Angry Video Game Nerd

So I don't know if it's been discussed much in this thread, but what did everyone think of The Movie? I re-watched it last night for the first time in six years and... I didn't like it that much. There are a number of issues I had with it:
-It's too long. There's no reason this film needs to be two hours. It would've done better at 90 minutes.
-Some of the jokes were flat-out recycled from the series ("It's better to be pissed off than to be pissed on").
-Since when is The Nerd against relationships with the opposite sex? That just felt shoehorned in, especially since he's not the one who gets the girl at the end.
-Around the halfway point, when Mandi is separated from the group, the film loses the group dynamic it had going for it in the first half.
-When Death Mwauthzyx is introduced, that's when things go downhill fast. I get that James is a giant monster fan, but it feels forced and any scenes with it feel like a totally different movie.
-There isn't as much humor as your average episode of the series. Even Eddie Pepitone as the Nerd's boss, who I loved on first watch, didn't do much for me this time around. I feel like the script focused too much on getting characters from point A to point B in the plot instead of letting them have funny dialogue with each other. There's a little of it but not enough. Nintendo World Championships did a better job of the Nerd interacting with others.
-The use of miniatures was funny the first time but gets less amusing the more he does it. By the time the villain falls off the cliff at the end, it just felt tired.
-The film was already dated when it came out, due to the Atari Landfill being confirmed shortly after, so now it's even worse.
-There are bits that go nowhere and feel added to pad the movie, like Cooper's flat Earth conspiracy theory.

I will say this, though: The soundtrack's pretty great, especially the tracks which utilize SNES and Genesis instruments. And there are individual moments that are amusing, but overall it's a letdown in the comedy department.

Edited by speedyboris on Apr 19th 2021 at 8:39:53 AM

I essentially agree with your points about the film being too long. I brought that up back in 2014 after seeing the film. When I saw the movie in a theater in Seattle, I thought this was the coolest thing, an Internet celebrity making a feature film version of their online series... but because the film is pretty long, the novelty does wear off eventually.

Honestly, that's what happens when you do a movie independently with no executives "fixing" your script. I can just imagine somebody telling James "Hey this giant monster homage towards the end? Yeah, that isn't contributing anything to the plot, and is just slowing it down. Take it out."

And yeah the whole "Nerds before birds" thing was... weird. I think what James was trying to do was do a reversal on the "getting the girl being the end goal" trope, but it still comes off as patronizing. Also, how many people in the audience knew that "birds" was old slang for "women"?

I will say though that because this movie has a ton of cameos by other Youtube personalities, many who weren't that popular or just starting out when the film was made, there's a big dose of Retroactive Recognition throughout the film. Like for example, Andre Meadows, as the Game Cops customer that pesters the Nerd about the E.T. game, stands out more to me now then he did when I first saw the film.

One regret I have is I wish I had seen James' blog post about submitting fan videos praising the Nerd, for use at the beginning of the movie.

I've only seen the film... maybe twice, since it's theatrical release. I think it's alright, and pretty enjoyable. It's what you'd expect a feature length AVGN movie to be honestly.

Mike Jeavons (Shameful Sequels) did a video on this and claimed that this movie made James more egomaniacal than Doug, and he made a movie where he's a Kryptonian, Jesus, and God. What do you think? Did it make James look too prideful?

Eh... personally, I disagree.

Comparing James to Doug is just insulting,James puts work into his craft and has enjoyed success because of it,I cant say the same of Doug walker

x3 - Hard disagree. First, James' movie looks like it was put together by professionals.

Second, while the Nerd is a beloved figure, he's frequently shown to be wrong and doesn't get the girl. His rather neutral tone reviewing the actual ET game also shows that he wasn't perfect and had to temper his expectations in order to see what happened.

It's almost a subversion of the "Reviewer is the ultimate paragon" idea that Doug played straight in his "films", where the reviewer is out of his depth in anything besides reviewing riffable material. The film isn't perfect by a LONG shot, but it's an earnest effort and it's not approaching Snyder Cut long like say, To Boldly Flee did.

The guy who runs the Cinematic Venom channel (forgot his name. Rob something), also once said something on Twitter that James came off as egotistical regarding the film.

For the most part, I disagree, but the film does try to paint The Nerd as "The greatest gamer ever". Which is a tad presumptuous. Not to mention, AVGN is a guy who reviews crappy video games, he's not some champion speedrunner.

Also, it's a very minor nitpick, but I never liked AVGN's name being actually "Nerd". I mean, what's so wrong with his name being "James"? It's especially odd since the nerd's name being James had already been alluded to in a few past videos (Spider-Man, Winter Games, Action 52...).

