Dorm and the Invincibles

**"You wanna know some perspective of how *AWFUL* this movie is? Rob Schneider is the star of this film. Rob Schneider is the star of this film. *ROB SCHNIEDER IS THE STAR OF THIS FREAKING FILM!!!"***

**-BlackCriticGuy**

### **"I'm Dorm the polar bear, king of nothing" -Dorm**

*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.

## Plot

Dorm the polar bear isn't that good at being the rightful king of the Arctic, but he does possess his unique ability to talk to humans. When the lucrative greedy maniac Greener unveils his idea of building lots of hotels in both poles and Dorm realizes that his home is under jeopardy, he along with his three mischievous wacky storks stow away to some ship that arrives at New York City. There, they encounter someone who could help them sabotage the shady real estate developer's plans for once.

## Why It Sucks

1. The animation is rather cheap and of low quality considering that this film came from Illusion Pictures, who makes good-quality animated films; however, Animatronic (known for making bad animated films) was also involved in this, and the end result is a theatrically-released animated film that looks like if it were a direct-to-video film released in retailers rather than theaters. In fact, the animation looks more like an early 2000s film rather than one released in 2015.
	* The camera is also constantly spinning throughout the film, orbiting around specific characters and making audiences feel rather dizzy.
	* The characters' movements aren't expressive but rather poorly-rendered due to motion blur; they also move in strange and uncanny ways, which fails to work in the style they seem to be going for.
	* The direction seems unprofessional for the most part as it constantly makes blurring transitions which again, makes audiences feel dizzy.
2. Very dull and stupid plot with an unsatisfying ending, the premise isn't that good either.
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.... gets naked after seeing two of Greener's workers.
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. Aside from its atrocious writing, the movie's story is literally a much inferior version of *The Ninja Turtles Movie,* as both films have the main character save his beloved home from some threatening villain who wants to destroy their homes. However, the execution of said plot concept here is also atrocious.
6. Stupid characters that serve no purpose to the story whatsoever, either being complete rip-offs of better animated characters or just generic, one-dimensional characters with dumb and nonsensical motivations:
	* Dorm the polar bear, who serves as the film's main protagonist, is a whiny coward who only likes to dance and does absolutely nothing to progress the film's story other than joining Greener (the film's main antagonist) for his schemes; Dorm is also an obvious rip-off of Bernard from *Beast Flock 2,* as they are both polar bears who want to become kings of the Arctic, and also having some similarities to Michelangelo from the *Ninja Turtles* franchise. Doesn't help either that he's being voiced by Rob Schneider, known for his reputation on bad animated films.
	* Aristotles' storks are nothing more but carbon copies of the kids from the *Marco* franchise and the Rabbids, as they all serve as comic reliefs who accompany our main character most of the time. However, the storks are very annoying, obnoxious, and constantly provide toilet humor, the two most infamous example being the defecation scene and when they ***urinate*** in a fish tank for *10 seconds straight.*
	* And speaking of Aristotles, he isn't that good of a mentor for Dorm as he literally provokes Dorm to several fake-out deaths and later become friends with Greener.
	* Greener is a bland rip-off of Owen from *Marco 2* as they both move their limbs in a rather over-the-top way and had seized the Arctic Circle before moving on to their world domination plans. He even wanted to inject the storks with some serum he made with his tranquilizer gun.
	* Elizabeth is the dumb, happy-go-lucky kid who does not care about getting injured or even death; she is also spoiled and sometimes thinks of herself as someone smart although she is not.
	* Mary Ash, despite her physical appearance being good compared to the other characters, is someone who only cares about her work and nothing else, not even her daughter Elizabeth; she also serves as Greener's assistant throughout the film despite being one of the good characters in this film.
	* Midas is the stereotypical Chinese magician who serves as some "genie" for Greener despite him having no powers for his wishes of building hotels in the Arctic and Antarctica; he also helps him shoot Dorm for no reason whatsoever.
	* The mayor just serves as the film's lazy "evil government official" with convoluted ambitions who actually *does nothing other than playing poker* throughout the film. His motivations for being on Greener's side are downright generic, since he only wants money from him.
7. Lackluster voice acting, especially from the storks as they often provide very obnoxious noises. 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.
8. Poor characterization: Greener constantly moves around like if he were from a Fleischer Bros. cartoon and clashes with the other characters, who are more realistic; the storks have this problem too. Dorm's grandfather moves very slowly for no reason compared to the others, especially his grandson Dorm.
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 inappropriate 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 for *the* *men's bathroom;* and later another scene in which Dorm sees a young lady bathing while falling down some apartment building (also obviously considering it to be racist, as the lady is depicted as African-American). In another particular scene, Dorm actually *rapes* Elizabeth and later kisses her, obviously coming off as ***pedophilia and bestiality*** at the same time! (and what's even worse is that Elizabeth *doesn't really mind it*). There's even some instances in which Dorm twerks, which means "sexually suggestive dancing characterized by rapid, repeated hip thrusts and shaking of the buttocks especially while squatting."
