The Critical Drinker

YouTube Channel Review

Plugged In isn’t the only team talking about film. In fact, were you to peruse our YouTube reviews, you’d see that we’ve covered CinemaSins, How It Should Have Ended, Screen Junkies, Pitch Meeting and Corridor Crew, all YouTube channels that primarily deal with movies in some way.

Well, another channel has risen in prominence lately, too: The Critical Drinker, helmed by Scottish movie reviewer Will Jordan. This conservative-leaning commentator’s enormous popularity is based on his ranting critiques—in particular, for his videos skewering Disney-owned franchises like Marvel and Star Wars. While many of Jordan’s videos are simply discussions about what he did and didn’t like about a film, others slot into several different categories.

“The Drinker Recommends” is a category for movies that Jordan feels are prime examples of great storytelling and engaging movies. In this playlist, viewers will find movies both new and old that Jordan believes stand above the rest.

“The Drinker Fixes” contains videos where Jordan analyzes a character or movie plot and rewrites their motivations or the context around them in order to present a “better” version of it. What’s most notable about this category is that Jordan tries to stick as closely as possible to a movie’s themes and characters in order to prove that poor stories can be made better with a bit of workshopping.

“Production Hell” showcases movies or TV shows that had to go through difficult development and production processes due to monetary issues, overbearing higher-ups, difficult actors or other problems.

“Why Modern Movies Suck” allows Jordan to explain the unique issues behind newer films that he believes undermine their entertainment quality. These videos showcase examples Jordan uses to prove his point and are often the most opinion-based of his uploads.

POSITIVE CONTENT

The Critical Drinker provides valid points and commentary on many films and TV shows. For instance, Jordan often explains that movies that value universal messages will inherently relate to more people than those made to make a statement for the zeitgeist. He notes that movies with messages about family, the value of life and redemption are often the most compelling to audiences.

Jordan primarily focuses on each piece of entertainment’s storytelling, and he criticizes a given film when he feels that the storytelling has been thrown to the side in favor of pushing a political or cultural agenda.

CONTENT CONCERNS

If you thought that the name of the channel was indicative of the content concerns, you’d be right. In older videos, Jordan’s speech is intentionally meant to sound like he’s going on an intoxicated rant. Though newer videos haven’t focused as heavily on that schtick, The Critical Drinker channel name still brings to mind alcoholism.

By far, though, the biggest issue viewers will contend with is the heavy swearing. Both f- and s-words are frequent, as are other vulgarities. God’s name is taken in vain sometimes, too.

In some of the movie clips that Jordan shows, we also see people get hurt or killed in some bloody ways.

Recurring jokes include Jordan playing a clip of a man profusely vomiting in response to poor directorial decisions as well as using a flatulent noise for similar reasons. He also sometimes plays a clip of Nicholas Cage in his underwear or She-Hulk twerking. We hear a couple sexual quips, too.

And on a similar note, some of Jordan’s rants insult the directors and actors behind the films directly. While he often criticizes stories based on merit, he has also makes occasional jokes or comments that comes off as sexist.

CHANNEL SUMMARY

Sometimes, movie critics can be quite harsh. I’ve read not a few movie reviews where I’ve thought, in full Marty McFly fashion “Wow, this is heavy.” I’m not immune to the irony that Plugged In’s reviewers(myself included) have probably written things that have elicited similar responses from our readers, too.

And, in true fashion, The Critical Drinker is harsh, too. Harsher than most, in fact, to the point of callous insult.

To Jordan’s credit, many of the points he makes have merit. Furthermore, he does a pretty good job explaining where he’s coming from and why he dislikes a particular element of the film. But let’s just say that when Plugged In dislikes something in a movie, we’re much more likely to express our perspective with careful tact. Not so for Jordan.

And that includes the content issues here. With frequent swearing and many crude jokes, The Critical Drinker probably isn’t the kind of sarcastic movie critic you’d gather your kids in the living room to listen to.