I just watched the AVGN movie… and I liked it… well… sort of… I mean…

*Warning: Explicit Language

Okay, first of all, If you don’t have any idea who is the Angry Video Game Nerd, you should avoid Reading this because if you don’t you won’t probably get it. But if you want to read it anyway let me give you a brief summary:

But first: here's the trailer of the movie:

The Angry Video Game Nerd is an Internet comedy-review show starring James Rolfe. It’s about a thirty-something guy who spends most of his time playing videogames of the 80’s and 90’s (a retro-reviewer if you prefer) and makes fun of the games pointing out his flaws such as bad programming, dreadful graphics, horrible controls, unfairly challenging levels and overall concepts who makes him mad to the point of swearing like a sailor.

It’s pretty juvenile (features a lot of toilet humor, cursing and violence) but the guy it’s so fun to listen and watch in his performance that you forget (and even forgive) all that. It’s similar to what happen to South Park, people find the comedy lowbrow and childish, but also features a lot of substance in their scripts you don’t mind everything else.

And if you read my other posts you’ve already familiarized with the Nostalgia Critic, who is kind of like the nemesis of the Nerd, but only in a fictional way because in real life Doug and James are very good friends. Both are very respected and influential retro-reviewers (or at least they were) in the mid 2000’s and even if it seems the end of the road for both of them in terms of fame and quality (the last bit it’s more applicable for Doug) they still managed to make people laugh and leave their marks on internet history.

But enough exposition and lets jump into the topic for today: The Angry Video Game Nerd Movie. That’s right, this guy made a movie about his internet review show and it’s a real movie, not just an amateur experiment made by some random college students, it’s an actual movie.

It took around three years to been made and it was financed with fan-donations, proving that the internet It’s the ultimate entrepreneur producer and let anyone with a visionary plan of business accomplished those dreams. But we’re not here to praise capitalism and globalization like a bunch of geeks; we’re here to talk about if those dreams actually pay off nicely. So let’s take a look.

Good or not you got to give them credit for trying to give this low budget-independent film a professional look... I mean, the poster man THE POSTER 

The film stars with some exposition about the infamous ET: the videogame (named Eee Tee in the movie) for the ATARI 2600. Then we cut to a company called “Cockburn Industries” (I know, really mature), one of the executives, called Mandi (played by Sarah Glendening) suggest to release an intentionally bad sequel of the game to gain some profit due the cult following that the game has.

Meanwhile, our main Character the Angry Video Game Nerd (played by Rolfe) feels disenchanted with his life due the fact that he works on a game store called GameCops promoting crappy games and feeling that all the anger for make his review show was for nothing because his fans actually play those games that he was trying to prevent instead of avoid them (Streisand Effect anyone?)

But when he learns about the Cockburn Industries plan of releasing a sequel of ET, which happens to be the most requested game of his fans, he enters on denial and try to avoid reviewing it because it was “physically hurtful experience” play it as a kid (and yet he can play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on the NES), he wants to stay away from the phenomenon as far as possible.

The assistant, manager and personal friend of the Nerd, Cooper Folly (played by Jeremy Suarez) encourages him to take the request and tries to convince him that is a golden opportunity and also because he has a reputation to keep, but the Nerd doesn’t care about that and just want to avoid the idea.

However, after reflecting a little bit about it, he decides to take a chance and make the review. But not only that, he also wants to find the 1 million copies of the game that, according to the myth, are buried in the dessert of Alamogordo New Mexico, near from the Area 51. The Nerd tells Cooper that if they actually find the copies, he is going to play every copy because… he’s the FUCKING Nerd, that’s why.

Mandi, who knows the Nerd for his internet fame, approach to meet him and offer he and Cooper a deal of promoting the sequel of ET for financial help to accomplish the mission.

Now in the dessert our heroes are threatened by the militaries of the Area 51, who apparently protect the ground where the copies are buried. The general Dark Onward (played by Stephen Mendel) and the female Sergeant McButter (played by Helena Barrett) capture them under the belief that they’re terrorists trying to make contact with aliens, but the Nerd and his friends manage to escape and the general blow up his arm trying to throw a grenade.

