History YMMV / North

* AccidentalInnuendo: When North has a panic attack, his dad says, "Quick, loosen his pants!" Unsurprisingly, WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic went to town with this one in his review of the movie.

* NeverLiveItDown:
** Creator/RobReiner never fully escaped the shadow this movie cast upon his résumé with its [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids "family-friendly"]] plethora of racially insensitive humor and unlikable characters.
** It was also the subject of one of the most infamously scathing reviews from critical duo Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, who both named it the worst film of 1994 and attacked its "cataclysmically unfunny" premise.

** It's impossible to watch this movie now and not briefly think, "Wait, [[{{Series/Seinfeld}} George and Elaine]] got married?"[[note]]At the time the actors were already famous for ''{{Series/Seinfeld}}'' (made by Castle Rock Entertainment, which also produced this movie), also making it an example of WTHCastingAgency.[[/note]] And they gave birth to [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings Frodo]], no less!

* WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids: This was one big reason why Creator/RogerEbert loathed this movie. The stereotype humor and lazy puns are far too juvenile for adults, but the sex jokes and various expletives make it too raunchy for kids, and that's not to mention that one wouldn't want their kids to watch such blatant stereotypes.

* EightDeadlyWords: One of the biggest complaints with the movie. Nearly everybody North meets is a combination of being either TooDumbToLive, useless, vulgar, or self-absorbed, piled up with the majority of the families he meets being ruthless, outdated stereotypes.

* DesignatedHero: We're supposed to sympathize with North's quest for better parents as he apparently feels both unappreciated and neglected; the fact that this is barely showcased in any meaningful manner or that he is [[spoiler: the one actively dreaming up the many ethnic stereotypes seen throughout his fantastical journey]] leaves many to wonder whether our hero is simply racist and too full of himself to recognize what he has.

* CriticalResearchFailure: North's Texan parents sing a song parodying the ''{{Series/Bonanza}}'' theme, despite that series taking place in Nevada.

* TookTheBadFilmSeriously: Arguably, Elijah Wood was the only one to actually do so, and despite the character he played and the fact he was in ''Film/TheGoodSon'', another film that wasn't too well received, with Macaulay Culkin only months prior, he was able to escape the StarDerailingRole trap (though he wouldn't be very visible until ''Deep Impact''), and came back in ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings''.
* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Assuming we're meant to ''like'' North, they certainly failed to make you do so, considering that, even if you don't interpret him as racist and bigoted, there's the fact that the entire conflict of the film comes down to him feeling his parents don't love him. However, given that he makes a big deal about how everyone else loves him for being super special, while the parents aren't actually shown to be particularly bad, it seems to be less that he's neglected, and more that he's self-entitled and ''thinks'' they should worship him more or something. Add in the way [[spoiler: he dreams about how]] everyone wants to adopt him and the fact that his [[spoiler: dream]] parents are so shocked by his leaving that they essentially become statues, he clearly has some massive ego issues.
* WhatAnIdiot: A lot of North's prospective parents fit this bill, quickly driving North away with all kinds of InnocentlyInsensitive actions that, suffice to say, wouldn't fly in reality. Perhaps most egregious of these though is his parents in Hawaii, who try to promote their state by advertising North as their leading citizen on a billboard where an octopus ''pulls down his swim trunks on the beach''. Naturally, North is disgusted and when they can't supply any justification for why this would work, he quickly bails out to the next client.

** Creator/GeneSiskel admitted to have been offended by a joke regarding an Hasidic Jew.

** Take for example the scene where North's dad attempts to loosen his (North's) pants in an attempt at CPR. Rather than being a joke about his line of work, It indirectly paints him as a MemeticMolester. Then when we see him at his factory workplace, the weirdness of the pants tryouts in the background unintentionally reinforces this trope, in that even after [[spoiler: the AllJustADream reveal,]] it appears to imply that he has a noticeable fetish for pants. As such, this problem repeats itself like a line of dominoes, as you see the problem come up again and again, with Betsy Lou, the Hawaiian billboard, and most of the scenes involving Bruce Willis's character. The result is a tonally upbeat film with a plot and story sequence so mean-spirited it comes off as too nihilistic to be funny or inspiring in any way that helps its own case for standing out as a kid's morality-tale at all, even if intended ironically.
* {{Anticlimax}}: [[spoiler:The fact that they dramatically-built-up North re-uniting with his parents before he is sent to an orphanage, and then had Winchell's henchman shoot at him could have made for an acceptable OneSceneWonder moment if Winchell somehow lost. Alas, all it does is deprive the film of any fridge brilliance recognition of it being AllJustADream and instead replaces it with a big cop-out that nullifies the whole plot and drama of the film, rendering the already tonally befuddled film little more than a waste of time for anyone unfortunate enough to have seen it.]]

