Review of Gamer (2009) by Jason G — 21 Jan 2011
Certainly aimed at the demographic just below mine, GAMER isn't a horrible movie but it is visually disjointed and mind-numbingly spastic in terms of the energy put up on the screen. As a result, any substance the story might actually have tends to get a bit lost in the over exaggeration of style.
It's a modern day, film editor's "Frankenstein Monster" with a tonne of everything going on, all at the same time and never showing much of anything on the screen, for longer than 12 seconds.
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That frenetic editing style, (so prevalent to today's action film)... is present in GAMER and keeps you moving along quite nicely. I felt that GAMER wanted me at eye level with the truckload of action... guns blazing, buildings blowing up and people dying horrible, brutal deaths. It feels like you're watching a video game that somebody else is playing for an hour and a half but the story is pretty decent so it's fairly easy to get immersed (if you can see through all the fireworks).
Ordinarily, Gerard Butler is a fairly servicable actor. He isn't Laurence Olivier or anything (and he's had the chance to show more personality in much better roles in past films) but there isn't much for him to do in GAMER except blow people away. Amber Valletta plays his estranged wife and actually has the "deeper" role between the two of them. The world she finds herself in is a pretty dismal, pretty desperate sort of situation for anybody to be in. A situation made even more unbelievable due to it's pure, science-fiction roots but Valletta makes it work.
Michael C. Hall needs to pick a better vehicle to "break away" from his role as television's, "DEXTER"... and onto the big screen. Hall has a lot of fun with the villain role in GAMER but unfortunately, despite being quite entertaining with good performances from an interesting cast... the film ends up being so forgettable that his efforts are largely wasted.
An interesting film that fans of science-fiction / action won't regret watching at least once...
This review of Gamer (2009) was written by Jason G on 21 Jan 2011.
Gamer has generally received mixed reviews.
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