Ashens and the Quest for the Gamechild

I had the opportunity to see this recently, having watched Polybius. I have to say, I do think Polybius is better, but this is a lot of fun and there's tremendous skill already on display here.

Stuart Ashen holds the whole thing together, a special skill of his that can be overlooked when accolades go to quirkier actors. There are some genuine laugh-out-loud moments and a few gorgeous cult-movie in-jokes. One on a flight of stairs had me in stitches, it was so unapologetically random.

Ashley (Millie Reeves) was wonderfully OTT. The stuff of nightmares, but in a good way. Chef Geoff (Dan Tomlinson) was just the right level of helpless and clingy, which made him great fun to watch. I thought Marian (Kerry Gilbert) was a bit lacking, especially if the character was based on Marion Ravenwood. I don't know whether it was the way the part was written and directed, or a bit of a misfire in casting. Nemesis (Chris Kendall) had many excellent moments, but I thought he suffered from being another Jim Carrey zany-type without the necessary grounding and presence which gives such characters longevity.

As with Polybius, there are some great cameos, not least from Warwick Davis, Victoria Broom and Fawn Mead.

Overall, very enjoyable.

More enjoyable than I had anticipated.

I do watch the Ashens YouTube channel, so knew I'd probably like this to some degree after watching. It in fact beat my expectations, as it's a film that I actually had a fun time watching.

Stuart Ashen's acting is better than expected, while Dan Tomlinson makes for a decent sidekick. 'Ashens and the Quest for the GameChild' also features a few well chosen minor cast members too, whilst having noteworthy people like Warwick Davis and Robert Llewellyn appear.

The plot is solid, the pacing is good and it brings humour with it. A pleasant surprise, this.

Seeing the cover and subject, I though I'd be in for a nice little indie treat with 80s nostalgia and some laughs. However, this didn't have much of either (a little bit of nostalgia, zero laughs). Normally I wouldn't have cared enough to write a review about this, but because of all the other reviews giving it great scores I felt I had to give another perspective so people wouldn't get their hopes up.

I've never seen the YouTube series so I didn't know what to expect, but this film wasn't entertaining at all. I seemed like it was trying to be funny, but I couldn't really tell. I guess that's how bad the humour was, since it didn't even really register as humour. I don't remember laughing once. The story wasn't that great either. It was just things happening to move the plot along, but failed at doing it in an interesting way.

In the end I could only get through about half of the film before I had to stop due to lack of any entertainment whatsoever. I'm baffled at why there are so many good reviews. Perhaps friends of the crew? If not, then I'm happy they could find some entertainment in this since I certainly couldn't.

Don't say you weren't warned. I've seen good indie. This isn't it.

When it comes to films made by Youtubers most of them are pretty rubbish. Ashens and the Quest for the Gamechild is one of the few decent ones. It had internet style humour and cameos from internet personalities so it was made for fans, but there were still some good jokes in the film. My personal favourite was the Stormtrooper disguise. It also helps that the film was directed by a professional filmmaker instead of a Youtuber pretending to be Spielberg, so Gamechild looked pretty decent and Ashens is a quick-witted and doesn't resort to screaming like some other Youtubers.

I really wanted to like it, but there are so many videos made on youtube that didnt cost anything to make, that are way more humorous. Its alright if you like ashens (like I do) but too many jokes are just forced and poorly timed. Most of the actors are not very good, though ashens is the exception in this case. I get some people will like it but giving it an honest watch I just wasnt one of them. Only masterpieces deserve 9 or 10 stars and this is faaar from it so I dont understand the other reviews.