War Games

I thought this was actually a pretty good movie. It's got good action sequences and some cool death scenes. Most of the characters kind of deserve it too, so some of the kills are really satisfying. Like the one that runs off to the mine field. I thought the actors were all pretty decent, but the script didn't really give them the most to work with I don't think. It's all quite simple stuff. Kids go where they shouldn't. Bad stuff happens. Thing is, if you like these types of horror/survival films like I do, then this is a pretty good one. If you don't, then I guess it's not so good. There's a few good jumpy bits and a really nice little move at the end to make it a bit open ended too. Worth your time if you're looking for something dumb and fun.

I couldn't finish watching it, it was that bad. Obvious foreign movie. Couldn't tell whether the actors were actually speaking English or whether it was dubbed as it sounded stereo typically dubbed. A lot of these reviews state it was good viewing but sadly not for myself and I love action, thriller and horror who also writes reviews on such films.

War Games has clearly 'borrowed' it's central themes and story from several films that have gone before it. Despite this it's hard not to like it, because it has been executed so well here once more. The loose hand-held camera work and the gritty low key performances from it's cast make the film dark and believable. It shows that by casting good actors and setting your story in an unfamiliar place, there is still a lot of fun to be had in the cat n mouse genre. The film has been scored really well, and it uses the music well throughout, with some it's most effective moments set to it's thumping soundtrack. The film ends on a cliffhanger of sorts, and although I enjoyed the film I don't think it warrants a sequel and I hope that Alema moves on to a new projects and doesn't try to franchise this.

We had a bit of a movie marathon at home this weekend, catching up on various horrors that slipped under our radar in the past year or so. I must be honest, I went into War games with no real expectations as this is hardly ground breaking in it's ideas, but I was really very surprised to find the film to be as good as it is. After a kind of a naff set up and introduction, the film really gets going and never lets up until the final image. The chase/hunt is relentless and it's quite a tense watch. It's got some quite clever visuals where the camera kind of drifts in and out of focus, and because it's shot hand held it really puts you into the movie. This is also helped because none of the cast are particularly well known, at least not to me, so everyone was expendable and it was clever how the film sets up certain characters as the lead only to bump them off unexpectedly. You never really know beyond the main girl who's gonna stick around til the end. To their credit the actors are all very good and should go on to be better known. I think that the film could have benefited from spending more time on the soldiers background because their motives are never really clear, but then again, that also makes it kind of scary too. Not the best film we saw over the weekend, but pretty bloody good all the same.

This movie fails at the most basic level of telling a story that makes any kind of sense.

The premise (the good guys start off in an air-soft game, but it becomes a real 'war') sounds like it might be vaguely interesting (if you haven't already seen the much better film Severance). But the air-soft element is completely forgotten as soon as the baddies show up - the characters who are supposed to be good at the game behave just as idiotically as the rest.

It's not even that they make the understandable mistakes panicking civilians might make in a deadly situation - they just do whatever random, stupid things they need to progress the 'story' to the next plot point. One character is happy to kill an injured enemy in cold blood, but then hesitates when confronted by an armed enemy coming for her two minutes later. One character who's armed with a real gun nonsensically *puts it down and forgets about it* just to let a particularly nasty and sadistic scene happen without her preventing it.

The cinematographer's main trick is to have the focus wander between foreground and background - which looks classy the first time, but loses its appeal when it happens in every other shot.

Not at all good.