To Boldly Flee

I'm so, so sorry for writing a negative review of the AVGN movie. Although that film is heavily flawed, it at least has decent direction, cinematography, and acting, and even if the plot isn't good, it at least had a plot. It was a competent film at least. Compared to this train wreck, the AVGN movie is a freaking masterpiece. Seriously this movie is awful. I was a massive fan of Doug Walker and the NC when this film was first released, but even then I remember thinking it was bad. Now that I'm not even a fan of Walker any more, I can truly see just how atrocious this film is. Like, oh my god, this is one of the worst things ever. The plot is very unfocused and confusing, and revolves around resurrecting MaTi, a character nobody cares about. He doesn't have a show on CA, is rarely seen, and is mostly known for a bit part in one single episode of NC. The film acts like he's extremely important to the site, but the entire time I kept asking myself "who is MaTi and am I the only one who wishes this film were about someone else?" As a director, Doug Walker has about as much integrity as a 10 year old making a backyard flick with his friends using his mom's camera. Every shot in this movie is grainy, shaky, and just looks cheap, like it was recorded with an iPad. Could they not acquire a better camera for this massive extravaganza of an anneversery? Or is Doug just that bad of a cinematographer? Also, you'd think there'd be at least one funny joke in 209 minute torture sequence, but no. This film really only needed to be 90 minutes max and could easily be edited down because every scene goes on for about six minutes too long. 90% of this movie should've been left on the cutting room floor but it seems like Doug's massive ego tricked him into thinking every moment of footage was absolutely hilarious, which NONE of it is. Every joke in this movie is either boring, cliche, cringeworthy, or like a rejected joke from Family Guy. In fact, every scene in this movie feels like an unfunny extended Family Guy cutaway gag and it's excruciating. Another minor complaint for people who are familiar with the site (then again how many regular folk would stumble upon this movie without knowing CA?) is that every reviewer featured in this movie acts nothing like they do in their shows. For example, Film Brain is intelligent, snarky, and complains a lot, but this movie portrays him as an easily confused doofus. Linkara is a very well spoken individual with high morals and respects for all people, but this movie has him written as an easily confused (and rapey) doofus. In fact, everyone in this movie is portrayed as an easily confused doofus and it's very inconsistent to their actual characters. Overall, this movie is atrocious in every regard: the jokes are awful, the plot sucks, the direction is ameteur, the writing is embarrassing, most of the acting is terrible, and it's excruciatingly boring. 209 minutes, are you freaking kidding me??? I didn't like the AVGN movie but I'd watch that 100 times before even sitting through 10 minutes of this. Even for diehard NC fans, avoid this!

Say what you want about "The Room", at least that movie didn't last 4 hours.

This movie got a few chuckles, but this movie is way too long and tries to juggle way to many ideas for its own good. I won't go too much into sound quality or dodgey green screen effects, because for a low budget movie they're pretty decent. The plot relies heavily on prior knowledge of the Channel Awesome Anniversaries along with multiple CA shows (or should I say former CA shows). The writing feels very self-indulgent to the Nostalgia Critic character, as if him quitting reviews (note: this was supposed to be the last appearance of the Nostalgia Critic character) would be the end of internet reviews. If To Boldly Flee had picked one main plot and then maybe given over a little space for one or two of the subplots like Suburban Knights, it might have been passable as a mediocre Youtube flick, but as is everything is competing for space. The love triangle in particularly poorly handled. Say it with me now, nobody owes you date.

They took something that looks and sounds so terrible far too seriously for it ever to be good in any way.

There's a remarkably deep and personal story at the heart of this piece, telling of the disillusionment of independent creators in the face of increasingly strict and unfair online regulation, the changing landscape of Youtube as a community and a group of friends banding together in the face of it. With that said, that message is ultimately bogged down in an overly self-indulgent slog through dragged out wasteland scenes between oases of tradionally clever satire, all of which would have benefited from someone less personally invested in the story in the editing room.