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.

Movie Preview: Crank 2

Sometimes you just can’t keep a bad man down. And when that man is Chev Chelios, you really don’t want to try. At least that is the idea behind Crank 2.

There is no question that the film is running on the same concept as the original film, and the major star power of Jason Statham. The big question is if it can pull off the running idea. Especially since our favorite man vs. time since 24 died at the end of the first movie.

Well, to be fair he should have been dead. He fell from an incredibly high helicopter, into a car, and bounced badly onto the street. It looked painful, but then again so did most of the things that he did to keep himself going. But as the credits began to roll, we heard a sound that even a Timex watch would be hard pressed to make. His heart just kept on ticking.

Still we knew he had to be dead. Not that we wanted that. And the movie studio agreed, especially after they saw the ticket receipts.

This time around our man Chev is brought back to life after getting a new heart to replace his twice drugged and damaged one. It seems that someone felt that a heart this strong had to be bought, along with any other organs not crushed in the impact of his fall. Throw away the logic of how damaged everything in his body would naturally have been and Chev wakes up.

He quickly discovers that though he has a new heart, it too has a big problem. They didn’t use Duracells. And he has yet again, an hour to live unless he zaps himself with enough electricity to charge up the faulty batteries keeping him alive. He only reprieve… get his heart back - which must have been cleaned of the drugs that were killing him (maybe) – and his trusty, and obviously always on call, back alley doctor will patch him up.

Sounds easy, except he has no idea where his heart is, or who has it.

Thus starts a new round of mayhem and destruction. And more than just a few amazed people – ordinary citizen or criminal bad guy alike. Because at this point in the loose plotline, EVERYONE knows his face. They just thought he was dead. Talk about a dramatic entrance.

This isn’t even a real preview. This is essentially the entire plot. And it doesn’t matter if you know 90% of everthing that is going to happen in this movie just from the trailer. Because you can be sure it’s going to do one thing extremely well, deliver huge amounts of action with slight pause of any piddly thing like plot or dialogue.

Normally that would annoy me. I wouldn’t see the film. But with Jason Statham as the vehicle of chaos I’m excited. This should be a better film than the first. Not because there will be better writing, but because their will be more action.

The only thing that would have made me happier than watching Jason Statham getting hyperkinetic would have been that this movie came out on my birthday. But its close enough.