Arcade

This is a harmless little sci-fi for pre-teens that mom and dad can scan at any time and see no sex and only a touch or two of violence grace the screen. The plot and pseudo- science are of the leave-your-brain-at-home variety while the graphics are nothing special. The direction is slow, clear and undistinguished. The photography is pedestrian, but not bad. The cast is cute, led by the beautiful Megan Ward. She is demure and fully clothed as a teenaged heroine who saves her boy friend and pals from an evil virtual-reality game gone amuck. The fact that she was 23-years-old at the time and a little too old for the part did not bother me at all. Her fresh face and great beauty allowed me to watch the whole thing! The once vampish Sharon Farrell has a small part as the star's mom which she plays flawlessly with just a touch of irony.

As a once avid gamer, I'm compelled to mock the utterly boring experience that the "Arcade" game offered, while shake my head at what gets portrayed as the gamer's world. This is a movie for people who've barely ventured into a real arcade or picked up your PS controller (or to be fair to the film, a SNES controller.) If you're oblivious to the game world, then you may buy into it.

I could nitpick the "Arcade stealing souls and taking over the world" plotline or the technical general "eh" elements of the production, but I'd rather nitpick the gaming inaccuracies.

One - character design. You're hardpressed to find a game where the characters are dressed only in a wetsuit-lookin' outfit. Let's cut away from the typical anime-ish stuff that's expect from Japan with freaky colored hair etc--we have actors and a low budget, we can't redo their look from the ground up. Still, character outfits are usually more visually interesting than an all black wet-suit and motorcycle-wannabe helmit. The motioncapture artists wear this, yes. The characters in the game no. And typical female characters, regardless of genre, usually show a lot of skin. Whether the wardrobe department abided by this rule or not, I wouldn't have cared . . . even the hideous outfits the characters wore outside the game were more interesting than the in-game stuff.

Oh yeah, and as for "Arcade" himself? Heh, I don't think I've ever seen a game-last-boss design that stupid

Two - Interaction. Yes, there's Myst and 7th Guest and a Tetris of every imaginable flavor as well as other "puzzle" games, but for the most part in the gaming world you're up to your eyeballs with interaction. From blasting the hell out of zombies in Sega's House of the Dead, Slashing through the demon castle in Symphony of the Night, or bouncing through the colorful world of Mario, you're facing things/fighting things and/or constantly interacting with your environment. And if not, you're sitting through plot in an RPG . . . me personally? You'll find me over at the Soul Calibur machine and nowhere near that boring game featured in the film.

It's not the obvious blue screen that gets to me, it's the fact that they never do anything inside "Arcade."

Three - Typical games have a distinct look and feel to it - a certain game play style. Ridge Racer, you get in a car and do nothing but race. Mortal Kombat 2, you fight one other person and that's all you ever do. Dynasty Warriors 4, you constantly fight 500 guys, Tomb Raider constantly means exploration. And usually these games are the best at what they do. Occassionally you'll have a game that switches between game styles but it only has a handful of styles and ends up switching back and forth frequently. Why do film makers always make the games in their movies "action/adventure" games?

Four - once upon a time programmers would put cheat codes into their games to ease the testing phases and speed things up and programmers got lazy and left these codes (sometimes even debug modes) in the final product. Then as gamers found codes, it became common practice putting codes into the game. The movie Arcade fell into this era of gaming history. Now adays, they've implemented a "Beat the game x amount of times x amount of ways to unlock the things codes used to do" and dropped the codes.

Five - Granted Mortal Kombat only had 4 people on the team, the movie implies that the developer of "Arcade" is a big name company and this is their next big seller . . . the setup of the developers did not convince me of a blockbuster game development team.

Six - An all knowing game . . . BS! Sorry, watch eXistenZ to see what the game characters would really sound like. Even advanced AI wouldn't be able to know what this game knows and if it did we'd have freakin' Skynet from the Terminator films. Game AI is pretty stupid. It does what it's programmed to do and nothing else, and if a programmer didn't anticipate it then you just found yourself a loophole and a freeride.

Seven - Maybe it's just where I live, but Arcades don't look like the entrance to a bar . . . and before you point any fingers, yes I get the Alighieri reference and found it inappropriate. They're usually turned off at night and turned back on the next morning (each going through their own little boot-up sequence) via power strip to start a whole group at a time, and I've never found a home game that comes in an oversized shoebox.

Oh well, on the plus side it is interesting hearing Alan Howarth and seeing Star Trek's Q (John De Lancie) alongside Dr. Evil's son (Seth Green) in the same movie. I'd recommend eXistenZ for freaky virtual reality games . . . as screwed up as that world is, at least the nailed the in-game elements. Go figure.

