Gamer/Lionsgate/2009/R

There's something inherently fun, if not mind numbing with late summer bullet-porn action flicks.
Here, we have an almost throw back to films like Running Man, Robocop or mid 1990's cyberpunk movies. In Gamer, Gerard Butler is one of many convicts programmed with nanobots to act as virtual(yet flesh and blood) avatars of various global gamers. In order to win their freedom, they have to survive in an death match free for all called "Slayers" broadcast worldwide to the cheer of bloodthirsty fans. A play on the contemporary media age perhaps, but trying to capture the ironic near future violence and social commentart of a Paul Verhoeven film is easier said than done. The blanketed saturation of instant hedonistic gratification culture all over tv and society is of course ran by a giant corporation. In this case, it's ran by a rather sadistic Michael C Hall, a Bill Gates gone mad sort of personality. Here, he seems to be in it more for the sick jollies than profit. A sub-plot involves a Sims/Second Life game called "Society", whereby players from their home can control real life people to live out their every fantasy...random or sexual.

Some of the film even reminded me directly of the film "Hackers", not just with raves but with a group of young rebel code crackers lead by rapper Ludacris. They interrupt transmissions and hack the game in order to bring the system down. The core of the film is of course the Slayers death match scenes, which play out as an unholy marriage of reality tv and xbox 360 live. Certain scenes even capture the feel of say, Gears of War or Army Of Two...though, ain't no respawn points here. The Verhoeven-esque feel(think Starship Troopers or Robocop) of over the top media propaganda saturation and corporate ads everywhere is here, as is the frenetic pacing found in the usual summer era production. However, the R rating at the very least guarantees
the boobs and blood missing in what would otherwise be a mediocre dizzying pg-13 version, confussing fight editing and all. Ultimately, I enjoyed Gamer for what it was; FPS video gaming on the big screen with no apologies...just make sure to keep your mind at the door.