By: Vidal D’Costa –
For once, I’d like for a YouTuber to make a movie that isn’t just a star vehicle for themselves or a cash grab that panders to their niche audience of kiddies who just love to be blindly flexed on by their ‘idol’ (believe me, all those inside jokes and self centred references to their own sketches gets dull, repetitive, and outdated quickly as the kiddie grows up and begins to develop a decent sense of humour and some taste for better, age-appropriate content). I’d also like for them to create a decent documentary that isn’t just surface level narcissism (looking at you, ||Superwoman||) or in even worse cases, one which glosses over actual fraud (cough…TanaCon!). I’d also like Shane Dawson and his bigoted arse to fuck off entirely.
And finally, for the sake of my sanity, I’d like major studios such as 20th Century, Lionsgate, and Universal to quit being sellouts and stop throwing money at such cringeworthy vanity projects helmed by some of the most untalented or even problematic YouTubers with no respect for the craft of filmmaking.
But til any of the above actually comes to fruition, let’s run a fine tooth comb through some of the finest… And by that, I mean, worst… YouTuber movies (movies starring, produced, often even written and directed by YouTubers themselves) that I’ve wasted precious time watching just for the sake of ranting about later!
1) F the Prom – Six Pack
Highschoolers and besties Maddy and Cole drift apart and then get back together just to make prom hell for the cool kids along with a bunch of other kids who were treated unfairly. Their annoying teachers make occasional cameos.
I don’t know if this movie was meant to be a realistic portrayal about the popular kids vs nerds phenomenon which has been depicted in a plethora of early 2000s flicks and even by Netflix, or whether it was a satire on it, but it’s too try-hard at whatever it wants to be.
The dialogue is unrealistic (written by a bunch of 40-something YouTubers called the Fine Bros, obvious much?), some bullying scenes are even more unrealistic and borderline anti-Semitic, and I couldn’t decide if the writers wanted us to be laughing at the bullies or the kids being bullied.
I also feel the acting, especially that of the adult actors, was over-the-top and all that I took from this movie about teens and for teens was that everyone, no matter what their age or job description, is tots into taking a selfie (except the protagonist who’s a selfie virgin…a ‘surgin’. See what I mean when I say the dialogues are try-hard?). I swear if one more person says the word ‘selfie’ in this movie, I’m gonna scream!
As much as I enjoy pop culture references, the ones in this like the Breakfast Club reference are forced and feel out of place. I did like the chemistry between Maddy and Cole and if you’re a fan of the young actors Danielle Campbell and Joel Courtney, then you might like their acting too.
YouTuber Lilly Singh has the shortest cameo in this to show off her cringeworthy acting and her ‘self love ability’ (that’s my code word for her narcissism) and I absolutely loathe her for being a part of a movie that propagates harmful stereotypes with its disturbing imagery despite all that she preaches. Although, after listening to the bigotry in her late night monologues, I can’t say I’m surprised.
Get your cliques together and watch Mean Girls instead. At least that movie had a lot fewer cliches and memorable characters who weren’t cardboard cutouts of what adults assume high school kids or Gen Z are like. It was also a lot less offensive towards everyone. Also, if you wanna watch a movie that does the ‘let’s ruin prom for everyone’ concept better, I highly recommend Carrie (adapted from the book by Stephen King).
P.S. All the teacher characters in this get an F for promoting rape & bad teaching etiquette.
Mini Drinking Game
Down a Shot: for every distasteful ‘joke’ that’s made at the expense of a Jewish character.
Down a Shot: for every line of dialogue that makes you realize how try-hard and fail-harder the Fine Bros are in order to pander to teens.
2) We Love You – Four Beers
Three little piggies… ahem, I mean people, namely Noah, Callie, & Ford get together to see who can last the longest in a messy love triangle. There’s also something about their jobs being on the line because their boss won’t approve of their relationship or some crap like that.
All I can remember about this movie is that there were a lot of parties and afterparties in it and that it sadly didn’t turn into a gay love story between the badminton playing besties Noah and Ford like I’d hoped it would which was kind of a bummer, honestly.
