646f9e108c The Nostalgia Critic&#39;s team try to take over the one-acre nation of Molossia and turn it into Kickassia. I have read a wide range of viewpoints on this movie, and honestly I find both the strongly negative arguments and the strongly positive arguments somewhat compelling in their own ways; however, I&#39;d grant greater purchase to the negative views, and here is why.<br/><br/>On the one hand, you have a series of highly disjoint and awkwardly assembled set pieces, with characters numbering in the double digits, but none of them having a personality in any way distinct from any other character. They are all very mean-spirited and tend to speak only in a shouting voice, complete with exaggerated arm gestures and painfully contorted facial expressions, and there isn&#39;t really a single character for the audience to like and connect with. I guess that Brad Jones (the Cinema Snob) is somewhat likable, but his role is quite small, to where you couldn&#39;t really classify hima protagonist in any respect. Every single character is a greedy sociopath bent on domination and constantly scheming. That could make for a good dark comedy, in the right hands, but it falls apart here because there&#39;s no goal or cause for the audience to care about. Now Doug&#39;s in the president&#39;s chair–okay, now Spoony&#39;s in charge–oh, no wait, now Lindsay is running things. None of these is a meaningful transition, since Doug, Spoony, and Lindsay are all basically the same character–a scheming sociopath. Meanwhile, all conflicts are played out in the same exact manner: long fight scenes consisting in the worst fight choreography I have ever witnessed, including in community theater. Also, the characters all evidently have infinite hit points and never sustain injuries and occasionally display never-before-so-much-as-hinted super powers, so there is no drama to these scenes. Spoony and Doug Walker apparently both possess force lightning, while Sage has super- strength (or something).<br/><br/>On the other hand, one can tell that a lot of effort went into making this movie. But that&#39;s the problem in many ways, because one wonders *why* they went to so much effort for such a weak screenplay. I mean, they all flew to Nevada and rented rooms at a hotel in Reno. Benzaie came all the way from France. They composed a score, stitched together a couple costumes, and even hired the &quot;president&quot; of a micronation to provide his home and lend his acting … talent? The effort is all very transparent, and it&#39;s almostthough the movie tries to convince you it&#39;s good solely on account of this effort; the problem is that I cannot discern any true creative spark beneath the heaps of detritus. I don&#39;t think that Doug Walker woke up one morning to be whacked in the head by his muse with artistic inspiration, resulting in this film. Rather, it looksthough he squeezed out a corporate product with a checklist of elements, like a weird low-budget version of the Star Wars prequels. The fact that it&#39;s low budget doesn&#39;t negate that the movie is essentially a money-making vehicle and hardly an artistic product. I&#39;m not sure whether Doug and Rob Walker ever had a coherent vision for what they wanted &#39;Kickassia&#39; to be. The tone is really confused, constantly veering between light slapstick and heavy black comedy.<br/><br/>That said, there are some positive factors. I wouldn&#39;t go so farto describe the tech aspects*adequate* but obviously someone was paying attention to giving the movie at least a slight veneer of respectability. (The special effects, though, which appear to all be post-production Adobe After-Effects, look terrible. Cummon, you couldn&#39;t buy a couple firecrackers and bottle rockets in *Nevada* and done some real, tangible special effects? It&#39;s like the most lawless state in the nation!) And it was kind of a funny tone shift when Santa Christ is shot, bringing the action to a sudden halt. I would say the scene is good only because it&#39;s the only time that a physical confrontation actually has consequences. I used to enjoy the Nostalgia Critic, back when he was just starting out and all that. Buthis site amassed a legion of lackluster and untalented reviewers and hordes of fawning fans, I was left wondering where all the funny had gone. Kickassia is the last thing I watched from That Guy with the Glasses, and with good reason: the &quot;movie&quot; (if you want to call it that) is a monstrous, bloated and desperately unfunny mess.<br/><br/>The &quot;film&quot; has the following premise: the Critic, his ego swelled by the thousands of fans who worship him day and night, suddenly comes upon a micro-nation called Molossia. Hungry for attention, and, apparently, power, the Critic decides to oust the country&#39;s leader with a violent and &quot;hilarious&quot; take over with the help of his fellow reviewers. After conquering the damn place, the Critic and his goons set up a government, and promptly fall into infighting and poor acting.<br/><br/>Every joke in this festival of crap feels forced, and is of course not in the least bit funny. And evidently, the ear rape is top-notch, since Kickassia involves levels of screaming, shouting and yelling never before reached by Humanity. The &quot;movie&quot; also features the entire cast (I think? Or rather, do I even care?) of talentless and unfunny reviewers from That Guy With the Glasses. Only the most fanatical of fan boys/girls will actually recognise the more obscure members of the cast, because frankly, only they would care about those annoying, faceless drones. One of the more horrible and recurring &quot;jokes&quot; you will see if you ever watch Kickassia is Spoony&#39;s struggle with his &quot;evil self&quot;. Spoony is of course, a terrible actor, and his performance reeks of massive egotism.<br/><br/>The Critic is of course present throughout the &quot;movie&quot; and is dressed upBison, from the Street Fighter movie. I suppose some would find that costume funny, but the average, sane viewer would only see ittotally ludicrous. Not content with looking like a first grade idiot, the Critic also made Kickassia into a massive and horrible tribute to himself and his site. In fact, Kickassia is nothing more than a tribute to the cast of his site and himself. Evidently, rabid fans will drool and over it, but others…not so much.<br/><br/>Just to underline the sheer money-grabbing monstrosity of Kickassia, the damn thing is now for sale on DVD. Pretty damn pointless when the entire thing was put on line and is viewable for free, or maybe some want to see deleted footage of the Critic making love to himself while his goons look on in wonder and repressed lust? Or maybe they wanted insightful commentary such&quot;oh look at that, I&#39;m so awesome&quot;? Evidently, screaming hordes of fans probably bought boat loads of the DVD version, thus filling the pockets of the Critic, and possibly his clueless minions.<br/><br/>All in all, Kickassia is a terrible piece of film. The idea is terrible, the acting is annoying, the participants are all annoying, and all in all, Kickassia is bloody annoying. Evidently, if you&#39;re a hardcore fan, you&#39;re welcome to watch out, otherwise just plain avoid the damn thing unless you enjoy having male genitalia rammed into your ears while having your eyes gouged out with a rusty ice cream scoop.
tiapremaped Admin replied
364 weeks ago