Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

That explains it. After watching the movie ‘Gamer’ I left the theater thinking ‘what the…?’ Seriously, what was that? This was a movie that was about as creative and as innovative of any piece of junk garbage that you will ever want to see. Then I saw who directed this mess / masterpiece. Neveldine and Taylor. ‘Crank’. Worse still… ‘Crank II’. Now it all makes sense why it doesn’t make sense.

Let’s see… where do we start? It is the near future and videogames have gone on to the next level. The hot game of the day is ‘Slayer’ which I think is kind of like ‘Call of Duty’ with the exception being that instead of controlling little fake dudes on your tele you’re controlling real live humans who are in turn killing real live humans. The best player in this game is a brutal merc named Kable (Gerard Butler), but considering he’s being controlled he’s not really the best player is he? The cat controlling him is actually the best player, right? This cat would be seventeen year old punk Simon (Logan Lerman). But then I don’t know for sure. I don’t even know what the ultimate goal of the game is.

The mastermind behind this game is silicon valley wiz kid Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall) who first killed the world with his game ‘Society’ which is a lot like ‘The Sims’ only using real people. How Castle has come up with the technology to allow gamers to control real people is complex but he has gone and done it. Easier to understand is how Castle convinced these other humans to be controlled in his game ‘Slayer’. Apparently all of the game pieces in ‘Slayer’ are death row inmates and while their demise in this game is almost guaranteed, if they manage to make it through the thirty levels of the game their freedom will be granted.

Wouldn’t you know that Simon and Kable are on level 26 or something, further than anyone ever, but unfortunately there seems to be a conspiracy against our gaming duo

to keep them from reaching their goal. Seems like Castle has a big picture plan going on behind the scenes with the only people aware of his plan being the hacking group calling themselves ‘Humanz’ and led by the Humanz Brother (Ludacris) who have dedicated themselves to stopping his sinister plan.

All Kable wants is to get out jail and be with his depressed wife (Amber Valetta) and baby girl, but the situation is much bigger than Kable’s simple desires as the fate of the free world rests on him escaping The Game and stopping The Plan.

You would be surprised at how much stimuli you can crush into a ninety minute movie. If you’re looking for mindless action then look no further because there is action for days in this here movie. If you’re looking for some nudity and a touch of sexual depravity to go along with your mindless action then look no further my friends because that is here aplenty as well. Do you have the misfortune of possessing a short attention span? No worries here because every thing in this movie cuts quickly, moves quicker, has various angles, scene jumps, bright lights, loud music and all other kinds of visceral stimuli to keep even the most ADD amongst us engaged. But let’s imagine that you also want to leave the theater, not only amped up to eleven, but left with some social food for thought to chew on. It’s here my friends. Dammit if we aren’t slaves to the media, allowing them to control our thoughts, our feelings, our movements… Becoming fat and lazy with no direction, waiting patiently for those in power to tell us how to think. It’s a freaking outrage! Do you like show tunes with dance numbers? Yep, it’s in there too.

Now armed with all of that knowledge about this movie does that mean that ‘Gamer’ is any good? Oh good heavens no. ‘Gamers’ is a loud, obnoxious, heavy handed, fast moving, colorful mess. With some show tunes thrown in. It’s not as insanely ridiculous as the Neveldine / Taylor crafted ‘Crank: High Voltage’ but it is insanely ridiculous nonetheless. Don’t let the trailer trick you, and I know you’ve seen it again, again and one more time again if you watch the sports networks. The trailer would have you think that you’re in store for a rather straight forward action flick when in reality you’re getting a film that is socially heavy, almost experimental in nature, made by some people with some amazing imaginations and possessing the attention span of flea.

‘Gamer’ is different and that is appreciated. It also has a nice cast of actors with Leguizamo, Kyra Sedwick, DeLancie and Keith David tossed in to the mix to keep the insanity humming, but I’m an old man now and can only take so much stimuli before my head starts hurting. Bring it down baby, because somewhere in this mess is a decent movie begging to be set free.