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? Near the beginning of the film, the mayor rejected Greener's plan, but how come at the second act he advocates Greener despite him saying at first that building hotels in both poles is a stupid idea? And how come he hadn't got defeated by the mob since he was the one responsible for Greener's plan in the first place?
14. The characters' motives make no sense whatsoever:
	* First and foremost, Greener's plan of building luxurious hotels in both the Arctic and Antarctica is absolutely stupid and unreasonable: first of all, why would he think it would be a good idea to buy buy both the North and South poles if they are inhabitable and extremely cold (also considering them to probably be the most inhabitable places on Earth); second, his business would easily go bankrupt since the ice caps there would bring the hotels down and the Council could win the case; and lastly, no one would like to live where there are any movie theaters, restaurants, stores, and so on. The film even becomes self-aware of how stupid his plan is, as the mayor at one point says to Greener, "*What? Building condos in both poles is a very ludicrous idea, man!*"
	* Elizabeth gives no reason whatsoever why she wants to attend college even though she is a young girl with low intelligence.
	* Dorm's plan is pretending to be a grizzly bear, because somehow polar bears are fake, in order to help Greener gain enough marketing benefits for his plan; which isn't really a good motive for him at all since it almost ruins his character as a whole, and besides, *why are polar bears here seen as fake? They are real animals!*
	* Mary Ash's motives for obtaining the rights to make her own beauty shop are also contrived and only serve as excuses for quitting her job as Greener's marketing agent; and the fact that she lacks cosmetology skills although she wants to be some beauty mogul completely destroys her motives.
	* The mayor's plans are similar to that of Greener's plans, except that he wants to build plenty of cities in the Arctic only for raising the American economy; again, the Arctic is very inhabitable and would bring down the cities, and spending too much money on that would actually paralyze the economy rather than helping it thrive.
	* The storks' motivations for joining Dorm on his quest are very bland, as they only want to become Hollywood stars; they are heading for New York, not Hollywood, and their motives would still be bland if they want to become Broadway stars despite that making a bit more sense.
15. Atrocious and nonsensical dialogue, notably Aristotles' "*We could steal the Arctic to save the Arctic!*" and his infamous line, ***"*Ah, do you wanna go pee-pee or poo-poo, Dorm?"** after Dorm grunts at him.
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 the *Marco* films are, it even rips off action scenes from said aforementioned franchise. The climax was very lame and stupid as well.
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 environmental 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", both which obviously aren't true.
20. **False advertising for two reasons:**
	* Several of the film's posters show Dorm wearing his New York shirt and Statue Of Liberty outfit, but in the actual film he wears neither of those; and also that he would go to Times Square despite the fact that he never got there in this film.
	* The DVD covers of this film indicate that "fans of *Beast Flock* and *Ninja Turtles* will love Dorm the polar bear" although they won't.
21. The emotional scene where Dorm realizes that everyone doesn't truly believe in him about saving the Arctic feels rather forced and laughable. Also, the film lacks emotional depth and truly feels like a rote animated film.
22. Repulsive if uncanny character designs: Dorm resembles an Bernard/Vincent reject, Elizabeth almost looks like some Cindy Lou reject, Mary Ash looks more like a child rather than an adult despite her character design being good, Greener seems like some Hanna-Barbara/Dick Dastardly reject while also having a poor resemblance to Fred from *The Muppets;* there's also some instances where his design looks atrocious, and Midas' design looks absolutely uncanny if horrible.
23. This film, very much like *Cartoon Craze,* later on spawned **3 sequels** and each one received similar or even worse reviews like this film. In the second film, the animation and writing are even worse. In the third and fourth films, there's too much pop culture references despite them having better animation and less toilet humor compared to the previous two films.

## Redeeming Qualities

1. Despite the flaws, a few characters are at least tolerable such as Dorm's grandfather and maybe Olivia, Elizabeth's best friend.
2. Mary Ash is the only well animated character.
3. The arctic setting is nice to look at, and there's some instances where the animation looks decent.
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: during the climax, 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.
6. Dorm at least cares about his grandfather, girlfriend, and everyone else at the Arctic.

## Reception

### Critical reception

*Dorm & The Invincibles* was heavily panned by critics and audiences alike for its plot, characters, writing, soundtrack, and overuse of toilet humor; and was deemed as one of the worst animated films of all time while also being the worst Illusion Pictures film to date. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film currently holds an average rating score of 8% based on 75 reviews with an average rating of 3/10. The critical consensus reads, "A pioneering feat in hip-shaking polar bear animation, this bleatingly retrograde abomination from Lionsgate should only be screened in case of parental emergency" On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 22 out of 100, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences from CinemaScore gave the film an assigned rating score of "B-" on an A+ to F scale.

### Box office

The film only grossed $33 million against is $18 million budget, becoming a box office bomb and also Illusion's second lowest-grossing animated film.