User Reviews

In "The Running Man", an innocent man was framed in order that he is arrested and has to enter a deadly game show. Upon winning this game show he would win his freedom, but the powers that be attempt to ensure that this does not happen.

In "Death Race", an innocent man was framed in order that he is arrested and has to enter a deadly car race. Upon winning this car race he would win his freedom, but the powers that be attempt to ensure that this does not happen.

In "Gamer", an innocent man yadda yadda yadda, you get the idea.the idea itself has been done to death and I knew this before entering the cinema. I hoped to see at least a form of entertainment for an hour and a half, but sadly was met with a confusing mess.

I liked the idea of introducing a new spin on the "Man has to win his freedom by..." genre, but it just seemed such a mess. they had all these ideas and just threw them in with no thought process at all. it was just disjointed all the way through.

It just wasn't done as well as the other two i mentioned - which aren't the most amazing films in their own right anyway, but fairly enjoyable.

i suppose the action set pieces were fairly well done, and i like gerard butler's claim to be Hollywood's new hard guy. he can act better than jason statham. just. his accent is just as dodgy though.

a disappointment.

You want action you got action and then some. We are going to break this film down into several parts Drive, story, delivery, and message. Bare with me I am still trying to determine a proper format for film commentary.

Look at this film gamer its a great movie as far as game related films go. It had that drive that was derived from the action that pushed the story without faltering or coming off as filler. Although action was the drive it was not always front and foremost when the time came the action drifted to the bottom and became the undercurrent on which other aspects of the film would ride on.

And ride on that undercurrent is exactly what the story of this film did. It left a few open ended questions like where exactly everything took place, when, how did one gain access to control a player and a myriad of other questions that could have been answered with a next to no story telling. The story was a familiar format action history conflict twist climax and resolution. But without telling too much about the film I can say the story leaves a bit to be desired. But the execution was magnificent the directors made sure to dig into the literal gaming world and pull out various aspects of it that the gaming demographic would recognize. First few scenes there are some classic fps tea bagging and crouch jumping. And during the Sim like scenes it brought up many things that players actually do when playing seems and you definitely feel that if your Sims really had a mind in the real game there would be a few issues with playing the game. For the demographic the movie lacked some comedic packaging and that fact really effects my view of the message of the film.

What I think of the message is neither here nor there. But I do think highly of this movie even if it will keep me from enjoying Sims for some time to come. I believe the film is a satire maybe not in it's entirety but in some parts on humanity. The film pokes and prods at us and how morbid we can become when we are able to detach from the experience of murder, bloodshed, and carnage. How as we pursue a better gaming experience and story lines of ethics can become blurred very much an allusion to roman gladiators and Colosseum if you ask me.

The first run around, I turned Gamer off after thirty minutes. The directing and editing was so bad - with no single shot seeming to last for more than half a second - that I could barely follow the story and found the action unintelligible and boring. It is shot like a 2-hour long music video. No establishing shots, nothing subtle, rapid-fire editing, overuse of shaky-cam and not one single shot that isn't angled weird or pointing up someone's nose.

Only three movies I can recall had directing and editing this distracting, annoying, and self-congratulating. Those were Catwoman (04), Vidocq (01), and Transporter 3 (08). If you could handle those movies then you might enjoy Gamer.

So yes, I turned it off, but then I decided to review it anyway to perhaps save a few folks like me (people who can't stand this new era of ADHD movie directing) some time. So the next day, I sat down and suffered through the last two thirds. And yes "suffer" is the right word.

It's a pity as I see it. Michael C Hall was a fabulous bad guy. Gerard Butler is a tried and tested action hero. The concept and script weren't altogether losses. But boy do these directors (yes, it took TWO of them to make something this awful) need to get over themselves and learn how to visually tell a story without getting in the way of it. It worked for Crank because the style matched the frantic subject matter and almost became part of the theme of that movie. It DOES NOT work with Gamer.

You know, I used to think Uwe Boll or McG, or perhaps Michael Bay were the worst directors in Hollywood today. Now I'm revising my opinion... Neveldine/Taylor take that dubious honor.

