Summer is offically over and you want to know how I know, it's not the cool October days we've experienced last week; no sir, it's the movie GAMER! Every year towards the end of August and into the Fall season months movie theaters across the nation receive the "not good enough for summer nor Christmas" movies. This is the end of the year dumping ground for movies. Fall and late winter always seem to be when the dullest of the dull are in theaters. During this time a good B-movie will show up here and there. GAMER was not one of the good ones.
GAMER is the new film from the guys that brought us the "willful suspension of disbelief" masterpieces CRANK and CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE. Neveldine/Taylor have a unconventional style all their own that make them good exploitation filmmakers. The problem I have with them is that they don't know when enough is enough. The CRANK films went to extreme moments that I loved and hated at the same time because it all became too much.
Seeing that GAMER was made by Neveldine/Taylor I sort of knew what to expect but at the same time wished for something different. What I got was just a bunch of flashy incoherence noise.
If you have not seen the previews the story goes a little something like this, RUNNING MAN meets DEATH RACE. In the not so distant future a new kind of video game is created where the gamers play with real human beings. The hottest game is called Slayers, in this game real death row inmates become video game avatars and kill for survival via controlled by remote players. Kabal and his player Simon are 3 games away from a 30 game winning streak to freedom. 30 wins equals freedom but as we all know an offer like that is bad for business.
I like action movies and GAMER would have been a good one if you could actually follow the action and just not be bombarded with noise and chaos, much like today's video games.
D+
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Another view, from Kris:
I'll have to agree with Caleb on this one. Not one of the better action movies I've seen. The choice of editing gimmicks, obscenely loud sound effects, over use of nudity, and general camp of the movie drug it down several notches (it didn't start very high to begin with). There are a few note worthy aspects of the film:
1) Throwback to Halo, someone teabags someone in real life. Haha!
2) A cool shot of a blood splatter in a rave under blacklight, looks nifty.
3) Michael C Hall's "puppet" dance at the end.
4) Totally offbeat cameos: Peter Petreli from Heroes, John Leguizamo, Allison Lohman, and Shawn AND Juliet from Psych.
Which brings me to the one thing I really liked about this film: everything Michael C Hall. I've never watched Dexter, but Michael easily steals every scene he's in. I can't wait to see what other sinister characters he can play. Easily the best performance of the movie. If you liked Crank and Crank 2, watch this one. If not, wait for DVD.
-Kris
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