Reviews > Movie Reviews > Gamer…
Gamer Review
The way filmmakers tell it, the public's appetite for vicarious violence is only ever going to get worse.
Like most films of this ilk, Gamer affects a morally superior position while at the same time exploiting the old ultra-violence to the max.
Cast details
-
Gerard Butler
Born: 13 Nov 1969
Glasgow, ScotlandTop rated films View all How To Train Your Dragon - 3D Blu-ray (2010) 
How To Train Your Dragon - Blu-ray (2010)
Gerard Butler – looking leaner, and a whole lot meaner, than he does in The Ugly Truth – is Kable, a convicted killer first seen here emblazoned on the billboards all across the globe – even on the side of the Great Pyramid at Giza. He’s the biggest star on Slayers, a pay-per-view reality shoot-em-up in which living avatars – like Kable, convicted murderers who have volunteered for the show – kill or be killed. So far, so Death Race – except that these guys’ actions are controlled remotely by game players, who transmit signals directly to their avatar’s brain pan.
Written and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the guys who gave us Crank (twice), Gamer doesn’t waste much time explaining itself, but if you’ve seen Death Race, The Running Man, The Manchurian Candidate and maybe Max Payne you’ll begin to make sense of it after a little while.
Not that the movie doesn’t have inventive and ingenious touches, just that it seems to have been cobbled together from all sorts of bits and pieces.
Set a few years from now, it gives us an omnipotent creator in the shape of an eccentric billionaire games designer, Ken Castle (Dexter’s Michael C Hall) whose personal fortune makes Bill Gates look like a bum. Castle’s genius was in seeing that the inevitable evolution from Second Life would be employing real people to enact other people’s fantasy lives for them – Big Brother without free will.
Gamer: Gerard Butler and Ludacris
Castle’s first game – Society – is shot in super-saturated day-glo colours, looks like a pop video, and involves a lot of mild titillation.
His second, Slayers, is basically a snuff videogame, with a grey, handheld look and buckets of gore.
The movie could have used a more naturalistic atmosphere for the scenes outside the games if only to allow us some breathing space. But as in Crank the emphasis is on forward motion, and if you can’t keep up, look out!
Satire or not, the tone is unrelentingly crude and brutish, with less of the compensatory OTT humour. That said, there’s some clever business with Kable going into his last round of shoot-em-up blitzed on a bottle of vodka (he has his reasons), and the movie manages one sequence so far out of leftfield it’s almost worth the price of admission on its own… I’m not going to tell you what it is, only that it involves Cole Porter and a finger-snapping Michael C Hall.
Hall gives the best – or at least, the most entertaining – performance, while Kyra Sedgwick, Ludacris and Alison Lohman all struggle to flesh out thinly written supporting roles. For no reason in particular John Leguizamo also cameos briefly. I’m no fan of Mr Butler’s glum maso-machismo, but if you are, you’ll know what you’re in for.
Gamer Reviews
loading...
Most popular articles
Let's get social
For up-to-the-minute competitions, interviews, news and reviews - follow LOVEFiLM on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube
Sign up to our free newsletter
Get a weekly dose of love film
Our weekly newsletter is packed full of news, reviews and opinions, and handily delivered straight to your inbox.
News, Reviews & Interviews
-
With Golden Globes behind it, this comedy-drama starring George Clooney proves to be a rare treat in its simplicity. Read more
-
Unscripted and off the cuff, writer/director Drake Doremus' Like Crazy is a refreshingly honest take on long-distance love, and boy does it pull at the heart strings. Read more
-
A creepy Indie drama that delivers a star in the making; Elizabeth Olsen deserved an Oscar-nod for her spellbinding performance. Read more
-
After a long absence, The Muppet are back with plenty of singing, dancing, and nostalgia. Read more
Want to watch something right now?
Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | EULA | Affiliates | Jobs | Inside LOVEFiLM Blog | About Us | Contact Us
International sites UK DK DE SE NO
LOVEFiLM, the LOVEFiLM logo and all other LOVEFiLM product or service names are trade marks of LOVEFiLM International Ltd. or its affiliates.
© 2012 LOVEFiLM UK Ltd. or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved.
-
- Formats
- DVD
- Blu-ray
- HD DVD
- Cinema
- LOVEFiLM Instant
- Hotlists
- New releases
- Just added
- Coming soon
- Most popular
- Film or TV
- Film & Features
- Television
-
- DVD Charts
- UK weekly rental chart
- All time top 250
- BFI top 100
- AFI top 100
- Most wanted Blu-rays
- TV weekly rental chart
- The Collection Section
- Celebrity collections
- Unofficial collections
- User collections
-
- Hotlists
- New releases
- Coming soon
-
- Watch Online
- With package
- Pay Per View
- Hotlists
- New releases
- Just added
- Film or TV
- Film & Features
- Television
- LOVEFiLM on TV
- LOVEFiLM direct to your TV
- Connect your PC to your TV