Norm of the North / YMMV

Audience-Alienating Premise:
- The idea of a film where a polar bear has to go on a mission to stop a guy from building houses in the Arctic didn't exactly appeal to many people. Not helping was the fact that a now-unpopular comedian was the voice of the titular polar bear, as well as the bad animation. These factors likely led to the film's financial failure.
- The sequel, Keys to the Kingdom, got this from its very announcement, and had most people questioning why it existed in the first place, considering the failure of the first film.
- The second sequel, King-Sized Adventure, got this for being more unnecessary than the previous sequel, especially since it was announced alongside the first sequel.
Base-Breaking Character: Surprisingly, the casting choice of Rob Schneider as Norm. Some people thought that he was actually tolerable for Norm, while others didn't like the casting choice and performance of him. Some people had never even heard of Schneider, but still criticized his performance anyway.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: In one scene, Norm's brother puts on a show for the human tourists. It comes out of nowhere, and it's never mentioned again.
Bile Fascination: One of the reasons why some people watched the movie was to see if it was just as bad as some people said it was.
Cliché Storm: The movie's almost like a hurricane of tropes and clichés from other kids' movies, doing nothing new with them whatsoever. The misunderstood hero, the busy parent, the budding friendship, dance sequences, corporate villains, Toilet Humour, the list is never ending.
Creator's Pet: In the sequel, the Lemmings become this thanks to a scene near the beginning where Norm tells them they can't come to New York this time only for them to launch themselves onto the ship anyway. As the Lemmings themselves have had none of the issues that made them so hated fixed, it feels like their re-inclusion was a deliberate middle finger to the characters' hatedom.
Critic-Proof: Despite the icy critical reception and its mediocre box-office performance (barely recouping its $18 million budget) hanging over the film, three low-budget direct-to-video sequels (one of which is clearly two 45-minute installments sandwiched into one package) have been released.
Designated Love Interest: Elizabeth. She and Norm are onscreen together for only a couple of minutes, and when Norm arrives in New York, he never brings her up again. At the end, we find out that they had cubs together after Norm came back home.
First Installment Wins: While the first movie wasn't really good at all, it is surely still the best remembered compared to all its sequels.
Ham and Cheese: You can tell Ken Jeong is at least trying to have fun with the role of Mr. Greene.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Someone actually made a Rob Schneider parody video where he was a polar bear, before the movie was even announced.
Memetic Mutation: It's very hard finding a place on the Internet talking about this film without referencing the Rob Schneider parody trailers from South Park.
Narm: If you thought Greene couldn't be any more Obviously Evil, he does an over-the-top maniacal laugh when he sees the approval ratings hit their highest point.
Never Live It Down: Norm is going to be known as "that polar bear who twerks a lot", even though Norm is only seen twerking twice and does much more than that in the film (said twerking was emphasized a lot in the film's ads, though).
Special Effect Failure:
- The film attempts to apply Looney Tunes-like "squash-and-stretch" techniques to its characters, but the low animation budget and character designs were clearly not built with this type of exaggerated movement in mind, resulting in a bizarre "rubbery" quality that falls firmly into the Unintentional Uncanny Valley. In particular, the lemmings and Mr Greene ^note do many cartoonish things over the course of the film, which often look like the animators are haphazardly deforming their character models. The awkwardly applied motion blurring seen during these sequences don't help one bit.
- The texture used for the polar bears when they get soaked makes them look like plastic.
- When Norm flips Vera and Mr. Greene upside down, their hair remains in place instead of hanging down.
Spiritual Successor: The movie has drawn many comparisons to Atuk, an unproduced (and allegedly cursed) Norman Jewison script. Both are Fish out of Water comedies about someone who travels from the Arctic to New York City to stop a crooked real estate developer from destroying their home. The main difference being that Atuk is an Inuit man, whereas Norm is a polar bear.
Squick:
- The lemmings peeing in a fish tank for several seconds straight.
- There are a lot of fart jokes. A. Lot. Of fart jokes.
Tainted by the Preview: The film's trailer was met with more dislikes than likes overall on YouTube, due to showcasing many of the film's problems, such as its abysmal animation, its constant references to pop culture, and the fact that it stars Rob Schneider. This got to the point that Lionsgate eventually disabled the comments and ratings bar for it.
They Copied It, So It Sucks!: AniMat and countless other reviewers have criticized the film for ripping off the Minions from Despicable Me with the Lemmings characters. It was so bad that it got to the point where one reviewer spent a small portion of his video defending the Minions.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Elizabeth, Norm's girlfriend. Norm clearly has a crush on her, and she was also the only character (alongside Socrates) who encouraged him to head to New York City, and believed him about the humans' plans. She could've tagged along with Norm and the two could've had a heartwarming, deep romance subplot. Instead, she's Put on a Bus, and demoted to a Designated Love Interest who exists solely to have Norm's cubs at the end.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The film never explains how Norm and his grandfather acquired their gift to be able to speak to humans. This was one of the few movies to openly deconstruct feral animals who somehow have the ability to talk to humans, which could've easily led to an interesting backstory. Instead, Norm's grandfather gives a vague Infodump about their gift, and the reasoning behind it is never brought up again. The film's sequels later contradicted this idea even further by introducing other animals who can speak to humans without anyone questioning it.
Unintentional Uncanny Valley: Elizabeth, given that she's much less cartoony and stylized than the other characters, and consequently looks a lot creepier than the other polar bears.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The film suffers from the same problems as Foodfight!, since it was clearly aimed at and marketed for young children, yet the raunchy humor and writing feel straight out of a PG-13 adult comedy.

YMMV / Norm of the North

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