YMMV / Hot Rod

• Awesome Music: "You're The Voice" by John Farnham, which plays during the crew's Team Power Walk.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment
  • "Cool beans." Starts as an Overly Long Gag, then turns into... a hip-hop song?
  • "It's Ebeneezer Scrooge!"
  • While the crew immediately lampshade how bizarre it was, after that's over, nobody ever talks about the insane riot that occurred during their Team Power Walk, or why the hell all those people were following them and breaking out into song.
• Crosses the Line Twice: The entire concept of the film, with our hero's main goal being to save the life of his dying stepfather, just so he can kick his ass once he's healthy.
• Cult Classic: Very much so. The film has gained a big cult following, especially by those who follow The Lonely Island's work.
• Designated Hero: Very much Played for Laughs.
  • Rod is a Manchild and an utterly horrible stuntman. Rather than trying to earn the approval of his stepfather Frank by being a mature and decent member of society, he prefers to do it by getting into highly destructive physical confrontations with him, where Frank wins every single time. When Frank is revealed to be dying, Rod sets out to raise enough money to save his life, not out of genuine love, but so he can beat the shit out of him when he's healthy, a motivation that he doesn't even attempt to hide. Rod then earns this money by performing more and more stunts, failing every single one of them but still accepting payment anyway from disgusted customers. When his stepbrother Kevin puts together a plan to raise more money by seeking tickets to watch a film of Rod's stunts, where the audience then laughs at his blatant incompetence. Upset over this, Rod destroys the expensive projector, and is then forced to pay for it with all of the money he had raised for Frank's surgery. Depressed, Rod retires as a stuntman and tries to live as a responsible adult, which only consist of him dressing up and becoming an alcoholic. Before long he goes back to being a stuntman though, performing one last enormous stunt to save Frank. Much like all of his prior ones, he fails, nearly killing himself, but the effort results in him getting enough funds anyway. Later, once Frank has had his surgery and made a full recovery, Rod challenges him once more, finally defeating his paternal opponent. Even then, once Frank has admitted defeat and shown pride in his stepson, Rod pettily pulls off a move to make the old man shit his pants. While Rod does indeed show a decent side to his friends and family throughout the film, and his goal is technically admirable since it involves saving a life, he's still an almost entirely incompetent idiot who tries to solve his problems with violence and endangers his life repeatedly doing something he's laughably terrible at.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Will Arnett as Jonathon for completely embracing his role as the total douchebag who's dating our hero's love interest. The famous "Babe, wait" scene certainly helps.
  • Chester Tam as Richardson, mainly for that weird dance he does, especially when he enthusiastically throws papers simultaneously. Also helps that he's legitimately nice to Rod and his crew.
  • Barry Pasternak can count thanks to being a Cloud Cuckoo Lander even by this film's standards, Chris Parnell's grandiose commentary of the climax, providing a decent amount of lampshade hangings, and also being instrumental in helping the crew and Frank.
• Love to Hate:
  • Jonathon is an asshole in every conceivable sense of the word, but the character and Will Arnett's performance so completely embrace his bastard nature that you can't help but laugh at his dickish antics.
  • Frank isn't really a bad guy, but his relentless picking on Rod, even when he's trying to save his life (granted for selfish reasons) is quite entertaining and makes it easy to root for Rod to finally kick his ass. Being played by Ian McShane also means he's incredibly charismatic and witty, even as he acts horribly to Rod.
• Nausea Fuel: The radio announcer explaining how the kid tattooed on his chest is peeing in two different directions.
• One-Scene Wonder: Ebenezer Scrooge shows up near the end with "a cooked goose for everyone". This moment comes out of nowhere, makes no sense, and is only briefly addressed by an astonished Barry Pasternak, but damn if the sheer absurdity of his cameo isn't hilariously memorable.
• Overly Long Gag: The "cool beans" bit.
  • WAIT BABE WAIIIIIIIT! BAAAAABE!
• Signature Line: "Babe, wait" and it's many variations.
• Signature Scene: The inspirational montage and Team Power Walk set to "You're the Voice" which winds turning into a full on riot.
• Squick: Rod's account of his father's death:
  So one afternoon, he set out to jump ten milk trucks. He nailed the take-off, but when he landed, something terrible happened. His front tire exploded like a cannonball, and his handlebars went straight through his head. Blood was everywhere. His teeth were ground down to a powder, and the front of his face exploded out the back of his skull. He died instantly... the next day.
• Vindicated by History: Not very successful on release, but it has since developed a Cult following and positive audience reception.

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