Oh, Charles Band. Is there anything you won't do? Is there anything the late Albert Pyun wouldn't do? It's a little surprising, perhaps, that this was written by David S. Goyer, who became known hereafter for much more substantial and recognized films, and that Alan Howarth - arguably best known for his collaborations with John Carpenter - composed the music. These contributors portend a range of quality and value to expect from 'Arcade,' and sure enough, it's a bit of a mixed bag here. Since the advent of videogames we've gotten many sci-fi stories of a similar thrust of people getting sucked into a virtual or alternate reality (more still if you include fantasy at large), but that's alright, since every iteration can be fun in its own right. Set this aside, and the feature falls into the broader genre of sci-fi and fantasy that involves plucky teens becoming the heroes and saving the day. To that point, in those swell practical effects that are employed, one observes a kinship with similar fare of the 80s and early 90s, such as 'A nightmare on Elm Street,' or maybe even just kids' gameshows on Nickelodeon. Howarth's compositions aren't anything special, but I like them well enough. And hey, there are some identifiable names and faces here: John de Lancie, Don Stark, Seth Green, Peter Billingsley, and more. All told, this isn't half bad!

Not half bad - but also not necessarily half good. Any possible combination of factors are at play here: the budget allotted by Full Moon, guidance from producer Band, limitations of technology, relative inexperience on the part of Goyer, Pyun's knack for low-grade schlock, and maybe more. Whatever the case may be, many of the possible advantages don't come off as well as one might think, and some aspects are altogether garish. The concept and design for the game and elements therein are terrific; the CGI of the early 90s that greets us in the virtual world, on the other hand, is somewhere on the spectrum of quality between "on par" and "absolutely horrid." The production design and art direction vary between imaginative and unremarkable. Influenced in part by the "dreamscape" nature of the game world, in no few instances the acting follows a bizarre, airy ethos that feels like it belongs in a parody, and elsewhere it's simply forced or contrived. While the story at large is quite fine, suitable material with some gratifying sparks of genius, no small bit of the dialogue is painful to behold; some scene writing is kind of brilliant, and some of it inspires a quizzical "Okay, then" reaction. In its last minutes 'Arcade' struggles to find the right tone, and so the ending feels entirely "off." Some of the editing and cinematography is overdone, and it's hard to get a beat on Pyun's direction generally.

On the balance I would say this is passably enjoyable, though I would also suggest that it's recommendable only for the very curious or bored, or for those who already take no issue with pictures such as those Band or Pyun have been known for in the first place. It fits neatly within that space the filmmakers consistently play or played in, for better or for worse, and what fun it has to offer is only baseline satisfactory. For those seeking more grandly fetching, reliably well done, thrilling and compelling movies, you're better off looking elsewhere (say with 1982's 'Tron' for an all too obvious example). If all you need in the moment is something light and frivolous to whittle away 90 lazy minutes, however, 'Arcade' might just fit the bill. Don't go out of your way for and be aware of what you're getting into, but in the very least, you could do a lot worse.

Original (excludng Disney's actually inferior hit 'Tron') Full Moon picture whereby a group of slightly irritating youngsters get wrapped in a game called 'Arcade' down at the local bargain basement, ummm, arcade. The cast is a staggering one considering the low budget (though at the time they were largely unknown). Lead Megan Ward (also in Full Moon's 'Crash and Burn'; 'Trancers 2/3') is a fantastic actress and the now successful director/producer/writer/actor Peter Billingsley, A.J. Langer and Seth Green are among the other teens. To give the film some Sci-Fi credibility we have Star Trek's John de Lancie. The effects, though good considering budget and scope are too adventurous for their own success and frequently characters sucked in to the game look like they are not in the game at all merely wearing tight all-in-one swimsuits and pretending to touch or hold game components (which in reality they are). Megan Ward is an unlikely heroine which adds to the credibility (not all hero/heroine types are built for the role) and the cast have striking chemistry. Put any understanding of big budget CGI and your own knowledge of computer graphics aside to really appreciate this film and you may be pleasantly surprised. Writer David S. Goyer who wrote a few Full Moon films including 'Demonic Toys' has achieved great mainstream Hollywood success since and this is probably significant on his path there (as it was for stars Ward, Green and Langer). Director Albert Pyun is generally pretty poor and this is - without doubt - his best work. Good, (and except for some pointless bad language) clean, fun.

The main reason I ever watched "Arcade", was because I was into Full Moon films during my teens (back when they still made charming horror features on small but still comfortable budgets). This one actually is more sci-fi than horror, and more particularly a poor "Tron" wanna-be. I re-watched this baby because I felt like it after seeing the "Bishop of the Battle" segment from "Nightmares" (1983). Basically "Arcade" is a whole heap of nonsense about a bunch of teenagers getting sucked into a computer game. They have to complete several levels. The visual effects are very poor but fun to look at, in a way. And the boss-fight in the end is... uhm, pathetic isn't the right word, because there actually isn't a real battle. More like a confrontation, and that's it. But still, I had some fun with all this. I usually do. Megan Ward is kind of cute, and a pre-Buffy Seth Green is in it too.