You will see many many user comments here along the line of "hey look, if you're looking for a film with story and reflection of the modern society, you won't find it here, you have to take the film for what it is, if you disliked it because you thought it was anymore than an action film, it's your fault." etc, but that's exactly the problem, I went into this film expecting nothing more than Gerard Butler kicking ass, a film that's basically a video game where you won't have to be controlling, I didn't expect good story or good acting, I was in purely for a bit of special effects and a short amount of time to turn my brain off. Instead I ended up watching what seemed to be a desperate attempt to hook in with the teenager, with cringe worthy moments topped up with languages such as "epic" and "owned", and a story that's pulled out of someone's ass. the plot is so full of holes to a point where I almost wanted to walk out half way through.. (ie vodka and urine simply cannot start a car, if you can remotely control another person's mind, then reading data from someone's head isn't exactly a far fetch, therefore we really don't need lines such as "I thought this technology won't be around for at least a decade"... I could go on, but go and buy this if you think you will enjoy the following:

• 5.56x45mm blowing limbs and heads to pieces

• inappropriate nudity at inappropriate times

• gaming references such as "owned" "epic" "ping"

• dexter (michael c hall) dancing

• peter petrelli (milo ventimiglia) being a pervert

• happy ending where main character drive off to the distance where they'll certainly live happily after

Here is an idea, turn on COD4, go to option and run it as windows mode, and next to the game window, you open VLC playing censored porn, chances are you'll get more out of that than this poor excuse of a movie.

I must say I play videogames, I go to work, I have friends with who I hang out outside of my house, I'm not perfect and was offended by this movie.

I have no idea what the creators thought to achieve with this, but a film with so many stereotypes and big explosions is testing the audience tolerance limits. I guess Hollywood only plays Team Fortress and Halo skirmishes, never hearing of a single player mode where you try to avoid problems just to finish it. Though the film tries to portray how bad the entertainment businesses are, it fails by being too ridiculous. Oh, and did I mention it takes the word "slavery" to the next level, with the entire world loving this travesty? Get ready for a roller-coaster of redundant plot holes.

To cut the story short, the military invents unstable mind control, but shuts it down. Chief scientist resurrects it on his own to sell and makes a business empire as a front to take over the world. Prime unit escapes, exposes the plan to takeover the world and kills the scientist for revenge. Wow, how original. And the ending doesn't explain anything; it's a classic "driving away with the family" that tells noting about the damage done or what will follow. Ugh.

Let's hypothetically say you acquire a way to control people actions like video game characters. What would you do with this tech? Waste it on videogames or make people just give you money for no reason? Why not go and take over the world one man at a time? Why would you complicate things by selling it to retarded people? Any army in the world would pay you more for this tech as well as give you subjects to install it in. And while we are on the subject of soldiers, how many times do you normally die in a first person shooter game if you are a pro player? And how many times did you die to become a pro? Every beginner will go through lives like a minigun through bullets.

You even get to see the game run at third person perspective… When you play as a real person? What the f***?.

The soundtrack is terrible even for a terrible movie. The parody of SecondLife or something with the song "The Bad Touch" will be just one of the good reasons to walk out of the theater.

The acting. Oh was it horrible and modern stereotypical. An evil "genius" who looks like he couldn't invent Tetris, a bad ass hero who has the hart of gold, a shrimpy sissy hacker kid and so on. And their lines, ugh... Oh, the movie is full of this cr**. Acting school or not, anyone can do this terrible.

Terrible games may sell, but they don't last. That's why we have lots of people on YouTube reviewing them and getting lots of subscribers in the process. If you played more than one game in your life, you know adapting to new rules, challenges, puzzles and physics is key. Here it's just one chaotic massive skirmish, explosions and a cra**y plot. If you get attached to any of the characters, you probably need your head examined.

Maybe as a book the story would be good, but it would not be a bestseller made into a movie. If you feel empty, I recommend a better 1987 film "Running man" with the same plot ideas and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I did read comments about it before seeing it, and heard that it was bad. I went to the movies to see it a few nights ago with a friend. I have to say I agree with the bad comments.

The story went OK at first but then just got completely random and made no sense. Afterwords I had t ask my friend 'is this in the real world or is it the game?'. We need more explaining about everything.

There was no connection with the characters and we didn't know anything about them.

The filming and the editing was terrible thought out the action scenes, I thought I was getting a headache. I thought I was watching Quantam of Solace (which was also rubbish).

I have found out the most stupid scene of all the film I watched in my lifetime. The main character downed a bottle of vodka before fighting. He goes to a car during the action, I throws up in the fuel tank and urinates in it and the car somehow works!, how stupid is that? Even the after the ending was done, I asked myself 'what was that all about?' I don't mind Gerard Butler but I thought his acting was dull in this. I cant say much about the others because again we don't know anything of the characters.

I preferred the trailers before the film started.

I wouldn't recommend this it all, I would rather rent it on DVD when it's out.