Movie Preview: Gamer

There is no question that video games are the wave of the future. The industry has steadily moved to become one of the leading forms of entertainment, and massively multiplayer online games have a firm grip in forging that path. But what will the future bring?

That is the question posed in the upcoming film Gamer. This is basically a revised mix of the Running Man and Death Race (or Death Race 2000 if you are younger and did not see the original).



From the trailer we are sure of a couple of things. First is the fact that there will be enough explosions for any action movie or video game fan. Based on the reaction to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen that should be enough to garner $100 million in the box office.

Of course there is a lose plot to the movie. The lead is Kable (Gerard Butler) who is most likely a wrongly convicted criminal (aren’t they always) who is brought into the game – called Slayer – to draw attention. It is highly likely that Kable has a wife and child, is a former military hero of some distinction, and is never supposed to see freedom again.

Somehow the convicts are implanted with devices that allows a gameplayer to takeover the body of the convict and control how they act, with some input from the convict direct to the player. This is all televised as well. Does this sound familiar?

Inevitably Kable is helped along in the game by Freek (John Leguizamo – been a while since he was in a major movie), and in trying to escape the corrupt system by Ludacris (don’t know his character’s name – though he seems to be trying to evade his rap image by going under his real name in the credits). Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall of Dexter fame) is of course the corrupt mastermind of the game and intent on ensuring that no one ever reaches the 30 wins that will free them of the game and prison. [I know we have heard this all before]

Keith David and Kyra Sedgwick both have small roles in the film as well. Don’t expect to see much of them though.

I think you can figure out the whole movie, because we have seen it before. It may well be too much to ask for a surprise ending, or a reasonable plot twist. But that does not mean the film cannot be worth the money.

The director of the film is Mark Neveldine. The name may not be familiar to everyone, but if you liked Crank and/or Crank: High Voltage then you have seen his work. Thus in this film you can expect lots of explosions, plenty of fast moving cut scenes, more than a few fist fights, and 5 minutes of slow moving plot to tie up the big questions. Neveldine is also the writer of this film as well as the Crank movies, so the plot will be basically flowing.

This looks like a decent big budget popcorn film. No Oscars of course, but still engaging enough for the likely 90 minutes it will run. The big question to this film is can it do the story we all know, with enough new scenes and explosions to draw the 18 – 35 video gamers they are targeting? Another question I wonder about is will the use of a rapper drag down the film, as they normally do, or has Chris Bridges (Ludacris) taken enough acting lessons to have his bit role justify the time he will be on screen?

Ultimately the answers will come in September when this film is slated to open.