You act like there's more to it than it just being the character's name...

Hence why I said it's a minor nitpick.

Not to mention the later reveal that the Nerd and Board James are the same person in-universe makes things all the more baffling.

I used to be an AVGN fan way back and every now and then watch one of his videos, like the one about Polybius. I like his work and his passion, but I didn't enjoy the movie at all. I just found it boring, tedious and self-indulgent, with unfunny gags and characters. The only things I liked was Bear McCreary's soundtrack and the "Ee Tee" review at the very end, but making a whole movie around it was a bit too much. And, given that now conspiracy theorists are no laughing matter anymore, I don't have the desire to watch it again.

I was disappointed on the video games based on the show too, because they came off as the typical parody that is too similar to the things it's mocking, i.e. frustrating old-school games with bad design decisions.

Are you expecting to have a faithful game adaptation of AVGN? Because the whole purpose of the games you're talking about is to poke fun of gameplay back from the NES era up until the present while still being enjoyable in terms of actual gameplay.

You were expecting games based off an angry nerd who "plays some shitty games that suck ass" and complains about Fake Difficulty of NES games (and more) to not be Nintendo Hard?

Edited by Shadao on Apr 24th 2021 at 10:23:07 AM

In James' defense, he said once that because E.T. was his most requested game review, he felt the review itself should be special, hence why he chose to write a movie based around it (well that, and the whole landfill urban legend offered a lot of material).

Oh hey Mike Matei left to do his own thing? Maybe I should start to watch videos again, though never been that huge AVGN fan

AVGN Adventures is actually a pretty well-done game. It has tight controls and while the game is challenging, it's not impossible because of bad gameplay mechanics or cheap enemies. Plus it has variable difficulties, something many games in the NES days didn't have.

Yeah, he left Cinemassacre late last year to focus on his streaming channels. I'm not an "unedited livestream playthrough" watcher (some of his videos are hours long!) so I haven't kept up with his material much. I much preferred the way it was presented for James & Mike Mondays: Edited down to half an hour chunks, plus there was the chemistry between him and James which his solo livestreams lack.

Edited by speedyboris on Apr 25th 2021 at 6:39:07 AM

Live streams can be interesting if the host can make it interesting.

My main problem with Mike is he'll constantly claim he knows all the tricks and secrets to various games, but then he'll completely miss or forget something rather basic, prolonging his gameplay (so basically, like Arin Hanson).

Mike is more entertaining (or tolerable I guess) when he is playing a game with someone, whether it be James, or Tony, or Erin.

That's the point, I did not enjoy it that much, I felt that for a parody game it was still too close to the thing it was mocking, with too many instakill obstacles, annoying decisions (losing your weapon as soon as you get hit) and leaps of faith. Having fun seeing the Nerd getting pissed off while playing a shitty game doesn't mean I want to live the same experience as him, or maybe I just never liked those kinds of "masocore" games.

Anyway, getting back to the movie, I understand why it came out the way it did but even if it contains all of James' interests and passions it still comes off as something a bit too calculated to become a "cult movie" which is "so bad it's good", but it just becomes annoying and unfunny in the end. At least in my opinion anyway.

I’d still take the AVGN movie over any of the Nostalgia Critic movies, any day of the week.

I've just found Mike Matei extremely uncomfortable, like something about the guy just makes me feel wrong ^_^; Like something about him sets off my "this guy seems like a jerk" alarm and I don't know why

Edited by SpookyMask on Apr 29th 2021 at 3:53:35 PM

The Nerd's movie feels like an actual movie. Say what you will about its quality (it has issues, assuredly, and I think even James has admitted such), it's shot professionally, by people who took the process of filmmaking seriously. It has various sets outside of people's houses and actors trained as such, rather than internet personalities thrown into the unenviable role of trying to learn how to act (A disconnect I imagine is most similar to how many pro wrestlers tried and failed to break into legitimate acting roles because they were incapable of playing characters outside of their wrestling gimmick, ex - Hulk Hogan).

I won't call it a good movie, but it feels like a movie. As opposed to the CA attempts which are bloated student films at best.

I do agree it was professionally made- as a movie, I just wish it was stronger.

Edited by speedyboris on Apr 29th 2021 at 10:30:53 AM

The Nerd goes to Vegas to cover casino games.

Edited by Beatman1 on Apr 30th 2021 at 4:54:13 AM

If you've never seen Fear and Loathing, hoo boy are you gonna be lost. (I have, but it was a while ago.)

I guess a trot down to Wikipedia and this website shouldn't hurt too much. I hope.

This isn’t so much a review as it is an... experience. And as an experience, it was... alright. I don’t know what to think or make of it.