Release: June 14, 2016
Film: Jem and the Holograms (2015)
Tagline: It's truly, truly, truly pathetic.
Tropes:
- 555: The first half of the review ends with the Critic advertising a "1-800-JEM-SHIT" counseling hotline for people who saw the film.
- Actor Allusion: The Critic introduces Jerrica's actress Aubrey Peeples as a "famed Sharknado star" (where she plays Claudia, the estranged daughter of the protagonist Fin).
- Adaptation Decay: The Critic's opinion on the film compared to the original cartoons, so much so that even he, who, by his own admission, is not exactly a huge fan of the cartoon, nevertheless understands why it is one of the most reviled adaptations of all time.
- Alternate Character Interpretation: Invoked — Jerrica's lines about how her "Jem" persona really doesn't exist is interpreted by the Critic as the fanbase's reaction to this film.
- Broken Aesop: The Crtic claims that an In Name Only adaptation is a terrible vessel to get across a message about being yourself.
- The Cameo: Rob Scallon is contacted by the Critic when the latter discovers one of his music videos (with Bryan Bednarek)
among the YouTube clips montage. - Dinner and a Show: A skit shows Synergy on an awkward Christmas dinner with EVE and BB-8 discussing their recent activities. Where the latter two have been in, respectively, an Oscar-winning film and the latest installment of a beloved franchise, the former was only in a cartoon reboot that ran in theaters for only two weeks. When BB-8 consoles Synergy that it is still loved, the latter feels patronized.
- Dope Slap: Malcolm drops one to the Critic when he started acting and talking like the Analysts, much to the latter's gratitude.
- Eye Scream: Malcolm is shown with his right eye stabbed after he got into an argument with Tamara over a bottle of Diet Coke.
- The Generation Gap: The Critic laments that this film makes older people (such as himself, who is in his mid-thirties) dislike Millennials.
- Gilligan Cut: The Critic jokes about Jerrica's self-introduction video calling people who think her all-female household a "recipe for disaster" sexist, to which he responds by cutting to a fairly sexist scene showing the girls arguing about their fashion, causing him to muse if the film was written by a thirty-six-year-old man.
- Hypocritical Humor: The Critic finds the film's message on the evils of big artistic corporations (embodied by Erica and her Starlight agency) hilarious, coming from a film made by big artistic corporations.
- In Name Only: The Critic is shocked at how much the movie goes out of its way to have nothing to do with its source material and insult the fans, even for a non-fan like him. To drive the point home, he claims that even Michael Bay's Transformers movies have more respect for the source material, because at least they have Transformers.
- Jump Scare: During Jerrica's first performance as Jem, he expects a monster to just pop up. One does, which he considers not so scary. Then a Norm of the North poster pops up and he freaks out.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Malcolm takes getting a pen stabbed into his eye surprisingly well.
- Manipulative Editing: The Critic takes issue with the producers inviting Jem fans to send videos about why they love the cartoons, then editing them to make them look like they are excited for the in-movie character. He also points out how lazy it is. The people in the videos are cosplaying as characters from the cartoon, wearing T-shirts based off of the cartoon and to top it all off, the cartoon itself is being played in the background of some of the videos!!!
- Money, Dear Boy: The Critic jokes that Aunt Bailey's financial problems may be an analogy to that of her actress Molly Ringwald, which would explain why she's cast in this film.
- Obviously Evil: The Critic's opinion of Erica Raymond, with the punchline being the Critic sprouting horns on his head.Critic: Oh, excuse me. Those always pop up.
- Old Shame: Scallon's opinion on his video cameo in the movie when he said he did things. The Critic thought he meant he was doing porn.
- Playing Against Type: Discussed by the Critic, who pointed out how the film is made by Blumhouse Productions, a company which specializes in horror films, but considers it too easy a joke for him to make.
- Review Ironic Echo: After Jerrica says "the version of me that they want doesn't exist", the Critic responds by saying it pretty much sums up the fans' reactions to the movie.
- Running Gag: An image of an irate, spiky-haired Jem fangirl is shown, with her blue hair increasingly turning red, for every scene in the film the Critic deems an insult both to the cartoons and its fanbase. The scenes range from Kimberly saying she doesn't want to look like a fashion reject from 1985, to videos of fans of the original cartoon being recontextualized to react to the character as depicted in the film.
- Shout-Out:
- Synergy's map hologram is compared to that used by BB-8 to help Rey locate Luke Skywalker.
- Post-contract Jem is variously called "Lady Haha" and "Lame Runner".
- The Critic jokes that the scene where the guards are distracted by clips of squirrels hoverboarding playing over their screens would only make sense if the writer is actually Dug, who has a habit of being distracted by squirrels.
- Special Edition Title: The review opens with a parody of the opening theme of the cartoons.
- Spiritual Adaptation: The executives, who also made Jem and the Holograms, turn the Nostalgia Critic movie into an adaptation of the Jem cartoon in all but name to get back the fans they lost.
- Stillborn Franchise: The Critic mocks the film's Sequel Hook, where Erica recruits the Misfits to help her take down Jem, suggesting that they can join Azula in having a lot of free time.
- Take That!:
- The Critic jokes that the film's two-week run at the box-office is faster than the time people took to realize that Saddam Hussein is a bad guy.
- The Critic is more terrified of a poster of Norm of the North (another poorly-received Rob Schneider film) than a standard horror character.
- The Critic jokes that Jerrica and her sisters are being turned into The Jonas Sisters.
- Synergy's communication through music is contrasted to Nickelback.
- The aforementioned Manipulative Editing (above) is also compared to inviting people to send in videos describing their love for the original Star Wars trilogy and then editing them to make sound like they're hyping up The Phantom Menace.
- This Is Gonna Suck: When he sees Molly Ringwald cast as Aunt Bailey, the Critic briefly lets out a cry of disappointment.
- This Is Unforgivable!: The Critic is so annoyed at the above-mentioned Manipulative Editing that he felt it deprived him of deriving any sense of ironic joy from the film."While I admit it is kind of funny what a reckless sell-out it is, it does cross a sort of line when it's taking fans of the show and manipulating their footage to represent something they know they're going to hate. It not only feels forced and stupid, it just feels... wrong."
- You Don't Look Like You:
- The Critic notes the sheer differences between Synergy in the cartoon and the film (a supercomputer and a Robot Buddy, respectively).
- The Critic briefly (and jokingly) thinks Erica Raymond is played by someone wearing a Juliette Lewis mask, until he rectifies that it is the real Lewis.
