Ah, The Nostalgia Critic. Yet another web series that I have come to love alongside The Angry Video Game Nerd, The Dragon Ball Abridged series, and Red V.S. Blue. Having already given my thoughts on The Angry Video Game Nerd, I thought I would give my thoughts on his biggest rival, The Nostalgia Critic.
The series is performed and edited by Doug Walker and has been going steadily since 2007. Originally it started as a YouTube video of Walker flipping out over how awesome the 2007 Transformers movie was, basically revealing all that happens in the movie in less than 3 minutes. Soon after, he started doing reviews of bad movies, pointing out all the major flaws of each film and making excessive jokes about them.
He also has a number of other segments that go beyond reviewing bad films such as his Old V.S. New Segment. I've already explained that this was what partly inspired me to do my Franchise V.S. Franchise segment and they are similar in a lot of ways. What he does is take a film that has been remade, such as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory or King Kong, and compares the characters, the special effects, and plot and decides which is superior. While I think a lot of people disagree with a lot of his choices they're still entertaining and interesting.
Another segment he has is his Top 11 Lists where he decides on the top 11s of things. Why 11? Well in his own words, “Because I like to go a step beyond.” Surprisingly, these lists are anything but generic and include his Top 11 Coolest Clichés, Top 11 Saddest Nostalgia Moments, Top 11 Scariest Nostalgia Moments, and his Top 11 Disney Villains list. There are a ton more but that's all I can think of off the top of my head. I think everyone know what a Top List is so I don't think I need to explain it. Yet somehow, he is still able to make them funny.
The last one worth mentioning is his Raiders of the Story Ark Segment, where he looks back at an old show series like X-Men, Captain Planet, and Full House and gives his thoughts the series and how it would hold up today.
And somehow his videos are always funny. Often his humor will revolve around out pointing out plot gaps, bad acting, bad special effects, trivia info, and weird things about the movies and making some kind of excessive, over-the-top joke out of it. He'll also add in clips from other films to add to the humor and often thinks of things that have next to nothing to do with what he's reviewing and somehow ties it in. The weird thing about it is that anyone could think up these jokes and yet there still hilarious. For example, at the end of his Batman V.S. The Dark Knight/Old V.S. New episode, he gets a “call” from Christian Bale who in turn curses him out as the Critic reacts to it as if he is actually talking to Bale. The “call” was actually a recording of Bale flipping out on a guy on the set of Terminator Salvation when a recorder was on, (and if you don't know what I'm talking about, look it up). In another, “God” smites the Critic for choosing The Prince of Egypt over The Ten Commandments. Like I said; jokes that anyone can think up but are still funny as hell.
Also, his jokes tend to repeat themselves throughout not only the episode, but the entire series. Yet there still funny. For example, whenever he mentions a villain who's ultimate goal is world domination the episode will cut away to a scene in the Street Fighter movie, (I will not call it a film because I do not consider it one), where Raul Julia as M. Bison will shout Of Corse! Another reoccurring joke is his treatment of the actor Mako and that one requires a little explanation. In his TMNT review he gave Mako crap about the way he sounded as Splinter, not knowing who Mako was and people slammed him for it, sending him all kind hate mail. As a result, he praises everything that has to do with Mako in his reviews and has become a reoccurring joke in his videos.
Not that the series doesn’t have flaws as it tends to be a bit repetitive. As I said, he often uses the same jokes but on the whole come in a large variety. Sometimes all the things he says aren't entirely accurate but that's ignorable. My biggest problem with the series, however, is that it's usually just him sitting in front of a camera acting the review out. Only in recent months has he really stared adding in new characters that he doesn’t play as and adding in some cheesy effects that still somehow comes second to the AVGN's effects.
That aside, I have to say the series as a whole is hilarious. Is it a bit repetitive? Yes. But it's also consistently funny and there are a large variety of segments that keep the series fresh. If you haven't already seen this series just Google The Nostalgia Critic and you'll get his entire library of episodes. Check it out some time and I grantee that you'll laugh so hard you'll cry.
Until next time, this is the Illusive One thanking the Nostalgia Critic for remembering it so I don't have to.