* EthnicScrappy: The main reason why this movie is hated. Texans, Hawaiians, Amish, French. The Inuits in particular are the most reviled due to the use of {{Yellowface}} and their backwards tradition of leaving their old out to die in the sea.

* AcceptableReligiousTargets: The Amish family. North doesn't even give them a chance.

* TheScrappy: North is ultimately not a very likeable character due to [[spoiler:the reveal that the entire movie was a dream giving the implications that he's a self-centered bigot who cannot tolerate cultures as different such as the relatively tame Amish.]]

* AlternativeJokeInterpretation: In an example of how this can go [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools horribly wrong,]] the film's intention of trying to be a pastiche of children's morality tales gets undermined when the shifting tone of the film renders it an IndecisiveParody. Because of this, one of the film's defining problems is its tendency for its jokes to go horribly awry in that a joke would be made that is supposed to land under a certain context, but because the film struggles with its tone, not only do most of its jokes fail to land, they actually have the tendency to [[ThatCameOutWrong come out completely wrong]] under the context that they are presented in.

* CriticalResearchFailure:
** Just about every depiction of every ethnicity. [[spoiler:Justified because [[InvokedTrope it's all in North's imagination]] and that's all he knows.]]
** North's Texan parents sing a song parodying the ''{{Series/Bonanza}}'' theme, despite that series taking place in Nevada.

* CriticalResearchFailure: North's Texan parents sing a song parodying the ''{{Series/Bonanza}}'' theme, despite that series taking place in Nevada.

* RetroactiveRecognition: See HilariousInHindsight.

* CriticalResearchFailure:
** Just about every depiction of every ethnicity. [[spoiler:Justified because [[InvokedTrope it's all in North's imagination]] and that's all he knows.]]
** North's Texan parents sing a song parodying the ''{{Series/Bonanza}}'' theme, despite that series taking place in Nevada.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Assuming we're meant to ''like'' North, they certainly failed to make you do so, considering that, even if you ignore the fact he's a racist, bigoted egoist, there's the fact that the entire conflict of the film comes down to him feeling his parents don't love him. However, given that he makes a big deal about how everyone else loves him for being super special, while the parents aren't actually shown to be particularly bad, it seems to be less that he's neglected, and more that he's self-entitled and ''thinks'' they should worship him more or something. Add in the way [[spoiler: he dreams about how]] everyone wants to adopt him and the fact that his [[spoiler: dream]] parents are so shocked by his leaving that they essentially become statues, he clearly has some massive ego issues.

* AdaptationDisplacement: ''North'', the Rob Reiner film, is one of the most notorious [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_considered_the_worst#North_(1994) bad movies ever made]], yet ''North'', the 1984 novel by ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' writer Alan Zweibel, which was adapted into this film, has fallen into obscurity. (helps that the book is, [[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-02-13-ca-22210-story.html by Zweibel's admission]], "a worst seller" that only got an adaptation, let alone a second printing, because his friend Rob Reiner liked it so much he wanted to make a movie out of it)

* ShockingSwerve: [[spoiler: The fact that the whole movie is a dream by North]] may come across like this since the movie didn't try very hard to imply that in spite of its fantastic themes.

* AudienceAlienatingPremise: It's supposed to be a kids' movie with some {{parental bonus}}es in there, but the "child-friendly" scenes are too childish for adults and the "adult jokes" are too raunchy for kids... and that's not even getting into the stereotypes. In short, no member of the target audience is pleased.

* AlternativeJokeInterpretation: In an example of how this can go [[TropesAreTools horribly wrong,]] the film's intention of trying to be a pastiche of children's morality tales gets undermined when the shifting tone of the film renders it an IndecisiveParody. Because of this, one of the film's defining problems is its tendency for its jokes to go horribly awry in that a joke would be made that is supposed to land under a certain context, but because the film struggles with its tone, not only do most of its jokes fail to land, they actually have the tendency to [[ThatCameOutWrong come out completely wrong]] under the context that they are presented in.

