Gamer
In the future, convicted murderers get a second chance at freedom by playing a deadly live game where the entire world is watching. One man, who was framed for murder, is getting ready to finish his final battles that will lead him to freedom.
Where have we heard that before? Oh, yeah The Running Man, the Condemned, and Death Race 2000. Heck, the only different spin they put on it is the videogame players controlling the murderers on the battlefield. So, yes that is something new. It is too bad they don’t really explore that aspect of it too much. The gamer can move the prisoner around in a real battlefield, but it would seem the prisoner is able to fire his own weapon.
I found the concept of the people from the Internet controlling real people to be interesting. There is also a real-life Sims game except in this movie the game is very X-rated. I really do like the two gaming worlds, but Crank directors Neveldine and Taylor can’t seem to focus on one storyline. And these stories get dropped fast.
Gamer has the same problems that the Crank movies had. Naveldine and Taylor are like two young kids on a sugar high. The movie skips around never fully exploring anything too long. Then, they throw in Ludacris and his band of Matrix rejects. Ludacris’s Matrix Rejects are hackers rebelling against the system and the game. Like everything else, the Ludacris story goes nowhere.
You can even tell that Navaldine and Taylor wanted to tell a deeper story, but simply didn’t have the chops to do it. So, it turns into a random action movie toward the end of the movie that looks more like Crank 2 than anything else.
-Did I mention there was a goofy dance number? Yep, the main villain (Dexter) has a dance number with his fellow henchmen. It could have worked, but it was done so poorly that I felt it went on too long.
-The Sims knockoff is strange eye candy.
Gamer was their attempt to do something a little deep. I think they got there by 25%. It is just a shame they have this 5-minute attention span and don’t fully explore those interesting concepts. Gamer feels disjointed and confusing. While stealing from other prison/gladiator action films that did it better, it doesn’t stand up.
Grade: D+
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4 comments:
I remember noting Hall doing Jazz hands in the commercials, and it just seemed so out of place. I knew there was something silly like that in there.
Yeah, I got a kick out of that post you did
It seems very strange to place it in this type of movie. I think they could have handled it better given a better dance number. it seems more in line with something out of Crank though than Gamer.
I just saw Crank High Voltage this week, and there was a very obvious moment near the end of the movie where the writing/directing team were telling the audience exactly what they thought of them.
Yeah, there are a few moments in that movie that make that statement.
Hell, I was with the movie for the first 20 minutes, then it went to hell.
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