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You think you've got problems? How about if your missus was some fat greasey guys avatar in Second Life?
Movies about games usually run the same problems as movies based on games. Scriptwriters and producers who have zero to little familiarity with the source material and gaming culture in general turn out some atrocious bit of garbage littered with references and lines that sound like they read them off wikipedia. Early clips for the film Gamer looked like more of the same to my jaded eyes, about as relevant to gamers as My Best Friends Wedding is to being a bridesmaid.
But given my role as a pretend game journalist I felt it was my duty to watch it and report back to you, the masses. Movie reviews aren’t really our thing here at That Aussie Game Site, but if you are a gamer, as I assume you are if you’re reading this (otherwise, hi mum) then allow me to illustrate why you should watch and enjoy Gamer.
Fun fact: Scottish born Gerard Butler played the Phantom in the film version of Phantom of the Opera and my wife says he's much hotter than me, which frankly, is ridiculous
Surprise, surprise, the film is actually pretty good. It even does a surprisingly good job of capturing the frenetic madness and carnage of your average online shooter game. There’s even a throw away tea bagging joke early in the film that someone with no experience with online gaming won’t get which gave me a nice warm glowy feeling. The game elements feel enmeshed in the plot rather than a cheesy hook to sucker in the teen boy demographic.
Quick synopsis, so it’s the future, but not a far future, a soon future, not tomorrow, or next year, but ‘soonish’. Let me start again… It’s the soon future and nanotechnology (officially the magguffin of B movies this year), allows people to be injected with tiny computer receivers that replicate in their brains and turns them into controllable puppets. The most popular game/TV show is called Slayers, where death row inmates submit themselves to the control of cashed up kids and shoot each other to pieces. The star of the show is Kable (300 roaring guy Gerard Butler) whose only two games away from getting his ‘free pass’ and having his death sentence commuted. It becomes clear early on that this isn’t just down to the rich little bugger who controls him, but that Kable is a bit of a Rambo himself. Unfortunately Castle, the Bill Gates like evil guy who invented Slayers and the technology to control people (played by Dexter star Michael Hall), has no plans to let Kable go from Slayers due to a secret he has tucked away in his brain and brings in a psychopathic ringer (played hilariously over the top by Terry Crews) to make sure Kable gets offed.
In B grade action movies trucks fly over each other, in C grade action movies they turn into robots
It addition to creating a realistic interpretation of what a real life game of Team Deathmatch would be like, Gamer also does a pretty fair interpretation of what Second Life would be like if people could play it using real people instead of computer avatars. Naturally they highlight the creepy sexual elements of Second Life, reimagined as an experience called Society, as much as they play up the gore, violence and brutality in Slayers.
The movie does get decidedly silly in the third act and overall its painfully predictable throughout, but the action is wonderfully bloody after the sanitised action of films like GI Joe and Transformers. Heads explode, limbs get shot off and more bones get broken than an ice hockey game against a team of bears. Sure there’s a little too much stereotype in some of the representations, all the Society players are old perverts or morbidly obese weirdos living a life digital transvestism from home and the Slayer players are loud mouthed little rich bastards. But most of the time it feels uncomfortable accurate, even if its pretty heavy handed in the amateur sociology messages.
Terry Krew's plays the rampaging nut job role to a tee
Gamer works best as a B grade action flick but it achieves a pretty respectful representation of gamer culture along the way. It’s a stupid film all up, but importantly not moronic, as a long term loud mouthed tea bagging gamer I didn't feel patronised while watching it. It feels like its going out of its way sometimes to nod to the expected gamer audience but it never feels grating. In my opinion its one of the best game culture films made so far, certainly a big step up from The Wizard.
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