* {{Anticlimax}}: [[spoiler:The fact that they dramatically-built-up North re-uniting with his parents before he is sent to an orphanage, and then had Winchell's henchman shoot at him could have made for an acceptable OneSceneWonder moment if Winchell somehow lost. Allas, all it does is deprive the film of any fridge brilliance recognition of it being AllJustADream and instead replaces it with a big cop-out that nullifies the whole plot and drama of the film, rendering the already tonally befuddled film little more than a waste of time for anyone unfortunate enough to have seen it.]]

** This was Creator/ScarlettJohansson's movie debut (in case you're wondering, she plays the daughter in the family who North eventually chooses as his new one). ''Film/{{Lucy}}'', in which she starred, thrashed ''North'' director Creator/RobReiner's ''And So It Goes'' at the box office twenty years later (almost to the day, since ''North'' opened on July 22, 1994 and ''Lucy'' bowed on July 25, 2014).

** Take for example the scene where North's dad attempts to loosen [North's] pants in an attempt at CPR. Rather than being a joke about his line of work, It indirectly paints him as a MemeticMolester. Then when we see him at his factory workplace, the weirdness of the pants tryouts in the background unintentionally reinforces this trope, in that even after [[spoiler: the AllJustADream reveal,]] it appears to imply that he has a noticeable fetish for pants. As such, this problem repeats itself like a line of dominoes, as you see the problem come up again and again, with Betsy Lou, the Hawaiian billboard, and most of the scenes involving Bruce Willis's character. The result is a tonally upbeat film with a plot and story sequence so mean-spirited it comes off as too nihilistic to be funny or inspiring in any way that helps its own case for standing out as a kid's morality-tale at all, even if intended ironically.

* AlternativeJokeInterpretation: In an example of how this can go [[TropesAreTools horribly wrong,]] the film's intention of trying to be a pastiche of children's morality tales gets undermined when the shifting tone of the film renders it an IndecisiveParody. Because of this, one of the film's defining problems is its tendency for its jokes to go horribly array in that a joke would be made that is supposed to land under a certain context, but because the film struggles with its tone, not only do most of its jokes fail to land, they actually have the tendency to [[ThatCameOutWrong come out completely wrong]] under the context that they are presented in.

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop:
** Abused and neglected kids need to just buck up and get on with it. You can never be truly happy with anybody who isn't biologically related to you, no matter how shitty or neglectful your parents are. Try telling ''that'' to anybody who's adopted or a foster parent.
** Alternately, as film critic Creator/NathanRabin puts it when describing not only ''North'', but "parenthood redemption comedies" as a whole:
-->[[https://film.avclub.com/my-year-of-flops-case-file-87-north-1798212891 "If you miss little Timmy's softball game even once he'll end up a serial killer all because of your terrible parenting."]]
** [[spoiler:It's okay to be an egotistical bigot if you don't show it outwardly, considering that North never learns to respect other cultures]].

* ColbertBump: Outside of Creator/RogerEbert's famous review of the film ([[BeamMeUpScotty "I hated hated hated this movie"]]), the movie probably would not as be as well-known today had WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic not mocked it.

** [[spoiler: It's okay to be an egotistical bigot if you don't show it outwardly, considering that North never learns to respect other cultures]].

* AlternativeJokeInterpretation: In an example of how this can go horribly wrong, the film's intention of trying to be a pastiche of children's morality tales gets undermined when the shifting tone of the film renders it an IndecisiveParody. Because of this, one of the film's defining problems is its tendency for its jokes to go horribly array in that a joke would be made that is supposed to land under a certain context, but because the film struggles with its tone, not only do most of its jokes fail to land, they actually have the tendency to [[ThatCameOutWrong come out completely wrong]] under the context that they are presented in.

** Take for example the scene where North's dad attempts to loosen [North's] pants in an attempt at CPR. Rather than being a joke about his line of work, It indirectly paints him as a MemeticMolester. Then when we see him at his factory workplace, the weirdness of the pants tryouts in the background unintentionally reinforces this trope, in that even after [[spoiler: the AllJustADream reveal,]] it appears to imply that he has a noticeable fetish for pants. As such, this problem repeats itself like a line of dominoes, as you see the problem come up again and again, with Betsy Lou, the Hawaiian billboard, and most of the scenes involving Bruce Willis's character. The result is a tonally upbeat film with a plot and story sequence so mean-spirited it winds up too nihilistic to be funny or inspiring in any way that helps its own case for standing out as a kid's morality-tale at all, even if intended ironically.