YMMV / Chris Stuckmann

• Broken Base:
  • His response to the criticism of his rewrite of a scene in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Many thought he handled it very immaturely while others think his detractors took it too far.
  • His The Amazing Spider-Man review was considered by some to be well thought-out and accurate, whilst others felt that it was 14 minutes of him complaining with a bias towards the earlier films.
  • On Reddit, there's a debate between whether or not Chris' "fanboyism" gets in the way of him being able to review some movies more objectively than others, with many citing his gushing towards the MCU, Tomorrowland and The Force Awakens as examples.
  • The amount of times Chris claims he grew up liking a franchise: does he say it too often for it to be believable, or is it just a result of most of the current batch of remakes coming from things that Chris reasonably would have enjoyed as a child?
  • His video on the critically maligned Madame Web (2024) proved to be one of his most divisive videos yet. After eliminating almost all negative discussion of film (including "Hilariocity" videos) from his channel, and not reviewing movies he doesn't want to support to focus only on films he enjoyed and recommends, it came as a surprise when his video on the movie was not a criticism of it but more of Executive Meddling, as he discussed the mandated rewrites and subplots as reasons why he wants to avoid critiquing a movie because of how hard it is to write and direct a movie. A lot of fans were torn on the video, with some appraising him for being level-headed and giving the movie a chance in a landscape full of negative reviews, while others said that he was too soft on it and should get to criticize a movie if it's poorly made and written; the video also exposed a flaw in Stuckmann's approach to covering cinema, as by choosing to talk about it while not reviewing it, he still made very clear that he thought the film was poorly made, defeating the purpose of the no-negative-reviews rule. This escalated and many people who never saw his video (or only short clips of it out of context) branded Stuckmann a "shill" for Madame Web and Sony Pictures who desperately wants to appease the company via a good review, even though he didn't praise the movie or Sony in the video (which isn't even a review), and several YouTubers who make the same negative content that Stuckmann has been trying to avoid have now started making videos that decry Stuckmann for his Madame Web video not being more like their review videos. A lot of fans felt that it would have been better if Stuckmann had simply not made a video on it at all instead of opening this can of worms.
• Fan Myopia: Despite the overwhelmingly negative reception The Book of Henry gained, Chris was one of the few to give a positive review to the movie. While giving reviews contrary to common consensus regarding a movie isn't new for Chris, he got to interview director Colin Trevorrow prior to this movie's release, where they discussed this film in particular. Whether this influenced Chris giving the movie a more positive review compared to other critics caused a bit of debate among the comment sections of Chris' video, Folding Ideas' videos, and Midnight Screenings' video.
• Fridge Brilliance: In his Alex Cross review, he describes the character in the same vein as Sherlock Holmes, and Chris imitates Alex and says that he is practically God. Chris then states that Alex is not God... Morgan Freeman is. This goes two ways: Freeman had played Alex Cross in two movies released in 1997 and 2001 (Tyler Perry played the character in 2012), and at one point Freeman actually was God, technically.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Him going public about being an ex-Jehovah's Witness in early 2021, and the adverse effects the religion had on his mental health and identity, put a lot of serious previous statements and ordeals in his career in more proper context.
    • The picture of him next to a group of black friends that went viral after appearing in his Get Out (2017) review due to how random its inclusion was can grow sour in light of an interview where Chris officially explained the context behind the image. At the time of it being taken, Chris and his friends were Jehovah's Witnesses, and his experience with the religion was so stifling and oppressive that he eventually left, which led to him being shunned from the community. According to Chris, some of his friends in the picture are still in the faith, but others have since left and received similar social ousting as him, so upon seeing the picture, he doesn't find any humor in it and only sees it as "kinda fucking painful".
    • His since-deleted first YouTube channel, dedicated exclusively to his Quick Movie Reviews series, has been almost completely wiped from the Internet save for a handful of reviews re-uploaded by Chris himself at fans' demand and the very last video he made on it. He is completely dejected throughout, and outright states that he can't go into full detail about why he's leaving, at most saying that the continuation of his video-making may create problems for the people he cares about. A full 11 years later, Chris confirmed that it was because his JW elders greatly disapproved of the fact that he was reviewing movies they deemed inappropriate, and told him that he would be disfellowshipped — thereby losing the community around him and some of his lifelong friends — if he continued. One comment on the re-upload described the video as being "like someone was pointing a gun to [his] head forcing [him] to delete [his] channel", and it can hurt to watch knowing that, more or less, that was exactly the case.
