Gamer
From FilmFile
Taglines:
- In the near future, you don't live to play... you'll play to live.
- Who's playing you?
Contents |
Synopsis
Set in a future-world where humans can control other humans in mass-scale, multi-player online gaming environments, a star player (Butler) from a game called "Slayers" looks to regain his independence while taking down the game's mastermind (Hall).
Review
Some films (usually action films) can be described as the kind where you leave your brain at the door. Such films include nonsense entertainment like Shoot 'Em Up, Death Race, or Crank. Gamer, sadly, goes one step further in being a film you leave your brain, eyes and ears at the door, and even then it is likely that it will still be too much to cope with!
What begins as a great concept degenrates far too swiftly into over-the-top nonsense, directed far too hectically, and edited by someone with a severe case of attention deficit disorder. A film-making style that worked in the self-parody of the Crank series - a pair of films that took the conventions of modern action films to a satirical degree - fails to impress here in a film which should have been more social satire than frantic frenzy. The idea that, in the not too distant future, the video game mentality has gone onto taking control of real 'avatars' offers so much potential, and the writer who came up with the idea for the film knows this. Alongside the brutal 'Slayers' world, where the death-row inmates are used as avatars in a bloody game, there is the SecondLife-like element where people take control of willing avatars (who are paid for their service) to act out fantasies in a 'virtual' playground. This concept along could have made a great story, but here it is far too stylised and cut apart, leaving you not really caring about any of it. As this part of the story is supposed to get you to acknowledge the character of Gerard Butler's wife, it kind of fails, and instead you spend more time wondering what the fat guy who controlled her was up to.
I left my brain at the door for this one, but around twenty minutes into the film my brain came in to convince me to leave the screen. Sadly I didn't listen, and was subjected to what can only be described as sensory rape! By the time the film drew to a close, after overloading me with a plethora of violent actions, before offering a bizarre (yet strangely compelling) dance number, I had gone beyond caring one jot as to whether Butler was innocent or guilty of the crime he was sentenced for, or whether he would escape. As for the kid controlling him... well, I gave up on him after the first scene.
All in all this is a film that exemplifies the worst excesses of gaming violence and movie mediocrity. All that is wrong with entertainment media is personified in the running time of the film, and it succeeds in doing nought but show that the Crank films were a lucky fluke.
Trivia
- The motorcycle driven by Trace is a Buell Firebolt.
- The opening montage of time-lapse shots and other scenes of the world where we see ads for Kable and/or graffiti's of Ken Castle overlayed over buildings or walls, are mostly taken from Ron Fricke's wordless film Baraka (1992), for example, the shot of the Giza Pyramids, India, homeless man sleeping under a bridge among others.
- The news anchors are played by "Psych" (2006) co-stars James Roday and Maggie Lawson who as of the film's release, were also in their third year of a relationship.
Cameos and allusions to other films
- Blade Runner - When Gorge searches for a costume for Angie, one of the options is to make her look like Pris
- Crank - Simon wears a Crank t-shirt
External links
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