonstrate by opening a door for a lady... right into a man carrying several cups of coffee, splashing all of it all over him and throwing him to the ground. Then when it looks like Ian is going to apologize, he instead just remarks on how hilarious the gaff was and leaves the man soaked in coffee.
- Kick the Dog: The reason why the mailman has such a chip on his shoulder towards Ian is because he threw milk-filled water-balloons at him for his YouTube Channel.
- Kids Are Cruel: The gang of kids at the Game Bang antagonize Ian and Anthony for no reason, their leader taking a dump on Anthony's company car for no reason.
- Loser Protagonist: Anthony starts out as a minimum wage pizza-delivery boy while Ian is unemployed, both living with Ian's parents.
- Mythology Gag:
- The film's opening is animated in the same style as Shut Up! Cartoons.
- Ian and Anthony's nostalgia for the Magic Pocket Slave Monster theme song is reference to SMOSH'S first video "Smosh Pokemon Theme Song Original 2005".
- Diri developing an inappropriate crush on Anthony can be a reference to "SIRI TRIED TO KILL ME!
", where Siri on Anthony's iPhone becomes self-aware and becomes clingy with him.
- Other Me Annoys Me: Jenna Marbles has basically been bunking with a version of herself in a YouTube video after being trapped there forever and they don't get along very well.
- Phonýmon: Magic Pocket Slave Monster is a Pokémon Expy that exists in the world of the movie.
- Stalking is Love: Ian seems to think that he's "seeing" Butt-Massage Girl because he leaves creepy comments on her videos, seeing him flagging all of his comments as "playing hard to get." Subverted when it's revealed that Ian was correct and she actually does like him.
- Take That!:
- Steve YouTube, implied to be allegorical to the titular website, is shown to be a petty, manipulative Jerkass who traps content-creators unlucky enough get his attention in his website, forcing them to churn out content to make him more money.
- Everyone reacts with disgust when they find themselves in a Furry Party video.Steve YouTube: Why was this video in your viewer history? Sickos.
- One of Anthony's pet peeves is buffering. When buffering grinds the climax to a halt, he takes their brief moment being frozen to complain about it while Steve weakly explains that it's due to a bandwidth issue outside of his control.
- This Is Reality: Practically said word for word by Anthony when Ian suggest they split up like in the movies.
- Trapped in TV Land: Ian and Anthony are able to directly interact with the contents of video and video ads while inside YouTube. It's revealed that the cell-phones Steve YouTube gave them are the only way out, and when the battery dies, so do their chances of escaping to the real world, as was the case with Jenna Marbles.
- The Trickster: Ian is portrayed as an unemployed Manchild that's a burden to Anthony, records him without his knowledge to create YouTube videos out of it, and pulls pranks on the mailman so awful that he refuses to give them their mail. Even when he accidentally hurts someone, he reacts more with how funny it was instead of apologizing.
- You Don't Look Like You: Sharon Hecox, who is normally played by herself in Smosh, is played by Kristen O'Mear here. To say that they look nothing alike is putting it mildly.