The writing lies somewhere between ‘tried too hard’ & ‘at least they tried something’ & the camerawork during some of the romantic scenes is often shaky and would work better in a found footage movie. Also, what was with that close-up of the finger scraping the birthday cake? (I’m probably nitpicky, but it felt unnecessary and unhygienic, considering I watched this during a pandemic).
The Tom Holland-looking fella who plays Noah (Justin Dobies) is quite good. Him and Fousey (the YouTuber who plays Ford) also have a nice chemistry with each other and their opposing personalities (awkward, insecure and shy Noah and overconfident Ford make a good pair on court and off it) really do attract. YouTuber Lele Pons plays the lead, Callie, and she is beautiful and her character’s fashion choices are cute, but Lele really needs to slow down when she says her lines because she sounds like a rookie newscaster reading off a teleprompter in the most unnatural manner. I didn’t really care much for Callie when she stepped in or walked off since her character is way too one-dimensional and now that I think about it, Lele’s role in this is basically a cameo since we really don’t know what happens to Callie in the end. Lauren Elizabeth who plays Jess has a more natural quirky demeanor than Lele so I wish they’d switched roles or something so that Jess was the main love interest from the start.
I also really wanted to see more of the interesting character Matthias (played by Joe Hursley) who looks like Denholm Reynholm from The IT Crowd, but talks like a dude version of Kristen Wiig’s character from Zoolander 2.
The lighting and set design, too, could’ve been a lot better. Kudos to the writer(s) for predicting some of the new Adobe MAX tools, I guess…
Watch this only for Fousey and his chemistry with co-star Justin Dobies. Shout-out to their cute climactic argument scene which made me chuckle.
Mini Drinking Game
Snort Your Drink Out Through Your Nose: for this epic piece of dialogue delivered by Fousey: “She’s not like other girls. She’s from Venezuela.” (insert face palm emoji here).
Down a Shot: every time the annoying homophobic kid character makes an appearance during Ford and Noah’s badminton game.
Down a Shot: every time Ford/Fousey says something questionable which the writers thought probably would make him sound edgy but which made me cringe. I swear they gave him all the worst one-liners in this.
Down a Shot: every time Ford calls it ‘goodminton’ instead of ‘badminton’.
3) Smosh the Movie – Six Pack
YouTuber Anthony Padilla plays himself as well as a delusional pizza delivery guy who dresses like a discount version of Ash Ketchum and Ian Helcox plays himself but also plays Anthony’s friend who’s a jobless perv. Together they’re Smosh, a comedy duo, who star in this ambitious but very obvious vanity project for all involved.
The movie is comprised of a bunch of YouTuber skits that are put together and which feature a lot of pratfalls, fart jokes, and dad jokes, but which feel disjointed and mostly unfunny and as pointless as the animated opening credits scene which is just an excuse to squeeze in some famous YouTubers who are probably in it for the clout. It also feels like just a giant advertisement for YouTube itself and for its many ads.
It also tries to be a blend of Bill & Ted (probably how they roped Alex Winter in to direct it) and Dumb and Dumber but fails at both due to how horribly unoriginal the jokes are and how bad the acting and CGI is (hell, even classic Doctor Who had better special effects). Also a lot of the pop culture references and YouTuber cameos and even actual celeb cameos (if this movie were made today, all they’d have to do would be to switch up Stone Cold with either John Cena or The Rock) feel outdated and it may only appeal to diehard Smosh fans or anyone who can find a time machine to take them back to 2015 when it was released and watch it back when everything about it & everyone involved in it was still cool and upcoming and not in prison, on the run from the law, or on the ‘road to irrelevance’.
Also, the cameraman needs to stop drinking on the job because this movie feels like it was filmed on a cruise ship on choppy waters despite being filmed on land and partly in YouTube land (just keep the camera steady, man!).
It’s not fun, nor funny, and as Ian’s character puts it- “It’s so bad!”.
Mini Drinking Game
Tap a Keg and Start Chugging: til you are smoshed out of your mind and this ‘movie’ becomes a distant memory.
