Release: February 17, 2015
Film: Mamma Mia!
Tagline: Could this be the worst Chick Flick ever?
This review provides examples of:
- Bottle Episode: This episode provides none of the extravagance of more recent episodes. This is largely in part to the four previous reviews, which dealt with the Matrix films and contained a lot of production. When the Critic's crew leaves him, not wanting anything to do with this movie, they lampshade this...Malcolm: He should've done another Matrix Month.
Tamara: Yeah, some people got so mad, they watched that three times.
Rob: Why do they do that?
Tamara: I don't know. - Chick Flick: The review begins with the Critic discussing the very nature of the genre. He reveals he likes two such chick flicks, A League of Their Own and The Princess Bride, and also acknowledges the cultural impact of Titanic and Frozen. However, he also notes that for every well-thought chick flick, there are many others that exists for pandering, and Mamma Mia! seems to encapsulate everything wrong with the genre.
- Call-Back: The Critic notes the three fathers' personalities to be eerily similar to those from Full House.
- Cliché Storm: The Critic's In-Universe opinion on the film, even claiming to have found a checklist from the film set of all the cliches used.
- Girl-Show Ghetto: While most of the episode shows how the film personifies everything wrong with chick flicks, the opening discusses how this mindset is not always right since films like A League of Their Own and The Princess Bride are still regarded as good movies despite having women as its target audience. Not that the other extreme is much better.
- Ending Fatigue: Much like the stage show, the movie logically should end at the wedding scene but keeps going. As the Critic lampshades "it has more endings than Return of the King."
- Esoteric Happy Ending: Invoked by the Critic, who identifies this as a common trope in bad chick flicks.
- Eye Scream: After the beating Team NC gets in the end, NC's left eye's practically hanging out of his socket!
- It's Not Supposed to Win Oscars: In-Universe, the Critic points to chick flicks as one of the genres that people defend by invoking this trope as if the fact that they're chick flicks means they shouldn't be held to any standards of quality.
- Losing Horns: A "wah-wah-waaah" trombone sound plays during an uncomfortably forced (even by bad chick flick standards) moment, in which Rosie tries to row a boat, but ends up slipping and falling in the water. Usually, the Critic would shrug when this sound is heard, but not this time.Critic: (scowling) I refuse to shrug under protest that we are better as a species.
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Never Live It Down: The Critic claims that Mamma Mia! seems to have become the archetypal Chick Flick in the public consciousness, which explains the negative reputation of the genre today. - No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: What the Critic, Rob, Malcolm and Tamara suffer at the end of the video after the former was dared by the latter three to lay down a grave insult to the chick flick fandom (though we only see the aftermath).
- Pandering to the Base: In-Universe, how the Critic describes such bad chick flicks as this one.
- Periphery Demographic: Invoked by the Critic, who acknowledges that chick flicks can attract male audiences and likewise dick flicks can attract a female following, such as Mean Girls and the Indiana Jones movies, respectively.
- Pun: If there's such a thing as chick flick, the Critic coins the term "dick flick" for films which are Rated M for Manly (as an example, he defines Pacific Rim as one such film, in contrast to the Harry Potter films which, despite having a male protagonist, is more gender-neutral in orientation).
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Only a few seconds into the review, and Rob, Tamara and Malcolm already hightailed it out of having to sit through Mamma Mia!.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The songs are so ill-fitted to the scenes they are set in even the Critic is forced to admit that at least Moulin Rouge! (one of Doug's most-hated films) did a far better job at that.
- Squee: The Critic lists the overabundance of this in the movie as one annoying thing about it.
- Tempting Fate: At the end of the video, the Critic finds Rob, Malcolm and Tamara outside the studio, who dare him to say something really insulting to the chick flick fandom since they're sure nobody would be stupid enough to defend them. Thirty seconds later, the four are left a bloody mess.Critic: I guess Mamma Mia had a bigger fanbase than I thought...
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The Critic notes that the film has some good comedic setups (such as when Donna falls through the ceiling in the middle of three of her ex-boyfriends), but ruins them due to the reluctance of bad chick-flicks to subject their women to any form of misery.
- Wacky Sound Effect: The Critic dubs in the jumping SFX from Super Mario Bros. over Sky's (Sophie's fiance) friends dancing weirdly with flippers on while singing "Lay All Your Love on Me".
Dot dot dot!!!