    • In light of Robin Williams' death, he made a video speaking about what Williams meant to him, which included him going into aspects of his personal life to properly communicate that feeling. He stated that he was the single most regularly bullied kid at his school growing up, and explained that Good Will Hunting (specifically the "it's not your fault" scene and Williams' performance in it) had a particularly deep effect on him from the combination of a lifelong guilt complex and him first seeing the film during a period when he was Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life. He says the film inspired him to move on from "certain things that were weighing [him] down" in life. While the video was already emotional, it's an even harder watch knowing that the hardships he talks about are likely effects of his time in the religion.
    • His controversial response to RedLetterMedia joking about him and calling him a "prick", which many saw as a needless overreaction, was reevaluated in light of Chris explaining how his adherence to JW practices as a kid greatly contributed to how he had No Social Skills growing up, such that he had to "unlearn" and "relearn" how to act normally. Considering he was in an environment which suppressed his normal social functions for years on end, many found it more understandable and sympathetic how he reacted to his then-favorite channel talking about him like that, even in jest.
  • A number of things resurfaced from the video in which Chris shares one of his first feature films, The Woods:
    • Chris notes that The Woods was the second feature-length film he made, as his first starred a friend who later made it clear to him that he didn't ever want his face shown on video. Knowing he was in the faith at the time, it makes sense that those around him wouldn't want their identities publicly associated with a piece of media like his film, considering the extreme consequences at hand.
    • Chris' father has a small role as a sheriff in the film. While it's awkward but endearing on the surface, in that it seems like a fond memory of a parent supporting his kid's dream, one of the points he makes at the start of his JW video is that as he will likely be disfellowshipped for speaking out against the religion, his father will have to decide whether to speak with him again, and "knowing him", he will not.
    • His review of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mentions that he first watched the movie when home alone, as his parents forbade from watching it under the pretense that it was "the bad one", which he felt was exciting. This gets darker knowing his elders forbade him from watching certain films and casts his fear of being caught watching it in a grimmer light.
  • In his review of Nine Lives (2016), he rhetorically asks, "I have no clue why Kevin Spacey took this movie; isn't House of Cards doing really well for him?" In October 2017, just over a full year after the review, Spacey was fired from the show after his sexual harassment accusations came out. His remark in his "Worst Movies of 2016" video about the actors in Nine Lives (which took the #1 spot) possibly being blackmailed into appearing in the film compounded this, as it has also become more plausible after Kevin Spacey's sexual harassment accusations came out.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: In his review of The Last Airbender, he suggests that M. Night Shyamalan should make a werewolf movie. Around six years after said review, Shyamalan directed a movie where a man has a split personality known as the Beast, which proved to be another stepping stone in his Career Resurrection.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Chris' The Problem With Action Movies Today video addresses the common problems of most action movies nowadays (i.e. unlikeable protagonist and generic plot). Then Mad Max: Fury Road comes in and tackles every single one of his points perfectly. It's practically a godsend.
  • This line from his Battlefield Earth review: "Worst. Hero. Ever."
  • In his Temple of Doom review, he spends a surprising amount of time commenting on Harrison Ford's body and briefly getting defensive over it; he would come out as pansexual the next year.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • His BvS rewrite is certainly a quotable Fountain of Memes.
  • This picture of him alongside a group of black friends◊ in his Get Out (2017) review, to punctuate the point that he essentially "grew up with" black people in a mixed community, was immediately ripped apart online for a variety of reasons ranging from how unprompted its inclusion in the review was to Chris' position off to the side making him look like a photobomber.
  • As the reviews went on, many viewers started to point out that Chris apparently "grew up" on everything. This has led to various parody accounts that would spam movie-related YouTube videos with comments about how they didn't "grow up on" whatever the movie or its source material is and giving it a preemptive F-.
    • Chris' subsequent response to the meme's popularity — not only was he aware of it, he was so aware that he began using it intentionally just to "fuck with" his audience — became something of a minor meme due to people seeing his attitude as self-righteous and finding it amusing.
  • Chris' seeming inability to close his mouth in his thumbnails is a more minor one.
• Most Wonderful Sound: See Narm Charm below.
• Narm:
  • The strange faces he tends to pull in his thumbnails.
  • Some found this in his BvS rewrite due to its rudimentary nature, even as Chris acknowledged it.
• Narm Charm: Whenever he gives a movie an A+, the rating is accompanied by a pretty generic stock heavenly choir, but considering how much appreciation Chris has to exude for a film to get a perfect score, it's pretty damn satisfying to hear regardless.
• Shocking Moments: A very positive case. After giving Lady Bird an A+ in November 2017, no other film would reach that rating for almost two years — until a particularly top-quality streak of films in late 2019 would allow him to issue not one, not two, not three, but four A+ ratings in under two months: The Lighthouse, Parasite (2019), Marriage Story, Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
  "God DAMN it, movies are back!"

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