Squick: An arc where Verne is Eaten Alive by a dog ends with the dog violently puking him out.
YMMV tropes for the movie:
Adaptation Displacement: Most people who are familiar with the film have little experience with the comic strip, if they even know it exists at all.
Award Snub: Some fans were disappointed when the film was snubbed for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in favor of Monster House, Cars and Happy Feet.
Awesome Ego: RJ is a very cocky Rascally Raccoon, but his overall confidence and Sad Clown cover-up make him one of the most liked characters of the film.
Vincent the bear spent the whole summer gathering food to survive, but he is portrayed as a bad guy for threatening to eat RJ if he didn't replace it once he accidentally destroyed it. They seem to have realized this during the production and added in a line about how Vincent got to where he is by selling out, betraying, murdering, etc. all of his former friends and another line where he praises RJ for being just like him once he sells out his friends. Not to mention that, you know, the time RJ visits him is at the start of spring, making the size of his foodpile a bit weird (how much did he stack up on if what RJ destroys is what's left after winter?) and giving Vincent more than enough time to fill up his reserves for the next winter himself even though punishing RJ for destroying his food was justified. Activision seems to believe the same thing, as Vincent was brought back in the tie-in game and undergoes a full-on Heel–Face Turn.
Do Not Do This Cool Thing: The movie makes stealing all those goodies look like fun. A montage set to an upbeat Ben Folds song will do that.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Despite being the character who has the least screentime of the movie, Heather is one of the most popular characters of the film due to her friendly nature and being voiced by Avril Lavigne. Additionally, she's become Popular with Furries due to a massive upsurge in popularity on the subreddit, with over 80% of the posts being about her and her Ship Tease with RJ, which often results in her becoming an Ascended Extra in fanfics. Pretty much, she could match RJ and Verne in popularity.
To a lesser extent, Heather's father Ozzie, mainly due to his overdramatic acting, which often is some of the film's funniest moments, as well as being voiced by William Shatner
Fountain of Memes: Dwayne La Fontant, a.k.a The Verminator, has grown to be one of the movie's most memorable characters due to his many quoted lines and surprisingly menacing appearence giving him some minor Memetic Badass moments.
Genius Bonus: In the film, Tiger is completely unaffected by Stella's musk, which he explains is due to his facial structure, which has removed his ability to smell. This is a more kid-friendly nod to a real-life health issue common amongst Persians and other "flat-faced" cat breeds called brachycephalic airway syndrome, where their distorted skull can narrow the nasal aperture so drastically that it seriously impedes their ability to breathe.
Harsher in Hindsight: Shortly after Hammy and RJ make off with a wagon of girl scout cookies, Gladys fears the "rabid squirrel" could be the sign of a global pandemic. Guess what disease emerges 13 years after the film's release.
Verne's first reaction to being in the backyard is often used as a reaction image.
Some fans often refer to Heather as "Avril Lavigne Opossum".
Around 2022, the subreddit got more activity due to fans just posting memes involving Ensemble Dark Horse Heather in what was known as Heather-posting.
Verne trying to convince the other animals to eat bark, which has been jokingly compared to vegan food and well-done steaks.
Moe: Hammy is this to many fans of the movie, due to his large eyes and excitable, playful personality.
Gladys crosses it with her insistence on the installation of the Depelter Turbo even after being told that it's illegal. Before this, she came off as a desperate, if rather mean and haughty woman trying to preserve her neighbourhood, but this one action cemented her as someone who clearly believes herself to be above the law. Fittingly, this is what gets her arrested.
Popular with Furries: Maybe not as popular as other franchises, but people in the furry demographic tend to bring up the film very amicably.
Stuck in Their Shadow: They're not exactly hated per se, but the Porcupine Family are easily the least popular characters of the movie, as compared to the main cast and Heather and Ozzie, they have the least about of relevance and point to be around.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: While the cast is relatively liked overall, there are a few fans that believe that some characters could've benefitted from more screentime.
Tiger is considered to not have a bad arc in concept, going from Gladys's housecat and guard to a member of the group at the end of the movie. However, very little screentime is given to him in the end in the buildup to his betrayal, and he only joins up with the others after he falls in love with Stella.
Heather is considered to be a character with a surprising amount of potential, which leads into her Ensemble Dark Horse status. However, most of her interactions are with Ozzie, despite some fans wishing she had some interactions with characters like RJ.
Viewer Gender Confusion: The porcupine triplets. Out of the three, only Spike has a confirmed gender (Penny and Lou refer to him as "he" when talking about how the triplets kept waking their mother). Bucky, due to the male name and the male voice actor (actually played by the son of the director, Sami), is most likely also male. The last triplet, Quillo, is ambiguous. The name doesn't really have any implied gender, Quillo is voiced by a girl, and the triplets are always referred to as "kids", which could imply that at least one of them is a girl.
Vindicated by History: For a while, it was either labeled as just an alright film or downright bad. However, it nowadays is way more respected due to its very likable cast, strong voice acting, subverting the usually unpopular "Liar Revealed" story, and great music. It's to the extent that out of all the one-off films Dreamworks has done, this film is one of the most requested to receive a sequel.
