The Controller

This is a remarkable effort for an indie film. One and half hours of HD live drama spliced with gaming animation and a unique sound track. Being kid friendly with a little risqué comedy (Benny Hill would have been proud). There were some standout performances, notably Fragmaster and the ever irrepressible Knarf37. Masterchief deserves a special mention, his comedy timing and screen interaction with Mrs Masterchief proved to be first class entertainment. I would love to see more of them acting together in a romantic comedy - bravo!! The HD camera work showed artistry,clearly combined with a considerable amount of experience. Great scene angles, lighting and sound. The sound track alone is worth the price of the DVD.

I am watching this now and all I can say is lol! It sorta looks like a group of friends got together in a small town and decided to make a "film". The main character's acting is just terrible. Most of the supporting casts' acting is "OK", at best, but still better than the main character. Fragmaster is pretty funny tho.

The film quality is professional looking but the acting IS NOT.

Kind of makes me want to grab some of my friends and make a "film"! I think younger kids (younger than 15 or 16) would enjoy this movie.

Overall, good movie for kids and pre-teens. I guess OK to watch if there is nothing else on t.v. (like I'm doing now). I will never watch again tho if there is nothing else on t.v. I will just turn it off lol.

I was recently visiting friends in Kona, Hawaii and we ran into The Controller showing at a local film festival. My son and I really enjoyed it. It was very ambitious for an independent film, but it was fun and entertaining throughout. And unlike most indie films, I could enjoy it with my son. He especially liked PappaPooh. This character was trying to play this online video game and take care of his two young children at the same time. Needless to say that caused many funny moments. Also, there was a lot of CG in the movie, and although it was not to "Hollywood standards", it seemed to fit into the framework of the movie and created some good action moments. Overall, we were really impressed. I'm glad someone finally made a movie about a hobby that millions of people enjoy, including myself.

If this film had been made in 1978 then it MIGHT be considered prescient. The fact that it was actually made in 2008 shows that the writers, director and producers couldn't even look back at recent history and construct a contemporary film.

Plot: A billionaire owner of a games software company finds that his wife has been kidnapped and he has to hire a team of game players to fight their way through a customised version of his best-selling game to rescue his wife. To make things worse, the billionaire is locked in a room whilst playing the game.

As a premise there are some intriguing possibilities but the writers clearly have no idea how online gaming works so the whole plot line collapses into absurdities. For example, only certain servers in the world could possibly host the game being played and they could be identified in seconds. (I'd say more but then I'd have to give out spoilers.) And the final plot twist is truly, truly awful. Unbelievably awful. However, the twist does explain why so much that has gone before doesn't make sense.

This is clearly a budget production, with shaky camera work, bad actors, and unbelievably bad dialogue. In the 21st Century how do you struggle to find a competent actor to play a CEO character? The guy first appears in a meeting, jet-lagged from a flight from Japan, and then goes through the rest of the film in a similar state. It's like the actor's on tranquillisers and nobody called the doctor to sort him out. Most of the other actors aren't much better, but they at least appear awake most of the time. The one exception is Tank Jones - yes, that's his name. He's by far the best actor on screen.

The in-game graphics are very poor, but that might have been state of the art when the film was made. Also, not much happens within the game given that players are playing for 8 hours. And how about the billionaire who's stuck in a room with no food and no toilet? In trying to find a way to sum up this movie, the word that came to mind is SNOOZEFEST. If you manage to stay awake until the end you'll wonder just when you turned into such a masochist. Go have some root canal work done, it's quicker and less painful than watching this film.

It gets a 9 out of 10, comedy, action, the gorgeous Mrs Master Chief, the insane but comic Mr Master Chief and the typical teenager Knarf37 make this film a must for all young at heart. This is a wonderful, fun and interesting movie. Although the primary cast aren't actors as a first profession, they are very natural together and the film flows very well because of it. Don't listen to the comments left on this page by idiots who don't get the film. They have no idea what it takes to produce an independent feature film containing vast amounts of video game imagery. So the plot wasn't full of 'save the world' ambitions and the good guy was a millionaire, can anyone say Bill Gates, but who cares? It was a gorgeous straightforward film about two people who love each other. After hearing about this movie at the Kids First Festival, I was sad I wouldn't get a chance to see it. Luckily it's being shown on the Stars network I just saw it and it's a wonderful movie.