James Rolfe, aka “The Angry Video Game Nerd,” is more or less the godfather of my entire ridiculous profession; and like a lot of us, he also started out as an aspiring filmmaker. Now, he’s finally gone and parlayed his online persona into a feature film of his own making… and I think it looks pretty damn good:
Yes, fine – the “Gen-X geeks on a reference-ladden road trip” premise is by now a whole genre unto itself, but considering this is “The Movie” of the webseries that helped create a lot of the memetic in-jokes that seem to populate this I’m willing to let it “slide” if the movie itself is fun, which looks to be the case. Good on you, Nerd – can’t wait to see it.
MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 
It does look thoroughly enjoyable! Can't wait to see it. I hope the Guitar-Guy makes an appearance at some point.
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I could normally put up with something looking like a Nickelodeon special, but once he started puking, it reminded me why I stopped watching AVGN.
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oh bob you whine a hell of a lot about movies that look a lot better than this. does being about “nerds” make this special? fucking double standards man
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Not to speak ill of the Channel Awesome guys, but the production values on this look comparatively high.
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Let's all be honest: the Nerd's the reason why we're all here. Without him there would be no Nostalgia Critic, no Spoony, no Linkara, and geek culture on the internet would probably have a lot less reach than it does now. Seeing him make the movie he's always wanted to make brings a smile to my face. The jokes look funny, everything seems well-shot, and considering the budget he had, the effects are looking pretty nice. I'm definately looking forward to seeing this.
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I could have done without the vomit gag at the end, but aside from that, this looks pretty great.
I stopped watching AVGN a long time ago–I think NC/Linkara, etc. are funnier and more consistent–but I'll be checking this out for sure.
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what a shitload of fuck!
Remember folks, this cost HALF A MILLION DOLLARS.
It's epic alright… EPIC FAIL that it.
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@Misterprickly
Actually it was closer to 300 thousand. Seems well spent to me. This looks good.
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Jesus where the hell did he get a tank! Anyways, besides the wonky acting and effects, it does look actually pretty good. I mean you try to go out and make a half way decent movie with just half a million dollars. It can happen, but it takes effort and the power of friendship! Or some shit like that.
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@ Above
Do you have any idea how much it costs to build even the shittiest sets, feed and shelter a cast and crew (even if they're forgoing a paycheck), go on location abroad (James lives in Pennsylvania and decided to shoot most of it in California and Chicago), or, hell, just the cost of HD tapes for anything with a decent shooting ratio? Also, a big chunk of that is going into promotion and the clerical stuff nobody really appreciates. All things considered, this looks really good for its budget and his initial goal was 75,000 dollars.
As far as the content goes: James Rolfe makes junk food entertainment and this doesn't seem to be doing much to change that image. I don't like saying that because he's honestly a really nice, charismatic guy, but he aims low and expects lower. Maybe he'll surprise us with some genius new comedy or (more likely) a decent splatter film, but I fully support him phasing out the Nerd.
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Vasquez Rocks! The nerdiest film location on the planet!
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@bingbong
There's no place for double standards here.
The worst movies that Bob has reviewed have often been studio movies. Films like 'Branded', 'Transformers 2', 'Transformers 3', 'The Expendables', 'Green Lantern' and 'Red State' are the movies that come to mind. Those movies (with the exception of 'Red State') command HUUUGE budgets with thousands of people working on them and only care about making a profit.
'The Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie' is a passion project. A movie that was looking for $70,000 and ended up with $325,327. It's being made because James Rolfe wanted to do it. Also, the fact that the movie seems more enjoyable than most bloated $200 million blockbusters is a miracle unto itself.
Show respect.
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Hm. There's always a risk of an enjoyable comedy premise being ruined by an overblown run time and too much unnecessary stuff heaped on top of the original formula. Case in point: Ted worked reasonably well while it remained “Clerks with a talking bear”, but the action-oriented climax was completely unnecessary.
Buuut I've been following Rolfe's passion for movies for some time by way of his Spike reviews and the annual Monster Madness specials, so I'm definitely going to give him the benefit of a doubt here.
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You know how SNL would make movies out of characters that just barely worked for 5 minutes. Well as much as I like the AVGN, I think he might be guilty of the same thing here…
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This looks awesome!!!!
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