Dorm and the Invincibles

"You wanna know some perspective of how awful this hot garbagefest is? Rob Schneider is the star of this film. Rob Schneider is the star of this film.... ROB SCHNEIDER IS THE STAR OF THIS FREAKIN' FILM!!!!

-BlackCriticGuy

Dorm and the Invincibles is a 2015 computer animated comedy adventure film distributed by Lionsgate and produced by Illusion Pictures, Animatronic, and Telegael. It was directed by Trevor Wall and produced by Steven and Daniel Altiere. The film was released to theaters January 22, 2015 and was panned by critics for its animation, story, characters, voice acting, soundtrack, and humor. The film was also a box office bomb, grossing $8.2 million over an $8 million budget.

Why It's Awful

 * 1) Low quality, mediocre animation with weak graphics that looks like it were from a direct-to-video film (which was originally going to be) rather than a feature-length animated film. In fact, it looks like a early 2000's animated film than one released in 2015. What's worse is that Lionsgate financed the film with terrible marketing and decided to release it to theaters just for the sake of cash.
 * 2) Very dull plot with an unsatisfying ending.
 * 3) Very unfunny and immature gross-out humor, such as the scene where the storks (and we're really not joking about this) throw dung at people and when Dorm urinates in the Arctic Ocean. There's also one scene after Dorm takes a bath where he.... falls down from the apartment window and sees a young woman bathing.
 * 4) The film suffers from atrocious writing. Like for example, Greener tries to tranquilize Dorm with a vacuum in front of the public and becomes popular although he hadn't tranquilized Dorm. There's several fake-out deaths from Dorm, and even the film points out how stupid a polar bear is.
 * 5) Stupid characters that serve no purpose to the story whatsoever: Dorm is a whiny coward who does nothing but dancing, Greener is a lame villain with dumb motivations (see WIA #14) who's also a bland rip-off of Owen from Marco 2 as both antagonists move their limbs in an over-the-top way & had seized the Arctic Circle, Mary Ash is just bossing around, and the others are just one-dimensional and seem like they lost brain cells. Aristotles isn't that good of a mentor for Dorm and the warluses are unnecessary characters who argue with each other the whole time. Speaking of the storks, they're easily the worst characters in the film. They're carbon copies of the kids from the Marco franchise, as they both accompany the main character much of the time; they're also less funny and more obnoxious. Midas is a stereotypical Chinese restaurant owner who wants to shoot Dorm for no reason whatsoever. The mayor is just the film's generic "evil government official" who usually doesn't do his job at all.
 * 6) Lackluster voice acting, especially the storks' annoying ear-piercing voices. In one scene where Midas is shouting at Mary Ash, Ken Jeong (Midas' voice actor) sounds like he's far away from the microphone. In another scene near the beginning, the audio of Dorm shouting sounds kind of distorted, probably due to recording equipment issues.
 * 7) Poor characterization: Greener constantly moves around like if he were from a Fleischer Bros. cartoon and clashes with the others, who are more realistic; the storks have this problem too. Also, the other characters' movements are either poorly rendered or unexpressive.
 * 8) The direction seems unprofessional, since there's some scenes where the camera moves awkwardly, up and down, or it also blurs when making transitions; making audiences feel rather dizzy (and maybe some even hypnotized).
 * 9) Dorm's relationship with the audience is... not so great: every 10 seconds, the film reminds audiences about Dorm's plan as if they were too stupid to know that already. The film also makes us believe that Dorm should be the rightful king of the Arctic despite the film never at any point mentioning (and showing) that the Arctic has a king.
 * 10) Some inappropiate moments for a children's film: one scene has Dorm repeating "piss off, you seal" three times. One scene has Dorm going to a ladies' bathroom when he was heading to the men's bathroom. In another patricular scene, Dorm actually rapes Elizabeth and later kisses her, obviously coming off as pedophila and beastiality at the same time! (and what's even worse is that Elizabeth doesn't really mind it).
 * 11) Terrible music score by Stephen McKeon.
 * 12) Various unnecessary pop culture references, such as Lord of the Rings and Disney and overuse of pop songs like "Shut Up and Dance" by Walk The Moon. The film also constantly panders to 2010's audiences, even going as far as showing Dorm twerking in one scene with "Shake It Off" by Taylor Swift playing in the background.
 * 13) Several aspects that aren't explained and make no sense: Dorm doesn't like hunting and it's never explained why (if he doesn't like hunting, he should've starved to death a long time ago), Mary Ash's desire of wanting to move out of the city feels rather rushed and is never explained at all. Midas also doesn't give a reason why he wants to shoot Dorm if he let Greener do so. Also, a group of penguins wear sunglasses & play with actual poker cards and Dorm somehow knowing what life on New York City is despite him living in the Arctic his whole entire life. The residents of Arctic City mistake Dorm for a panda in one scene (and, speaking of Arctic City, why does this city even exist? The ice caps could've brought down the city to ruins, but somehow this isn't the case). If Greener had already seized the Arctic Circle, then why does he want to seize it again by building hotels over there?
 * 14) The characters' motives make no sense whatsoever: Greener's plan is contrived and dumb since he wants to build hotels in both the Arctic & Antarctica, making his motives unreasonable. First of all, why would he think it's a good idea to buy the North & South poles if it's extremely cold; and second, the ice caps would bring the hotels down and his business would go bankrupt; lastly, the Arctic is one of the most inhabitable and least comfortable places on the whole entire planet. Elizabeth gives no reason why she wants to go to college even though she's a young girl. Dorm's plan is pretending to be a grizzly bear, because somehow polar bears are not polar bears. Mary Ash's motive is also contrived, since she wants to make her own beauty shop despite her lack of experience in cosmetology. The mayor's plans of establishing new towns in the Arctic are also dumb (besides, why would he even think that would be a good idea?).
 * 15) Atrocious and nonsensical dialogue, notably Aristotles's "We could steal the Arctic to save the Arctic!"
 * 16) The film steals elements from Marco, Beast Flock, Shenanigans, Mono The Monkey, The Hoonies Go To Wonderville, and even The Ninja Turtles Movie (which came from the same studio behind this film), among others.
 * 17) Boring action scenes that aren't as good as Marco's are, it even rips off action scenes from said aforementioned film.
 * 18) This movie comes from Illusion Pictures, who's best known for producing great hits like the Ninja Turtles, Cowboy Sam, and Imaginext franchises; and it's no wonder how the studio made this film although they had proven audiences that they can make great movies. To make things clear, they shouldn't had produced this film with Animatronic since they already knew that studio produces cheap, low-quality animated films.
 * 19) The film sends a very weak enviromental message about climate change in which "global warming & releasing gases like carbon-dioxide in the air is good for the Arctic". Aside from that, the film also has other bad messages like "not trusting foreigners" and that "believing in yourself is bad".
 * 20) The emotional scene where Dorm realizes that everyone doesn't truly believe in him about saving the Arctic feels rather forced and laughable.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Despite the flaws, a few characters are at least tolerable.
 * 2) Mary Ash is the only well animated character.
 * 3) The arctic setting is nice to look at.
 * 4) You like him or not, Greene can get kind of entertaining at times there's even memes about him. "Gimme Yo Money" was the only good (and catchy) song from this film and turned itself into a meme too.
 * 5) A few jokes worked: like when one of the storks says to Greener after the latter can't control his biplane, "you suck!" and Greener says, "oh yeah, I know that already" and one scene where the storks were playing with the violin upon falling down a river.