I might be squeezing in on Penny Arcade’s territory with this comic a little bit. But if we’re talking about movies, then I say it’s fair game!
I don’t do a lot of online gaming. If I do, it’s on titles where there is very little human interaction. I haven’t bothered to invest in a headset because I’ve seen too many YouTube videos of players screwing around during Halo death matches, humping the corpses of someone they tagged with a headshot from around a blind corner. I’m not interested in trash talking. I just want to play a round of Tetris with some anonymous person from Columbus, Ohio – is that too much to ask?
Gamer comes out this weekend and it looks like more explosive trash fun from Lionsgate. We talked about the movie a little bit during the end of The Triple Feature on Monday. Joe is excited for it because it’s directed by Mark Neveldine – the guy who brought us Crank and Crank: High Voltage.
I was unaware of this fact until Monday and it has increased my interest in the movie substantially. As you might remember, I saw Crank: High Voltage earlier in the year and it left quite an impression. By comparison, Gamer is almost cerebral. So it will be interesting to see what Neveldine can do with a script when the movie isn’t a complete over-exaggeration.
My only concern is that people made many comments to the effect that Crank: High Voltage was like a live-action video game (myself included) – all the way down to cheesy 8-bit graphics and a hero who “respawned” when he ran out of energy. Gamer doesn’t look to be stepping too far outside of the same paradigm in terms of the “movies as video games” conceit.
What has been your impression of the movie? Do you think it’s going to do anything original with the concept? Is anyone expecting any insightful social commentary about our society’s increasing bloodlust and disconnection from each other as individuals, or do you think this will be just another festival of explosions and violence from the studio that brought us Punisher: War Zone?
Are you planning on seeing Gamer this weekend? Leave your comments below!
Sort of. But I'm not sure how the concept works.
Humans can control other humans in full-scale combat...
..but what filters do they have in place to keep out all of the noobs and trolls that make online multi-player gaming a real drag?
Dude! Quit humping me!
IT'S NOT ME, MAN!
Sadly, Gamer is the third movie on my list to see this weekend, so I’ll be skipping it. Extract and ALl ABout Steve are my two choices this weekend, hands down!
I’ve always said the worst thing about online gaming is all the other people. It’s one of those ideas that sounds great on paper, fails miserably in practice. I’m not planning on seeing Gamer. Nothing about the trailer clicks for me, I’m not even entirely sure what the movie is supposed to be about.
Until I read TH today, I didn’t even know this movie existed. I have not seen preview one and I don’t just stick to lady channels on my cable either. I think this movie is suffering from all around poor promotion.
I’m a big Crank fan, so I’m fairly interested to see what those guys can do with Gamer. Even if it does just look like a modern-day Running Man. Still, I like Gerald Butler, and I want to see him in more stuff.
Of course, knowing me, I’ll probably just end up renting this one and going to In The Loop for the fourth time this weekend.
I probably won’t see this in theaters. I’m kind of interested because it has Gerald Butler and Michael C. Hall. I’d like to see how they play out the premise. Probably wait until when it’s out on DVD or something.
I kind of wish they had gone with a name other than “Gamer”.
While I haven’t seen High Voltage (yet), I loved Crank and fairly enjoyed Neveldine’s other film Pathology. I wasn’t very excited for Gamer, but now that I know it’s another project from the videogame-ruined minds of Neveldine and Taylor, my interest has been peaked. I’ll probably see it Tuesday.
My immediate response was “oh, it’s Death Race without the cars”. The latest incarnation of Death Race was so mediocre, I can’t imagine this will fare much better. Although now that I know the Crank director did it – I dunno, I might have to see it.