The Gamers: Hands of Fate

From the forty-five minute The Gamers, through the one hour and a half The Gamers: Dorkness Rising, we get the two hour long Hands of Fate. It starts with the same team as in the second film, all happily playing their D&D game, only to be thwarted by cell phone rings "from work". It made me think that it will be a continuation of Dorkness, made in the same vein: the mature gamers who can't really play their game with reality intruding. I was wrong.

Soon enough we realize that reality has intruded way too much. They are not able to play the role playing game anymore. They are barely meeting once a year and then they never manage to end the game. Enter Natalie, a CCG player with a real passion for a card game with a storyline and a real nice face. Cass immediately falls for her and proceeds to learn to play the game. The entire movie is then about the fantasy land of the CCG game.

I don't want to spoil anything, so I will not reveal anything more about the plot. Enough said that the ending is reminiscent of the first Gamers film and that, even if at first I thought it was going to turn into a sort of weird documentary of what happens at Gen Con and I really really hated the Gary subplot where he is trying to kill the mascot of the show that replaced his childhood favorite, I ended up liking it.

I especially appreciated that Cass is as much a noob at card collectible games as I am and has the same disdain towards them as me, but as the movie unfolds, he gets to understand and respect the game, so I get to identify and evolve with the character while I am watching. I loved that.

Not that everything is dandy dory: most of the acting is completely over the top and some scenes did make me cringe. However the overall feel of the movie, the fact that most of the geekiness made sense and the subtle humor made me like the experience. A bit too long (just make a Director's cut without Gary's story! :) ), but enjoyable nonetheless. I do miss the free fantasizing of the D&D game, though.

I try to write reviews that focus on what others don't say. This movie is bad. The other 2 Gamer movies are treasured gems. The problem with this movie can be summed up rather briefly. It's source material is obviously MTG and as nearly the entire scene is vile, so is the movie. Where the other Gamer movies are funny this one falls utterly flat. The reason is simple, most MTG zealots refuse to make fun of themselves or the game. The film can't let itself be funny for the same reason you can't draw a cartoon caricature of Muhammad. Sad.

"Hands of Fate" is quite an endeavour in terms of telling a story that people might not like to listen to, but it is a very good film.

I liked "Dorkness Rising" better, pretty much like most people prefer youth to old age. The first two films were only slightly exaggerated reports on role players, this on the other hand is a fantasy, that is a parable that is supposed to make you dream as opposed to grin, about meaning that people build up for themselves, and about letting go of that, when it's all just mere self indulgence, i.e. this is not a film about how ridiculous gamers are, but how sad it feels to let go of this world.

Now, in my case, it's some 25 years back that I went through this, so I'm not troubled by this anymore and can look at a rather clever film in an observing way, for there are some good points to behold: 1. That RPG made room for LARP, although the latter is far more restricted.

The reason for this is, and it's a bitter one, that humans will work together when you make them accept the rules first, even when the rules are somewhat dumb, but will be unable to come together, when you give them too much freedom choosing the rules themselves.

In the film this shows in the contrast between being able to design your own character and play characters written on cards. But it is the latter standardisation, which allows a common universe to grow.

This is truly meaningful, one of the most depressing things of human existence, people throw themselves into chains and progress and you as a free person never get involved in anything, at least not how you'd want to.

2. The absence of meaning in modern life and the addictiveness of the drug to create your own in your head alone, resp. in the heads of a collective.

And this is even more bitter. At least the RPG folks can eventually silently acknowledge the futility of it all. But the LARP guys are in stronger chains and drive themselves into insanity, as the Ninja Dragon episode most overtly shows, but it's also in other things, like when the bleeder gets punched in the nose in a situation that any sane person would understand as asking for a fight.

And again, it's quite general. You stand alone, you might resign like Schopenhauer would suggest, you're part of a group, you defend Berlin until the end.

3. Selling you your humanity.

Giving you a chance to build up meaning for a buck as is the theme of the whole Legacy episode.

In real life that would be states, telling their "citizens" their respective narratives. So you can be a good Communist, American or what have you.

Well... that's all bittersweet, bitter because of the designs you can't choose, sweet because of the life that you spent in them.

To be honest, I can't give these kind of films 10/10, no matter how good. Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt" for instance or Tarkovsky's "Offret" and this film is even better than those.

I mean, what would that be? An excellently depressing film? There's a hint of perversion in that notion.

Of course I had to sit down and watch the 2013 movie "The Gamers: Hands of Fate", after having just watched the 2002 movie "The Gamers" and the 2008 "The Gamers: Dorkness Rising". And I must admit that I actually harbored some expectations to this 2013 movie as the 2008 movie was glorious fun.

The storyline in "The Gamers: Hands of Fate", as written by Nathan Rice and Matt Vancil, focuses on gamers in the collectible card game universe, which I am not a part of and never seen the appeal in, so this 2013 movie was a swing and a miss in terms of entertaining me, especially since both the previous two movies dealt with roleplayers and not card players.

There were some returning actors and actresses from the previous two movies, which was nice, as it installed a sense of familiarity and continuity in the movie. And it should be noted that the acting performances were good.

The effects in "The Gamers: Hands of Fate" were fair.

However, "The Gamers: Hands of Fate" fell short of fully entertaining me, as I have little or no interest in the collectible card games and the card tournaments that they are used in.

My rating of directors Ben Dobyns and Matt Vancil's 2013 movie "The Gamers: Hands of Fate" lands on a four out of ten stars. It was, to me, the least entertaining and appealing of the movies in the series thus far. Of course I had to sit down and watch the 2013 movie "The Gamers: Hands of Fate", after having just watched the 2002 movie "The Gamers" and the 2008 "The Gamers: Dorkness Rising". And I must admit that I actually harbored some expectations to this 2013 movie as the 2008 movie was glorious fun.

The storyline in "The Gamers: Hands of Fate", as written by Nathan Rice and Matt Vancil, focuses on gamers in the collectible card game universe, which I am not a part of and never seen the appeal in, so this 2013 movie was a swing and a miss in terms of entertaining me, especially since both the previous two movies dealt with roleplayers and not card players.

There were some returning actors and actresses from the previous two movies, which was nice, as it installed a sense of familiarity and continuity in the movie. And it should be noted that the acting performances were good.

The effects in "The Gamers: Hands of Fate" were fair.

However, "The Gamers: Hands of Fate" fell short of fully entertaining me, as I have little or no interest in the collectible card games and the card tournaments that they are used in.

My rating of directors Ben Dobyns and Matt Vancil's 2013 movie "The Gamers: Hands of Fate" lands on a four out of ten stars. It was, to me, the least entertaining and appealing of the movies in the series thus far.

I loved Gamers 1 & 2 and was really curious how they would keep the story fresh. I loved all their D&D jokes on the last two but wasn't sure what they would do to keep the momentum going; the answer was to change and take a risk.

That can often be a tricky thing to do in a trilogy, but they pulled it off. At heart, this is actually a sports movie, just the game is a card game rather than a physical game. This, combined with a much higher budget, allowed them to do all sorts of fun bits that they couldn't have done if they just would have stayed with the same tried and true formula.

I'm glad they mixed things up while still keeping it a very entertaining ride. Can't wait to listen to the commentary tracks to see how they did so much with so little.