Arcade: Impatto Virtuale

Yes, this is the worst film I have ever seen. That's not to say it's the least enjoyable film I've ever seen, that dubious honour goes to My Dog Skip, a hideously patriotic story of a boy who learns all life's lessons through his pet dog that I was forced to watch on a bus. But Arcade has the worst plot, the worst production values, the worst script, the worst acting, the worst... everything, really.

This complete lack of virtue is, of course, Arcade's saving grace. This really is a freak show exhibit of a film. I watched it all the way through because I simply could not take my eyes from the grotesque spectacle on the screen. I had to see how much worse it could get. And boy, did it ever get worse.

How did this film get made? Who knows. I'm glad to see it went straight to video, which is where it deserves to be. Watch it if you've got a taste for the truly horrible.

The newest video game sensation is "Arcade", a virtual reality game that one must win....or lose your mind and forever be part of the game. Alex (Megan Ward) and her friends try the game, but Alex's boyfriend loses and disappears. One of Alex's friends tries a home version of the game and disappears before her eyes. Determined to get their friends back, Alex and her friend Nick (Peter Billingsley) take on the mind-reading Arcade!

While the plot may be familiar to anyone who's seen TRON, this is a decent low-budget sci-fi film. Many of the actors are now familiar faces: Seth Green, A.J. Langer and John DeLancie among them. Although director Albert Pyun usually directs low-budget boredom (DOLLMAN, CYBORG, etc.), this movie actually has a good story and some pretty good actors. The pace is somewhat slow, and the CGI F/X won't impress today's kids accustomed to video game-like movies with endless amounts of special effects, explosions and loud music, but fans of movies that actually have a plot and characterization will find it entertaining. I'd place this with Pyun's better movies such as RADIOACTIVE DREAMS and THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER.

Charles Band, the film's producer and CEO of Full Moon Pictures, held this movie's release back for a year in order to redo the CGI F/X. For those curious to what they originally looked like, watch the 10 minute "Videozone" featurette included on the DVD. I think it was a wise move, and the movie benefits greatly because of it. The only complaint I really have is that the DVD didn't include the full "Videozone" segment, which included this film's trailer. (This DVD was part of a import boxed set of region-free DVDs.)

Rating Breakdown.

Story - 1.25 :: Direction - 0.50 :: Pace - 0.50 :: Performances - 1.25 :: Entertainment 1.00 :::: TOTAL - 4.50/10.00.

Ah, Arcade (1993), a cyber-horror movie that promised to make us "kiss reality goodbye" but instead delivered a virtual reminder of how far CGI has come since the early '90s. Albert Pyun, known for his low-budget miracles, takes a big swing here-unfortunately, it's more of a foul tip than a home run.

The premise is tantalizing: a malevolent VR video game traps teens in a digital hellscape, forcing our lead Alex (Megan Ward) to rescue her friends. It's a concept worthy of Tron's neon dreams or The Lawnmower Man's techno-paranoia. But unlike those films, Arcade buckles under the weight of its own ambition. The budget is painfully evident, especially once the characters enter the VR world, a green-screen nightmare where the CGI resembles a rejected screensaver from Windows 95. What should've been high-octane spectacle becomes a sluggish chore, as scenes that should dazzle instead drag.

And yet, there are glimmers of hope. The cast-led by Ward, with a young Seth Green and John de Lancie along for the ride-does its best to sell the material. They bring a touch of humanity to their clichéd characters, even if the direction falters once they step into the digital void. Pyun struggles to translate VR peril into cinematic thrills, leaving the actors adrift in a sea of garish polygons.

Still, there's an earnest charm to Arcade's flawed ambition. It's a film that aims for the stars but lands in a low-resolution crater. If you have fond memories of the movie, be warned: revisiting it might tarnish your nostalgia. For everyone else, it's a cautionary tale about dreaming big on a small budget.

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.

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.