4) Not Cool – Six Pack
This movie originated from an original screenplay by Dan Schoffer (the same was used for the far superior movie Hollidaysburg), but sadly Dan’s screenplay was subjected to debauchery by the one and only Shane Dawson whose egotistical manner of directing and producing led to so many falling outs (he famously feuded with producer Zachary Quinto at one point. Yes, THE Zachary Quinto of Star Trek fame) that eventually a super not cool movie of trashy proportions emerged from it.
Not Cool is set around Thanksgiving (I may be wrong because the soundtrack mainly consists of generic instrumental Christmas carols) and revolves around Tori, Joel, Janie, and Shane Dawson’s character, who are four young people (it’s never specified whether they’re in college or high school and I honestly don’t care) looking to fuck during the holidays. At least that’s what I think the movie is about. Considering that this is Shane’s spin on the original screenplay, the story doesn’t make an iota of sense, so don’t even bother scrambling your brains trying to figure it out like I did.
Frankly speaking, I lost interest in this movie after the Tori-Shane Dawson (I even forgot his character’s name in this so I’ll just call him Shane Dawson) romance angle began to take centre stage and stole focus from the Joel-Janie romance angle which was actually what I was more interested in since the former are the most annoying and selfish onscreen couple ever but the latter were endearing and their characters, too, were easy to root for (despite how creepy Joel can be at times- he also sent off some major discount McLovin vibes for me). Tori and Shane Dawson’s characters are both unlikeable and underdeveloped and thus their romance angle, too, felt forced upon the viewer.
Moving along, it’s best if I don’t get into the ‘humour’ quotient of this movie. In fact I think it’s best if I just hit my head with a rock and give myself amnesia in order to forget the ‘humour’ in this movie entirely! Most of it consists of poking fun at characters we should instead feel sympathetic towards such as the mentally challenged, the blind, and even the homeless. Instead they are treated as the butt of Shane Dawson’s crude, unfunny, ‘edgy’ comedy (I hesitate to even label it as comedy). I wonder if Shane Dawson knows where to draw the line at…I dunno, ANYTHING?!
Ironically, despite the amount of racism on display in this movie, ranging from a cringeworthy stereotype of a Jamaican/Indian young man (the actor playing this minor character kept changing accents so I’m not entirely sure…) to the tasteless humour directed towards both the token gay Black friend character and a homeless man played by a Black actor, someone on IMDb still had the audacity to compare this movie to 12 Years a Slave in a review. Yikes, I’m assuming Dawson either paid this person or wrote the review himself, although judging by the dialogue and shallowness of this movie, Dawson has limited writing ability and even worse acting abilities.
And no, you’re now seeing double… Shane actually plays not one, but two characters- one of them is his drag persona from his YouTube videos who is as annoying as the lead in this, whose name as I stated before I’ve already forgotten. I also think he played a foul-mouthed limo driver in drag. I can’t be too sure, though, since the lighting was rather dark and atrocious, but judging from the utterly bad comic timing and loud acting, I’m assuming that was Shane, too. And I thought Lilly Singh was the only YouTuber who pleasured her own ego. Also, speaking of loud, the supporting actors in this who played the parents, the mentally challenged aunt, and the actress playing the blind character all need to lower their volumes as well as hire better acting coaches.
I felt bad for actress Cherami Leigh who plays Tori. Sadly Leigh’s character is a monotone character with the most irritating, unlikeable, cardboard-esque personality (she’s like the female counterpart of the character Shane Dawson plays, so it’s a match made in heaven anyway) and she thus doesn’t get to showcase her talent. Also Tori gives off Karen vibes. I hope Drew Momsen and Michelle Veintimilla receive better roles than these in the future, since their chemistry and interaction as Joel and Janie was the only part of this movie that kept me going until I finally lost the will to watch any further. They at least try to bring to this movie something of emotional value despite the shoddy lines they’re given to spout.
Mini Drinking Game
Down a Shot: for every racist, sexist, offensive ‘joke’.
Down a Shot: every time Shane Dawson & the multiple characters he plays in this with his bad prosthetics make you want to peel back your own skin.
Down a Shot: for the loudest ‘acting’ ever put to screen.
Down a Shot: for every puke, poop, and fart joke which make up a majority of the comedic bits thrown in here (Shane Dawson has broken the record previously held by Adam Sandler’s Grown Ups franchise, everybody!)
