Smosh: The Movie

Director - Alex Winter (Freaked)
Starring - Anthony Padilla (The Angry Birds Movie), Ian Hecox (Epic Rap Battles of History), and Jillian Nelson (Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser)
Release Date - 2015
Genre - Comedy
Tagline - "LOL"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection)

Rating (out of 5):

     By now, most of you know that I am an avid YouTube viewer and often spend hours bouncing from channel to channel watching videos.  I have a love hate relationship for YouTube personalities, or internetainers.  I have so many channels I follow religiously.  I will check Angry Video Game Nerd, Rhett and Link, Good Mythical Morning, Epic Meal Time, and Smosh daily in hopes of finding new content.  Most of the time the videos are awesome and keep me coming back for more.  On the downside, these hard working entertainers are getting paid amazing amounts of money to have fun.  If you don't believe me, head over to the YouTube channels VanossGaming and Speedyw03.  They get paid to play games with their friends!  I wouldn't say I hate these individuals but I am very jealous of their lives.  Anyway, one of the channels I follow, Smosh, released a movie a few months back that I wanted to check out but the Halloween season got the best of me and I had to put it off until October had ended.  

     The film follows Anthony and Ian (Smosh) who live ordinary lives.  Ian lives with his parents and has no job.  He spends his day obsessing over a video of a girl getting a butt massage.  Anthony is trying to be responsible and has a job delivering pizza but is unable to gain respect from Ian and the local kids.  The two are approaching their 5 year school reunion and check out the event page on social media where Anthony finds an embarrassing video has been uploaded.  They decide to try and get the video removed so they head to YouTube where they meet the owner Steve YouTube (Michael Ian Black).  He opens a portal to YouTube and the two go in to get the video removed before his high school crush sees it.  They encounter several YouTube celebrities along the way and are able to get the video removed but they alter their lives in the process.

     Smosh, for those of you that don't know, is a YouTube channel with content provided by Anthony and Ian. The videos are usually about video game culture and for the most part they are entertaining.  The videos are short in stature and usually consist of over the top skits.  I assumed the film would be more like their YouTube channel but I was very, very wrong.  The acting in this one is decent at best.  The film's leads, Anthony and Ian, have a hard time finding their groove.  Their characters are very unrealistic and their acting is hard to sit through at times.  This would have been fine if it was another short of theirs in which I am accustomed but a feature length films is hard to sit through.  I caught myself turning the film off several times when the scenes got awkward to watch.  Also, the film has several cameos from YouTube celebrities like Jenna Marbles, Harley Morenstein of Epic Meal Time, Stone Cold Steve Austin.  They are actually pretty decent in their roles.  The story for this one is just like so many comedies released from the 80s to now.  So many films follows friends as they set out on an adventure to stop something for a girl.  In fact, this story is almost word for word as the 2000 comedy classic Road Trip starring Breckin Meyer and Sean William Scott where a guy accidentally sends a sex tape to his out of state girlfriend and set out to get it before she can see it.  The film does have some laughs and a few clever moments but for the most part it still feels like Road Trip just not as funny.  Finally, the film does have some humor, well a lot of humor, but not as much as I was expecting coming from Smosh.  Sadly, they do not capture the fun of their YouTube channel.  Overall, Smosh: The Movie is a fun popcorn flick for those of you looking for a comedy.  Fans of Smosh may not be happy if you are looking for the charm of their YouTube videos.  This is worth a watch and would be even better if it was just a stand alone film and not carry the Smosh moniker.  Check it out!