And just like Crank movies, the crazy filmmakers Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor have returned with yet another outrageous, far-fetched, adrenaline rush action film that’s sure to amuse those who think, live and breathe the same way they do. GAMER is… a movie for audiences that are impatient and filled with raging sex-crazed hormones. It’s thrilling, funny, a tease on today’s youth culture but at the same time, unsatisfying, unoriginal and the A-D-D story is saved only by the coolness of its lead hero and lead villain.
[quote [b GAMER is a high-concept action thriller set in a near future when gaming and entertainment have evolved into a terrifying new hybrid. Humans control other humans in mass-scale, multi-player online games: people play people… for keeps. Mind-control technology is widespread, and at the heart of the controversial games is its creator, reclusive billionaire Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall). His latest brainchild, the first-person shooter game “Slayers,†allows millions to act out their most savage fantasies online in front of a global audience, using real prisoners as avatars with whom they fight to the death. Kable (â€300’s†Gerard Butler) is the superstar and cult hero of the ultraviolent “Slayers.†Kable is controlled by Simon, a young gamer with rock star status who continues to defy all odds by guiding Kable to victory each week. Taken from his family, imprisoned and forced to fight against his will, the modern day gladiator must survive long enough to escape the game to free his family, regain his identity and to save mankind from Castle’s ruthless technology.[/b [/quote
Neveldine/Taylor must really hate good quality movies because they wouldn’t have the patience to watch them. GAMER sprints without resting, you’d get to see all kinds of shots thrown into one scene, intended to give that virtual reality experience that literally can be overwhelming. Imagine today’s social networking and video gaming abilities amplified by a thousand, injected with steroid and slammed with all kinds of unconventional camera work and CG extravaganza, voila! You have yourself GAMER.
Basically Sims and all kinds of popular ‘electronic getaway’ that are keeping teens today from doing their homework are made even more enticing in this movie. Neveldine/Taylor have quite the imagination on how they think these online venues and services should perform in the future. More convenient, more real, more personal. Humans are naturally spoiled and they love f*ed up entertainment and that’s what Neveldine/Taylor depend on for GAMER.
Neveldine/Taylor know their target audiences.. testosterone viewers and their girlfriends who just happen to be there. So GAMER is all about sex, guns, and violence, just the way men like it. It’s guilty pleasure.
I mentioned earlier that it’s unoriginal.. I stand by that opinion, as a matter of fact, the ending proves that after all the explosive, thrilling mindf*ck gimmickry that they want you to go through with the character Kabl, they couldn’t end it creatively, and the story itself and the relationship between the characters are too thin and only on the surface.
I can’t help but remember Death Race, Running Man and all others in the past that have dealt with completely changing the prison system into a game by using the inmates as pawns. The difference is, GAMER gets easily bored and distracted, like a kid who can’t pay attention in class but when you give him a porn mag, his eyes grow big. For example, John Leguizamo’s character is supposed to be the unlikely friend, there’s always that unlikely friend who gets unlucky which then fuels the hero with more rage and desire to commit revenge. Unfortunately, Leguizamo does nothing but whisper gibberish most of the time and when he finally gets unlucky, you don’t understand why Kable gets angry and felt compassion because the movie, being that it doesn’t take its time to build relationship between characters, makes it seem like they’re even hardly friends at all anyway. Leguizamo becomes just another poor basterds we could care less about in that bloody game.
Thank God for Gerard Butler and Michael C. Hall. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think Neveldine/Taylor have a man-crush on these two, they really make sure Butler and Hall got the most awesome on screen treatment. They utilize Butler’s macho charm to the fullest and give Hall the catchiest lines and an interesting puppet string dance that’s well-choreographed. These are 2 actors who can come up with creative ways to enrich the characters they play. Hall as Ken Castle is conceited, demented, drunk with power, Butler as Kable is like Maximus with a gun. Too bad the execution at the final moment was too simple, too familiar, a little too easy, it could be more twisted and challenging but maybe what Neveldine/Taylor are after is that sometimes you could use the help of another puppetmaster… to kill a puppetmaster.