Directors: Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor
Starring: Gerard Butler, Michael C. Hall & Logan Lerman
Neveldine and Taylor’s first big budget action film following the success of the low budget Crank and Crank 2 is certainly enjoyable and loud though lacking in originality.
With the low budget, yet successful action film Crank and it’s 2009 sequel Crank 2: High Voltage proving popular with audiences for their emphasis on OTT action in place of plot, Neveldine and Taylor have been granted a much larger budget with which to craft their latest action film Gamer. This time starring Gerard Butler rather than Jason Statham of the Crank films, Gamer certainly has entertainment value with the directors making use of their budget to accomplish more unbelievable feats however, this time the presence of a plot, while decent, proves less satisfactory given the clear similarities to other films like Death Race 2000, The Running Man and Existenz.
In the near future, role playing games have taken to new levels where players can play games featuring actual live humans whom the players control. The two games available to play are Society, a virtual society where players can live out their fantasies and the more controversial Slayers, where players control death row inmates and make them fight to the death in constructed battle zones. In Slayers, any inmate that survives 30 games will be granted their freedom and one Slayer, Kable (Butler) is only four games away from gaining his freedom thanks to the expertise of his player Simon (Lerman). However, Ken Castle (Hall), the creator of Slayers and Society does not wish to see Kable succeed and plans to arrange for Kable’s death in his final game while an underground group of hackers calling themselves Humanz, seek to free Kable and use him to expose Castle’s plans to take his people-controlling technology global.
While possessing some entertaining action sequences where the video-game style action and violence benefits the concept of a future where people are controlled as game characters, Gamer never quite impresses enough to be truly memorable with its plot very similar to films such as The Running Man or Death Race 2000 (itself recently remade as Death Race starring Jason Statham of Crank). Also, while enjoyable, its action sequences never quite reach the OTT heights of the lower budget Crank films, perhaps due to the additional studio interference that a larger budget brings to a film’s production. There are some interesting moments though that reflect, almost pessimistically, upon the future of role-playing games such as shoot ‘em ups and virtual societies like Second Life or The Sims and some inspired moments on the theme of control including dialogue quoting Pinocchio and a scene near the finale where Castle controls several minions to make them dance for him as he sings along to Sammy Davis Jr. Such moments though take a back seat to the action.
Gerard Butler makes a decent action anti-hero. Without opportunity though to demonstrate any real charm in what is more of a grim, serious hero role, he is decent but not as memorable or even likeable as some of the other roles. Michael C. Hall (of TV’s Six Feet Under and Dexter) is more memorable and appears to enjoy the opportunity to cut loose after playing characters on TV who repress their feelings. His Ken Castle, whilst fulfilling many of the usual villain stereotypes, is still very enjoyable thanks to Hall. Alison Lohman, John Leguizamo, Kyra Sedgwick and Terry Crews make the most of smaller, less developed roles whilst Logan Lerman is suitably spoilt as the rich kid gamer controlling Kable who is less altruistic and more of a thrill seeker.
Overall, Gamer has more plot than both Crank films combined though cobbled together from other films and is less manic and enjoyable than either Crank film. The action though is fairly enjoyable, there are some nice touches upon the gaming industry and its fan bases and features a highly enjoyable from Michael C. Hall as the villain so Gamer is enjoyable though not outstanding.
Rating: 3/5
