Gamer

I saw a work-in-progress screening of GAME last night. It blew me away. The premise is intriguing, the action is outstanding - not a boring minute in the film. I am not a fan of Gerard Butler in general, I find his acting terribly limited, but he was fine. Logan Lerman and Michael C. Hall were great and there is a musical number in the film that is pure genius. Made me want to stand up and cheer. The whole film is like an explosion right in your face. Everything is over the top - the style, the violence, the story. It is a real fun ride while being incredible edgy and dark. There is also quite a bit of social criticism layered in there, dealing with voyeurism, cocooning, the culture of video games. Leaving the theater I didn't know if I wanted to rush home and get my XBox going or never play a video game again. Great job, Neveldine/Taylor! Can't wait to see it again with all the special effects done!

In a not too distant future, the world is obsessed with "Slayers", a game that allows it's players to control real death row inmates in a real world gaming environment. If they win a certain amount of games, the inmate receives a full pardon. The star inmate is Kable. He's won more games than any other "Slayer" has even come close to, and he's close to getting out. However, the game's billionaire creator, Ken Castle, has no intention of letting that happen.

Mixing elements of The Running Man with bizarre game-playing scenarios, outlandish events and a sizable chunk of social commentary, Gamer is an interesting if not always successful little action picture. The commentary on things such as people living reality through game-play and the depths to which society will sink for entertainment are on the mark. Aside from "Slayers", Castle also created an earlier game called "Society", which is sort of like "Sim City", only with real people. Gamers control people in the game and make them do whatever disgusting act they want, such as burning themselves, sex fantasies and the like. I personally felt these were the most effective segments in the film, including a perfect use of the song, "The Bad Touch".

Michael C. Hall was a big draw for me, as he is terrific on one of my favorite TV shows, Dexter. As expected, he was the standout among the cast. His Ken Castle is an over-the-top megalomaniacal nut case, and I enjoyed every moment he was on screen. Alas, he wasn't on screen as often as I expected going in. We naturally get much more of Gerard Butler, who isn't much of an actor from what I've seen. He's tolerable here, but nothing special. We also get a few smaller roles for the likes of Kyra Sedgwick, Pathology's Milo Ventimiglia, Terry Crews, who feels out of place in a non-comedic role, and terrific Drag Me to Hell actress, Alison Lohman.

The action itself is underwhelming, as it suffers from the all too common quick cutting/shaky cam routine. I have to admit, that doesn't bother me as often as it does most people, but it did here. There's also one ridiculous scene involving Kable filling up a truck's fuel tank with something other than fuel. Regardless, while a flawed film, it does have some solid material to offer. It just could have been wrapped a little tighter.

The previews of Gamer didn't terribly appeal to me. However, after reading some initial reviews and seeing that the people over at Joblo found it to be pretty decent, I thought I would check it out. Was it what I thought it would be? Kind of. Was it entertaining? Sure.

Gamer is, first and foremost, mostly a brainless action film in the vein of Crank and other hyperkinetic actioneers, which is presented in fast, somewhat jittery cuts. There's plenty of ultraviolence here and a world of uber-tech that revolves around mind control and the next phase in adult entertainment. While the premise seems a bit silly, with some people subjecting themselves to more demeaning elements, it is a bit thought provoking, which is kind of nice in an action film. It does edge close to Schwarzenegger's Running Man, although this film stands on its own with a stern Gerard Butler and over-the-top Michael C Hall.

Still, you can't help but feel detached from everything. The film rushes itself, finally slowing down to a decent pace at the end, with an ending that is very fitting and entertaining. However, most of it is a mix between speedy action and lackluster dramatic scenes. Why Leguizamo is in this film, I have no clue. There is enough action and techno-gunk here, however, to make for an entertaining 90 minutes. There's also plenty of T&A, which is rare in films these days, although I found most of it to be not veyr attractive. The interesting thing is that the film does do a good job of creating a world that could potentially exist. No matter how disturbing some elements in the film may be, they seem to have an air of truth, and that elevates this film just-above-average.

Although it is certainly a film with many short comings, it's entertaining and presents an interesting world with some scary realizations. Let us hope that, in our lifetime, we don't see this sort of thing happen.

Set in a totalitarian society , a future-world where powerful humans can rule other unfortunates humans in mass-scale, multi-player online gaming environments, star player from two games called ¨Society ¨ and "Slayers" looks to get his independence while taking down the game's mastermind . Kable (Gerad Butler) is a convict who was wrongly framed for killing and condemned to death penalty . Castle (Michael C Hall) is the manager of a game show wherein convicted delinquents are given the chance to run to freedom but have to elude the stalkers; men who hunt them down and kill them in gruesome manners . With full control over the media, Castle attempts to quell the nation's yearning for freedom by broadcasting a number of game shows on which convicted criminals fight for their lives. The most popular and sadistic of these programs is ¨Slayers¨ . 17-year-old Simon (Logan Lerman) controls Kable and leads him around the battle camp . After massacring most everyone in his way, Kable gets blasted outside of the war zone . Kable arranges to run to the safe point to win the battle. Afterward, the surviving characters are transported elsewhere the show's next contestant. Furthermore , we watch Kable's spouse named Angie (Amber Valletta) going to work as a rare role in Society . Angie also is controlled by a fat man . Elsewhere, the convicts for Slayers are being transported to the next battlefield . Kable gets escape and tries to free Angie .

This stirring picture displays noisy action , thrills , lots of violence and some doses of nudism . This movie is about as action-packed and adrenaline-punched , an action movie you're going to see in a while . It's stylishly made, with lots of tense action from the beginning to the end to keep one satisfied. The motion picture provides fast and furious amusement with spectaculars scenes . The tale packs unstopped movement and is extremely entertaining for action lovers and video-games fans . The battle scenes are made with authentic stunts but also by C.G.I . This story about a chilling and surprisingly realistic tale of reality TV gone mad is professionally told , though it results to be a post-modern version of ¨The running man (1987)¨ by Paul Michael Glaser and based on a Stephen King's novel . Directors, writers , producers Brian Taylor and Mark Neveldine present an eye-popping glimpse at the television of tomorrow . This witty slice of sociological future world keeps the action flowing throughout, and presents us with some bizarrely fascinating villains , especially played by Michael C Hall , as well as the usual action frolics. One query, however , is over the high level of violence and some erotic scenes that contain this exciting film . Rating : 5,5 . Acceptable and passable .

The movie was fairly good. Even though slayers should have been more defined, it did explain the basics of it (make it to the save point alive). The movie being "abstract" worked very well for everything besides the slayers sequences, but those were surprisingly short. Something that I thought they did very well though is showing how the user interacts with their character. In MMO's today, you have a-holes who will screw up other people's fun and during one of the society scenes, there is an example of this with the roller blading. Its made even more powerful by people laughing at other people 's injuries, disgracing of dead bodies, etc. because its the icons (avatars) getting abused, not the users.

From an academic standpoint, this movie is great since it shows off how sick and uncaring people can be when its not their bodies being abused or shot at.

Anyways, if you want to see this movie, I warn you that there it is rated R for good reasons. It made me think that they should separate the R-rating into R1 and R2 or R and RR. This is because many R movies are lite-R's (some swearing, some nudity, some blood, but nothing out-of-control so to speak) and many other R movies are heavy-R's (i.e. saw, many cheesy horror flicks, and this movie)