Nerve

If you consider the concept only, it could have been a decent film, if it were more along the lines of the manga, Dead Tube, it could have further potential. With the first act, it seemed to be okay, if you ignore the poor aspects the overall set up is good, when the moral matters are brought up the message is overly played, really pushing a message, whereas if you took the concept to Dead Tube, you could have a successful message if not so on the nose, a message played through the events and what is seen rather than the ending that is given. Much of the overall film feels as though something exciting is about to happen but is unfortunately lost to draw in viewers to the the message the film and studio try to push. It is unfortunate this is a missed opportunity, the cast were also an issue in that they were selected for attracting a younger audience. If we had unknown actors, with a darker plot we could be left with something that makes the viewer consider what they have witnessed compared to the message that is painfully spelled out.

Good idea that failed in execution. If you saw the trailer and read the reviews you might think that there's some depth hiding in the actual movie, but unfortunately, you'll be wrong to think so. The actors are the only bright spot. You'll see some well known and rising star faces who's acting was on point. The movie tries to win you with likable characters, scenes that show familiar problems to most internet users (e.g.Skype call glitching) and with a cute little morale story at the end but fails as it provides no depth to be discovered. Some scenes are super cringe worthy and left me feeling uncomfortable about my movie picking skills.

It's just one of those films you watch and forget about in a day, doesn't leave you questioning some character's decisions or the way it ended which left both me and my girlfriend disappointed. Overall 5/10.

With great internet power comes great irresponsibility. This is the premise behind "Nerve", a film whose producers must have wet themselves with excitement that the Pokemon Go craze aligned so nicely with the release of their film. I was delighted that at last this summer there is a film with a modicum of originality I can enthuse about.

'Vee', short for Venus (Emma Roberts, niece of Julia Roberts) is an NYC teen living in the shadow of a family tragedy and the claustrophobic presence of her over-protective mother (Juliette Lewis, "Cape Fear"). Always timidly in the shadow of her best friend – the extrovert Sydney (Emily Meade) – Vee pooh-poohs Sydney's compulsion with the new viral internet game 'Nerve': a social media 'Truth or Dare' ("but without the truth") challenge game where you can either be a "Player" or a "Watcher". In real time, Watchers set Players with challenges they have to complete for ever-escalating financial rewards… but "Bail" or "Fail" and you lose all. And "snitches get stitches".

With their friendship at breaking point, Vee is provoked into playing the game by Sydney and teams with fellow gamer Ian (Dave Franco, younger brother of James Franco) – someone with a history that could bring Vee into great danger. However, Vee's geeky wannabe boyfriend Tommy (Miles Heizer) is on the case….

What is so impressive about this film is that the screenplay by Jessica Sharzer (based on a novel by Jeanne Ryan) is genuinely original and is delivered with style and good humor. Sure, you can draw parallels for any film with many other sources: in here there are traces of Hunger Games/Allegiance; the "Simon Says" portion of Die Hard 3; perhaps a soupçon of "Gladiator" and Schwartznegger's "Running Man" in the mix. But this is a novel approach to a teen flick, bang on the topical money in bringing in the frenetically viral nature of social media and aspects of the 'dark web', cyber security and open source programming.

The film manages to generate significant credibility about the impact that a game like this would have among a teen audience. And there is a telling message in the finale: that it is easy to be a troll without responsibility hiding behind an internet ident, but when the masks come off and the message back becomes personal then your responsibilities as an individual human can come home to roost.

The film is delivered with style and verve as well, with innovative graphics (a great title and end title design) and an 'augmented reality' overlay of the action showing Players and Watchers across the city. Many of the challenges are executed really well, with a few seat-clenchingly tense moments, particularly if you have a poor head for heights.

But with all this potential it unfortunately fails to be a 10* classic, smelling at times of 'B' movie. Which is a great shame. Emma Roberts is fine at what she does, but at times I longed for the dramatic depth of a Shailene Woodley or Chloe Grace Moretz, with the scenes with the under-used but excellent Juliette Lewis rather highlighting this differential.

The otherwise excellent script is – for me – let down by a scene of male-on-female violence which I found both distasteful and unnecessary. And a coding 'geeks shall inherit the earth' moment towards the end is a little too glib for my liking.

But overall the directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman ("Paranormal Activity 3" and "4") have done a fine job with a $20M budget.

Regular readers of my blog (bob-the-movie-man.com) may recall my use of the "BvS quotient" – the number of films that could be made from the budget of "Batman vs Superman": this one has a BvS quotient of 8% meaning you could make over 12 of these instead of the superhero dud. Yes please! Although if they had doubled the budget and rounded off some of the sharp corners, this could have been a true classic. It's still recommended for a memorable movie experience though, and probably makes it into my draft movies of the year list so far.

(For the graphical version of this review and to comment, please visit bob-the-movie-man.com. Thanks).

20 mins into this, I loved it - I was all in for the ride, then, you know, that la dee da, bulls*** ending happened. I really wish they'd gone dark with that ending. Actually, every moment after Vee snitches to that cop should be changed, I feel like up until that point it was so good. I was still entertained, but the magical hacker network taking down everything... in record time, uuugh, it was so, typical. Also, Vee's brother, he played Nerve, right? That's how he died?? lol, I can't've been the only one that thought that - why mention him at all, why even have a brother, if he's not central to the story or some breakthrough?? Him being "the fun was" can't've been it, can it?

This movie was good, almost great. Strong 6/10.

It's not a terrible film it may be predictable and a little out there, but for what it is, it being a movie for young drama fantasy loving teens it's pretty good. If your the previously mentioned targeted audience there's a good chance you'll like the movie. 7/10.