Ultimate Game

The movie was fairly good. Even though slayers should have been more defined, it did explain the basics of it (make it to the save point alive). The movie being "abstract" worked very well for everything besides the slayers sequences, but those were surprisingly short. Something that I thought they did very well though is showing how the user interacts with their character. In MMO's today, you have a-holes who will screw up other people's fun and during one of the society scenes, there is an example of this with the roller blading. Its made even more powerful by people laughing at other people 's injuries, disgracing of dead bodies, etc. because its the icons (avatars) getting abused, not the users.

From an academic standpoint, this movie is great since it shows off how sick and uncaring people can be when its not their bodies being abused or shot at.

Anyways, if you want to see this movie, I warn you that there it is rated R for good reasons. It made me think that they should separate the R-rating into R1 and R2 or R and RR. This is because many R movies are lite-R's (some swearing, some nudity, some blood, but nothing out-of-control so to speak) and many other R movies are heavy-R's (i.e. saw, many cheesy horror flicks, and this movie)

Gamer stars Gerald Butler and Michael C. Hall and Gerald Butler has to survive thirty rounds of a virtual reality game called Slayers in order to see his wife and daughter again. From what I described about the plot there wasn't much to it other than you have your typical movement who's looking to bring Michael C. Hall to justice that's it. This is weird I mean really weird like imagine the writers and the director did a bunch of bath salts and crystal meth. They did have an idea of what this would be about, but then thy forgot they were making a movie and said you know what lest make this as trippy as possible and the story well half-ass it. To me what interested me was the twisted version of Sims world then Gerald Butler being in your typical Halo and Call of Duty video game simulator. Everyone involved making this seemed to put a lot of effort in the Sims world then the rest of the movie they read half of Brave New World and 1984, and now we have this mess. Nothing is concrete the characters are one dimensional, typical, and your average stereotype. The only one who does a good job of holding this together is Michael C. Hall, the eccentric, crazy, over the top performance who is the creator of Slayers and Society (the twisted version of Sims I mentioned). As I mentioned before if they focused on Society more, then I would be down to see how this plays out, but they went for the ladder and that's what made this tumble to the ground. So overall, the movie is interesting to look at, but don't expect too much.

I saw a work-in-progress screening of GAME last night. It blew me away. The premise is intriguing, the action is outstanding - not a boring minute in the film. I am not a fan of Gerard Butler in general, I find his acting terribly limited, but he was fine. Logan Lerman and Michael C. Hall were great and there is a musical number in the film that is pure genius. Made me want to stand up and cheer. The whole film is like an explosion right in your face. Everything is over the top - the style, the violence, the story. It is a real fun ride while being incredible edgy and dark. There is also quite a bit of social criticism layered in there, dealing with voyeurism, cocooning, the culture of video games. Leaving the theater I didn't know if I wanted to rush home and get my XBox going or never play a video game again. Great job, Neveldine/Taylor! Can't wait to see it again with all the special effects done!

My movie philosophy: don't blame a movie for not being what it's not meant to be.

To enjoy a movie, you don't need the movie to be amazing, great, or even good (sometimes). You just need to know what you should expect.

So what do you expect from gamer? If you want gore, violence, blood, nudity...go ahead and see it. If you want Gerald Butler running around shooting people, fighting people, baring his muscles and looking tough like action heroes do, go ahead and see it. If you want Michael C. Hall playing an evil guy trying to take over the world, and baring his muscles, and even showing off his Broadway background a little bit, go ahead and see it. (but you'd be a little disappointed since he shows up less than you'd expect as this is quite a short movie, only 1.5 hours). Even if you want to see some hot lesbian actions probably imagined by very non-lesbian people, or a cute teenage boy who probably isn't supposed to do anything other than being a cute teenage boy...go ahead and see it.

But If you want go in and find some surprise- and twist-filled plot, some complicated multi-layer character development, or some brilliant insight into society or even humanity, then no, don't go see Gamer.

The problem is, if you are really expecting the later things I mentioned, I think it's partially you fault that you are going to spend one and a half hour of your precious time sitting in a theater suffering from this movie and then hate it with a passion. Because really, those aren't what Gamer is meant to be, even though some people may actually believe that they are.

The reality is that while not what many would call a great (or even good) movie, Gamer could be thoroughly enjoyed, as long as you know what it should be. Because I think it's everything it set out to be. You just need to (maybe grudgingly) accept what it's supposed to be and either enjoy it for what it is, or realize that it's not a movie for your high level of intelligence and ignore it completely.

The premise of this movie is great, the plot is good, but the execution is terrible. The action scenes are horrible to watch, the camera cuts every 0,2 seconds, I felt like I was gonna have a seizure in the first 5 minutes. I get the idea behind using this sort of frantic camerawork too convey the sense of chaos that the characters are living trough, and it worked out great in the Crank movies (i thought the director(s) might have been inspired by those, turns out they made them) because it was just a tad bit more subtle. Those films conveyed the energy and insanity of their story and character in a perfect way, but the directors chose to turn up the intensity a couple notches too many here, and it spoils the fun. It's too bad, because it could have been a great flick, I actually cared for the story for a bit, but about 2/3 in I just couldn't watch anymore. I am positive however, that the last part wouldn't have redeemed anything, but it just might have given me a stroke at the age of 32.