On the road, the trio decides to look up for the creator and designer of the game itself Howard Scott Warshaw. Luckily for them, a worker from the Area 51, Dr. Zandor (played by Time Winters) worked with Howard in the design of the game and, coincidentally, lived in an abandoned house in New Mexico.

Even if he tried to kill them first for trespass his property, he not only let them enter to his house (after testing them with a video game challenge IRL) but also he told them the secret behind ET the game.

It turns out that the Dr. Zandor gave Howard a map to make a replica of the Area 51 and disguise it as a horrible game in order to not only help him to complete the time deadline (Atari gave him only 5 weeks to complete it), but also to get revenge on the military for capturing and locking up an alien with his spaceship that the Dr. tried to free.

Mandi, who happens to be a double agent for Cockburn industries sneaks out of the house to try to get a phone call from her boss and it’s captured by McButter, but she fools them and leading them to Las Vegas in order to keep them away from the Nerd and Cooper while they’re facing a long crowd of fans that wanted to promote the new ET game and also want to see their hero playing the infamous Atari game.

The things got worse when the Nerd tried to convince his fans that they’re no copies buried under the dessert but Howard Scott Marshaw himself appears and prove him wrong.

The Nerd finally decides to go to Area 51 disguised as an Alien in order to sneak in and find the alien (not a very good idea if you think about it) and gets captured by Onward and he forces him to play ET as a form of torture. Oh, and also launch a missile to the Mount Fuji in Japan that wake up a robot-like creature that goes to America and destroy all the places where our main characters are. Well, there are coincidences and then there’s… this movie.

Beautiful isn't it? and no... it's not a coincidence that it looks pretty similar to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles puppets... the guy who played Michelangelo in the saga from the 90's play this character.

But Cooper, who is hiding in the wagon of Cockburn Industries, releases the Alien captured in the Area 51 by playing the game (yea, I don’t know how that works either) and when the General leaves the room (mutilating his remaining arm with the automatic doors), the Aliens comes out and free the Nerd.

Then, both escape from the base and after a really cheesy but kind of amusing fight with robots, the Nerd and the alien steal a plane from the government and fly out of the place.

The general learns that the metal from the alien’s spaceship was replaced with tin foil by the Dr. Zandor, who hide the rests in the copies of the ET game (how the flying fuck did not analyze it and check it out if it was real in all those years?)

Meanwhile, the Nerd, after recreate one of his most famous routines (trying to land the plane like in the game Top Gun) both him and the Alien got into the Area 51.

Mandi, who was captured by McButter in the Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas manage to confront and defeats the Sergeant in a catfight (who, unfortunately and for comedic effect has too little screen time) until the Robot (called Death Mwauthzyx) and captures her along with Cooper and takes them to Area 51 where the general gets killed when he tried to confront the monster.

The Alien finally is able to rebuild his spaceship with every cartridge of the ET game (including the ones who are spread through the entire planet who led to several cameos), and manage to confront the robot alien and defeat him shooting a laser on the satellite on the top of his head, which it makes him to disappear him instead of something cool like an explosion or something (it is just me or did I sound like Michael Bay with that last sentence?)

And finally after defeat all the bad guys and stuff the Nerd finally take the request and review both ET games while the credits rolling.

And that was the Angry Video Game Nerd. It is a great movie? Mmmm not really, it has some flaws in the script and some jokes fall flat because they lack of good pay off, like they got good set ups but the punch lines weren’t strong enough. And also some of the acting wasn’t very convincing either, particularly Mandi and Cooper who weren’t very memorable in their roles.

Now the good stuff: the story is really creative and very complex with the whole ET conspiracy, yes it could it been better if some of the inconsistencies were worked a little bit more but, for what it is, is a pretty decent plot. And also liked the fact that the Nerd and Mandy weren’t get together at the end of the film, even when the trailers fool us to believe that in the first place, so that was a clever move.

Overall, it’s an okay film. If you’re a fan of The Angry Video Game Nerd like, you’re probably goingo to find yourself entertained with the jokes and the story, but if you’re an outsider know absolutely nothing about James and his foul mouthed character better skip it because it’s not for all tastes, just see the trailer and you’re going to figured out why.

And that’s all for now, see you later and remember: Shitty games can teach us more than we actually give them credit for. Don’t believe me? Ask to James Rolfe.

So AAAAAAASS-Ta la vista Baby.