Review Ironic Echo

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"This sucks on so many levels." -- Dialogue from Friday the 13th (film). Rare for a movie to so frankly describe itself. —Roger Ebert

A stock part of reviews, usually critical ones.

This is when the reviewer takes a line from the work being reviewed, and points out how it describes the work as a whole. For example, if a character in a film says "This is too confusing!", the reviewer might quote it and mention that he felt the same way after watching the movie.

It can also be done with unintentionally self-critical sounding titles.

This is sort of an inversion of Quotes Fit for a Trailer, when the work's creators or publicizers use a work's own lines to promote it. Of course, reviewers can do this trope "positively" and creators can do that one "negatively", but such instances are rare (especially the latter for a certain reason).

Examples of Review Ironic Echo include:

• This review of The Mosquito Coast. (See last paragraph.)
• This review of Vampires Suck mentions that the title is "too apt".
  • The review in SFX starts off saying it's almost too obvious to say that "Vampires Suck ... does", but it's also entirely accurate.
  • Peter Travers' wrote a zero-star, four-word review: "This film sucks more."
• This review of Disaster Movie. "Contender for most apt movie title ever".
• Luke Mochrie took the "random events" line from the trailer of Devil and said that it describes the film as a whole perfectly; everything that happens in the plot is random.
• This wiki's page on Jurassic Park isn't the only place that quotes Ian Malcolm's lines from the second movie to sum up the whole franchise:

"Oooh, ahhh. That's how it always starts. Then later there's the running and the screaming."

• Doug Walker's Five Second Movies do something similar, such as summarising The Matrix with Neo's "Woah."
  • Much fun was had by the That Guy With The Glasses Hatedom with Phelous's line "This is gonna suck" in the Suburban Knights trailer.
• If we consider The Wizard (film) as an ad for Nintendo products, The Angry Video Game Nerd's review of the Power Glove counts.

"It's so bad."

• The Time Magazine review of Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince noted the book's parallels to the series' second installment and quotes the character Hagrid saying "Chamber o' Secrets all over again, isn't it?"
• The Doctor Who Discontinuity Guide has a bit of fun when characters say things like "There is no plot!", "We must act!" and "I can't stand the confusion in my mind!"
• "the Nightmare on Elm Street remake lives up to its title in the worst possible way"
• Roger Ebert, as seen in the above quote, and also from his review of The Last Airbender: review: "I close with the hope that the title proves prophetic."
  • "Dear God is the kind of movie where you walk out repeating the title."
  • "All I want for Christmas is to never see All I Want for Christmas again."
  • "Oh no, not You Again."
• Spill's review of Sucker Punch: "You know what? Take the 'Punch' out of it, just 'Sucker', alright?" - said Korey Coleman.
  • Beastly review:

Co-Host 3000: I will give the movie credit though: You are given a fair warning at the very beginning, where you see one of the fucking err... fugly Olsen twin- Leon: Olsen twin? Co-Host 3000: -addresses the screen and addresses the audiences by tell[ing] them "Get ready to embrace the suck" [Spill crew's laughter] Co-Host 3000: Wow, you really embrace it. Leon: That-that is ballsy for a movie to look you in the eyes and tell you "Embrace the suck" Korey: By the way, none of us embrace this, okay? It was forced upon us. Cyrus: However, we acknowledge that it did in fact, suck.

• • Cop Out review: "I mean, just think about-Okay, the name of this movie is 'Cop Out', and this... that name alone has so much more hidden meanings into it than we'll ever know because Holy Jesus! I cannot believe what I suffered through tonight." said Co-Host 3000.
  • The Cabin in the Woods review: "It gave me a cabin in the wood" - guest reviewer Brian Salisbury.
  • A Thousand Words review:

Co-Host 3000: Have we-Have we mentioned the title of this movie? Korey: A Thousand Words. Co-Host 3000: No, no. Actually, it's A Thousand Deaths Of Eddie Murphy. [Korey's laughter] Co-Host 3000: 'Cause every goddamn frame is literally killing Eddie Murphy's career. Korey: Oh, I though you were gonna say A Thousand Words Can't Describe How Bad This Movie Is.

• Holy Moly's review of Just Go with It is an subversion. Just read the title.
• Also Sucker Punch: "But there is nothing here to enjoy, beyond the tiny satisfaction in noting that the movie lives up to its name." - New York Times review.
• blu-ray.com's review of The Ugly Truth opens with:

What an appropriate title -- with an emphasis on the "ugly"

• Scott Foy's review of Lake Dead:

Foy: Just how bad is Lake Dead? There's a scene about an hour in when one of the girls in the movie freaks out over their situation and starts yelling, "This is so bad! This is awful!" Sitting in the theater I felt like that scene in The Terminator when the building super knocks on the door to ask The Terminator if everything is okay in there and multiple response choices began scrolling across the machine's field of sight. In this case, my options were: "No kidding!","You're telling me?","Ain't that the truth!","Tell me something I don't know!","Preach on, sister!","Oh, so it's a self-reviewing movie?" The one the Terminator selected, "Fuck you, asshole!" might have fit here as well, if only out of sheer spite.

• Not exactly an echo, but Leonard Maltin's review of the 1948 film Isn't It Romantic? consisted of one word: "NO."
• "Those of us who watch...are WE The Condemned ?" More than one review answered "Yes".
• Occasionally used by The Agony Booth, for example (in the Zardoz recap):

Frayn, apparently watching this movie, yells out, "A bore!" He then repeats, "How pointless!" a couple of times as he falls out of the mouth to his death. So, I guess he knows how the movie will end.

• Given the overall warm reception the game Awesomenauts has received, several reviews have noted that its title is for the most part, well-earned.