5) Expelled: Five Beers
The only fun, exciting parts about this movie and obvious star vehicle for YouTube dreamboat Cameron Dallas are its smart animated opening credits and the soundtrack. The rest of it is just a blatant ripoff of the 80s classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Just replace the fun and excitement of the original with boredom and pandering to a target audience of Cameron Dallas fangirls, replace Ferris who was just a harmless bloke looking to play hookie for a day with an overconfident and smug Felix who doubles as a prankster, hacker, and lock-picker and might even have a great career as a cyber criminal someday, and you get this lackluster flick.
While I wasn’t too keen on Ferris (I’m more of a Cameron Frye fangirl myself since I find his antisocial demeanor a lot more relatable), at least Matthew Broderick’s natural acting and witty line delivery brought an endearing quality to the character, whereas Cameron Dallas’ Felix just gets on my nerves with his grating personality… Not that any of the other characters fare any better. I don’t even remember the names of the other characters apart from Felix who chews the scenery with his smugness and try-hard energy.
There was also a lot of camaraderie between the trio of Ferris, Cameron, and Sloane in the original which is missing between Felix and his best friend Danny (Matt Shively), whose only characteristics are being as smug as Felix and having a latex allergy that is never really explored further unlike Cameron Frye’s hypochondria and depression which actually added a lot in terms of character development in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Even the scenes in the original were so well-executed, for example when Ferris Bueller has Cameron Frye cover up for him and lie to the Dean via his talent for mimicry which is one of my favourite scenes and even the thought of it immediately brings a giant impish grin to my face. There’s a similar scene in Expelled, but it is done so in the most haphazard manner that all it elicited from me was a yawn over how uncreative it was.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off also had characters like Cameron or even Ferris’ sister undergoing some major character development as the story progressed and they thus felt real. The only relatable quality that the teens in Expelled have going for them is their ability to operate the Twitter app on their smartphones, and instead of memorable characters, we have stuck-up teens and even more stuck-up teens whom I could care less for and who should definitely be behind bars for all their cyber crime and bullying (sorry if I sounded like a boomer there, but I say what I see).
With the original, I even felt like I was somehow included as an accomplice on all the adventures of the trio whether they went on a trip to the art gallery or ran through their neighbours’ yards in the most exhilarating scene yet, but in ‘Expelled I just felt alienated and disconnected from the characters who are as bland as they come.
But the biggest and most jarring aspect that was missing from this rip-off? No massive dance number and lipsyncing to “Twist and Shout” aboard a parade float. Ah, nostalgia… I might just go watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off again just to forget all about this hokum rip-off.
Mini Drinking Game
Down a Shot: for every hacking/bugging scene.
Keep Drinking: just to forget that this bland, boring movie exists.
Down a Shot: every time a stock image is used to highlight Felix’s accomplishments as a prankster.
Get Drunk: on 80s nostalgia by pausing this movie, never finishing it, and instead rewatching the timeless Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Basically what I did. I will honestly take Cameron Frye over Cameron Dallas any day!
6) Natural Born Pranksters: Five Beers
Natural Born Pranksters is like the older sibling of Smosh the Movie. While the former was just a string of YouTube sketches put together and released under the guise of a movie, this one is obviously just a string of YouTube prank videos that have been recycled to pander to an audience of kids who are into super vanilla pranks.
As someone who grew up on classic prank shows and hidden camera shows like Scare Tactics and Impractical Jokers, I was disappointed in this movie and the lead pranksters in it- Vitaly, Roman, and Dennis- who come off as the most unoriginal and amateur pranksters in the biz (how do they even have a fan following in the first place?).
Avoid this prankster flick at all costs and go watch something better instead of this fake snore-fest helmed by a bunch of idiots who think they’re clever and edgy but barely scrape the surface.
Mini Drinking Game
Down a Shot: for every amateur, predicable prank pulled in this ‘movie’. The biggest one being pranking me into falling for the trailer of this movie which actually hyped me up, only to let me down with the finished product (Heck, it’s not even as exciting as the poster promised).
That’s it for today. But I must warn you to tread carefully, dear readers, if any of you actually feel the desire to check out these YouTuber flicks. The side effects may include a severe loss of brain cells.