The final boss. It's completely stationary, has an easy-to-hit weak point, and is aided by enemies that aren't likely to pose any sort of threat.
The Depleter Turbo. The movie version was hilariously powerful, while this one can be defeated by a few special attacks to its fuel source. It doesn't help that most of the Depleter's stronger attacks hit its front, while its weak spot is in its back; chances are, it won't even land a meaningful hit. Worst of all, you can smash the Depleter’s extensive weaponry as well, which results in it being unable to use that weapon either.
Any enemies who use fire attacks, like rats with fire guns or grills. Getting set on fire means your character will run around helplessly, while you can only try to avoid running into more hazards. You'll lose at least two hit points if a fire attack connects; god help you if you get hit near a laser grid.
The Mecha-Mooks with spinning blades. They're not so bad if you have room to maneuver, but in tight spaces like the train and mini-golf course, they can easily pin you against a wall and hit you repeatedly. When that happens, you can't do anything other than wait for it to power down and then try to fight your way out, but you might not destroy it before it starts up again.
Game-Breaker: The tag team Spin Attack. While it's slightly clumbersome to set upnote it requires one teammate get on top of the other and both need a certain amount of energy to use it together and tricky to move around in, it's a ridiculously powerful attack capable of decimating bosses in seconds and wiping out everything else instantly, and can go on for a long time considering defeated enemies drop energy-relinquishing candy, allowing you to spam it as long as you want.
Moles tunnel all over the place and pop up to throw bombs at you. They're not any more dangerous than most enemies, but they're an utter pain to track down and defeat. Thankfully they only appear in a couple of levels, but one has you fighting them inside a laser grid hooked up to flamethrowers, where one slip-up can result in a lot of unnecessary damage, and another is a Timed Mission where a mole can waste a lot of your time by harassing you repeatedly until you take it down.
Chipmunks. They move way faster than you can and have a rapid-fire ranged attack that can keep you at bay long enough for them to start moving again. Expect to do a lot of chasing if you encounter one.
Good Bad Bugs: Replaying one of the missions in the DS version lets you skip the final mission set.
Hilarious in Hindsight: At one point in the game, Heather, the porcupine kids and Vincent watch Shrek SuperSlam gameplay, with Heather in particular pondering why it's not played competitively. With there being actual tournaments for SuperSlam now, this particular line is all the more hilarious:
Memetic Mutation: The reaction Verne has once Vincent arrives is often used as a reaction image to highly disturbing comments.
No Problem with Licensed Games: The non-handheld game is surprisingly good. It's a hack-and-slash with no real major flaws. It also has a lot of diversity in the missions. Also, unlike most movie licensed games, the game doesn't just act as a butchered rehash of the movie and/or a warped retelling of the film's plot. Instead, it actually acts as a sequel of sorts, and while the story is no masterpiece, it's good enough to keep you interested the whole way through.
"Don't fall off the mountain" in one of the levels leading up to Vincent's cave. It's very easy to fall, especially with enemies pushing you around.
"Don't fall off the platforms" in one of the amusement park levels. The fixed camera angle doesn't help with the precise coordination you need to pull off those jumps.
"Don't set off a trap" in Mission 22. Dodging the circling lasers the first time is easy enough, but then you have to do it again while a wave of gophers is trying to kill you. Then comes a narrow passage of moving lasers while rats with freeze guns shoot at you. Screw up once, and you'll have to do the mission over.
In the last house heist level, "Collect all the lost items and chips before the time runs out". You'll need to replay this level several times in order to map exactly where everything is, and collecting everything requires very precise pathfinding and timing. It doesn't help that Rufus has an entire animation he needs to do before he collects something, which he may not finish before the time runs out.
That One Level: None of these missions are that hard, per say, but some of do have some objectives that require quite a bit more finesse from the player in order to 100% said missions. For example:
Mission 6, Projector Heist, for the gauntlet of traps at the beginning of the level. You'll likely be either stumbling into hazards trying to fight enemies, or get hit repeatedly by enemies while trying to sneak past a motion sensor (which will then result in setting off the motion sensor and taking more damage).
The penultimate level. It comes in two parts: the first has the player(s) traversing a hallway thoroughly covered by motion sensors and security cameras (which cause damage if triggered) to clear out four rooms of enemies, in order to activate an elevator. The second part is the elevator ride, which involves dodging an increasingly complex laser grid which, if triggered, will send enemies to kill you. Both sections are long, arduous, and will likely involve taking a lot of damage with not nearly enough healing to go around. And finally, screwing up one segment means having to start it over.
That One Puzzle: The minecart puzzle in the amusement park. You have to jump across a series of small platforms, hit a switch, and then jump back. It requires a lot of very precise jumps, which isn't helped by the camera being fixed at an awkward angle, and if you fall off, you take damage and have to start from the beginning.
is a mock version of Ben Folds' "Rocking the Suburbs