Everything Wrong With...
CinemaSins' main video series, Everything Wrong With..., explores complaints about a movie's writing, acting, direction, production values, deus ex machina examples, clichés, instances that defy logic and physics, factual errors, poor visual effects, derivative premises and other content that they deem "sins." [22]
Most transgressions are awarded a single sin, but on occasion, more sins (as much as 1 billion, as seen in the Home Alone 2: Lost in New York episode, specifically during the cameo of Donald Trump) that appear to offend the narrator are awarded for effect. (The climactic rescue scene in The Fate of the Furious 'broke' the sin counter and 161 sins were instead displayed as R.I.P.; because of the damage, a 2.0 was temporarily replaced until it was 'fixed' again in Scream 2 ). However, there are times when sins are removed due to the presence of a scene which is considered exceptionally good, which makes up for the original sin (an exception was done during an April Fool's Joke in 2016 for the film Troll 2 by removing a total of 10,000 sins before resetting to zero in the end). On two occasions ( The Avengers and Doctor Strange ), the sin counter additionally counted sins by mistake or added by the narrator. [lower-alpha 1] [lower-alpha 2]
CinemaSins has been known to show great disdain for certain directors, such as Michael Bay, Roland Emmerich, McG, Joel Schumacher, Zack Snyder and M. Night Shyamalan.
Each video begins with two taglines added on the film's title card ("In x minutes or less" [X is rounded up to the video's total minutes of runtime, excluding verdict, intro, bonus round and outtakes], and "Spoilers! (Duh)" [indicating the film's potential spoiler content] [lower-alpha 3] ); the video is then played with an on-screen "sin count" and "sin timer" (video runtime) throughout (with common expletives and profanities censored), and ends with a "verdict" for the film. The early videos usually featured generic verdicts like "Hell", though eventually, they came to employ words or phrases that refer to the film's content, such as lines of dialogue or settings, accompanied with audio samples or snippets to narrate the verdict. On rare occasions, a film will start with negative sins because of how good it is or because of a good decision early in the film, such as not overexposing the studios' logos. Frequently, the first sin listed is the total length of the logo sequences of the various production companies involved in the film. Usually, all of the sins are written by Scott and Atkinson; in one case, Iron Man 3's sins are described by the subscribers instead (Scott still did the video's narration and the bonus round).
Some videos feature a "bonus round", in which additional sins are added (removed, in the case of Deadpool and Deadpool 2 ) to the count for repetitive occurrences in the film [lower-alpha 4] [lower-alpha 5] [3] [24] [25] [26] The sin count rarely reflects the reviewer's relative overall opinion of the film, [11] so their true opinion is usually made clear in the video descriptions. Atkinson does most of the editing, while Scott narrates most of the videos, with the following exceptions (which usually featured special guest narrators):
Each episode consists of one video playing about 15-20 minutes or more, but four episodes ( Transformers: Age of Extinction , and all three films of the Star Wars prequel trilogy) were split into two parts due to video overruns; the Furious 7 episode was also split into two videos but had the audio outtakes separated into another video. Zack Snyder's Justice League 's video was also split because of the 4-hour runtime, but unlike the first four instances, the film had two parts uploaded on two separate days (September 23 and 28, 2021), and a full version with the two parts combined was uploaded four days later on October 2. As of August 9, 2018, audio outtakes are now uploaded as a separate video starting with Cloud Atlas .
Certain stock criticisms are used as running gags, a number of which are ironic references to certain films, such as someone/something having "gone to the Prometheus School Of Running Away From Things" (used when a character runs from a fast-moving or falling object in a straight line ahead of it instead of to the side to avoid it completely), and "[Insert Character] would be excellent at CinemaSins" (used when a character says something in a scene that would have been counted as a sin by Scott had he said it instead), or "No one will be seated during the..." suggesting that a given scene is excessively boring or drawn out. Sometimes these criticisms are used in a doubly-ironic fashion within the very films that they reference, such as the alien characters in Signs being sinned for having "the same weakness as the aliens in Signs". [27] Sometimes they allow Scott to be self-referential. For example, one stock criticism known as the "my college girlfriend" sin involves Scott making a reference to a sexual encounter he claims he had with a girlfriend while in college by commenting that a line said by a character in a particular scene was said by either himself or his girlfriend during that encounter. [28] During every movie made by a Comcast company, like Universal or DreamWorks, a "Comcast" sin is always played first. Whenever a film title is mentioned in a movie, "Roll Credits" (or its similar text) sin is played.
Family films tend to be less harshly criticized. For example, Megamind receives its share of sins, but they are delivered in a more lighthearted manner. However, one notable exception to this rule is films in the Despicable Me franchise, which have been sinned heavily due to the Minions characters featured in them, whom Scott perceives as highly irritating and thus a negative influence on the films' overall quality. [29] [30] [31]
"Everything Wrong With" videos are typically uploaded every Tuesday and Thursday (with exceptions for every September since 2014, during which videos only upload on Tuesdays). Videos are selected and sinned, most commonly chosen by popular demand, though usually by at least one of the following reasons:
- A prequel film (or a series) to promote an upcoming film, usually sequels, and sometimes film reboots or remakes;
- An actor or director's prior film role in relation to the upcoming film;
- A seasonal-themed film to celebrate holidays; or any Academy Award-accolade film to promote the annual Academy Awards;
- A particular theme, genre or company in relation to an upcoming film;
- In rare cases, anniversaries for the film or a particular director/actor;
- Other reasons, through special cases if the aforementioned reasons do not fit in the criteria. [lower-alpha 6]
When doing sins videos that are based on other media, such as books, television series or video games, CinemaSins normally never refers to the source materials on which the films are based, instead believing that the feature should stand or fall on its own merit. [lower-alpha 7]
Usually, at the end of a sins video, audio from other TV shows, films or songs with similar themes or motifs will be played over clips from the film. At times, they will also advertise other sponsored products like Audible, Nature Box, Crunchyroll, Squarespace and Scott's book The Ables, released on May 1, 2015.
Since September 2018, re-uploads of older episodes are found on YouTube, with some of the videos done by reworked sins, while the older uploads are removed.
