Random Movie Review
Jan
21
2010

My husband and I watched Gamer last night. Now, first of all, my husband is awesome because he got the movie due to my, um, pleasure at watching Gerard Butler do all things Gerard Butlerish. Accent? Check. Bulging biceps? Check. All actiony and stuff? Check. Gorgeous green eyes? Check.

The acting for the most part was good to very good as well.

Cohesive story? Um. Not so check.

It was like the director had four different movies in mind and tried to make them all at once, even when they did not fit together.

I mean, okay the gamer part wasn’t incredibly original, but that’s not such a big deal to me. Most things in entertainment are based on tropes people like. This one has a megalomaniac taking prisoners and messing with their brains to receive data and forcing death row inmates to play real life first person shooter games with players controlling them. Death is real, etc. Of course Butler is in for murder but you obvs know he was framed or didn’t do it or something. Again, it’s not a big mystery, but it wasn’t executed particularly well either.

But they had all this other stuff in there too – Ludacris (who is a really good actor and I wish I saw him in more movies) led some hacker crew who’d break into the shows to tell the truth or what have you, about this megalomaniac who is up to nefarious things, natch.

Now, again, I liked that aspect, but it wasn’t fleshed out at all. Who were they? How did they get access to all this tech and info? What was their motivation? Etc. None of it was explained.

So even parts one and two are connected somewhat loosely and if that’s all we saw, I’d give this movie a C+.

But then of course what would a movie be without jerky camera movements, rave scenes, scantily clad women making out at random, lots of breasts flashing for no real reason – all in a second life sort of world, only with people who get paid to let others control them. I could have done without this aspect altogether. First of all, I really hated the rape/prostitution angle. It didn’t work, I didn’t care, and it was just gross. GROSS. There were other things like showing the disgusting people who controlled Butler’s wife who had to work in the game. It was all so ridiculous and over the top and yet it lacked the tongue in cheek quality that made Shoot Em Up successful at poking fun at its own excess.

I didn’t turn it off twenty minutes in like I have other movies. I liked looking at Gerard all dirty and on the run, hello, who wouldn’t. But I understand why it wasn’t a huge hit. It would be a great drinking game though! Like the random sapphic make out would be one shot, if breasts are bared, two shots. Someone licking their lips t be gross OR sexy would be time to chug some beer. You’d be wasted by the end.

OH! One scene I did totally love was when Michael C Hall (villain) did this musical number singing to Sammy Davis’ version of I’ve Got You Under My Skin with these puppet/controlled henchmen. If the rest of his scenes could have been that stylized and over the top in that way, I would have loved it.

Overall, it was a C-/D+ and when it was over, I was really skeeved.

4 comments to “Random Movie Review”

  1. Sabine
    January 22nd, 2010 at 5:23 am · Link

    Ya, Gerald Butler is sexy. First movie I saw with him was “Attila the hun” and oh he was so yummy.
    And then last week my very best friend showed me a photo of Gerald where he has a beer belly and was wearing pink flower shorts… Oh my that wasn’t a really sexy looking Gerald Butler :((((
    But anyway he is hot, so let’s forget the one photo where he wasn’t….
    LOL



  2. Christine
    January 22nd, 2010 at 10:56 am · Link

    I saw that photo also but he looked great at the golden globes. Hey we all look great all of the time. The first movie I ever saw him in was the Lara Croft movie too bad she had to kill him in the end.



  3. Jackie Burris
    January 22nd, 2010 at 12:39 pm · Link

    First movie saw Gerard Butler in that I can remember was Dracula 2000, maybe not the best vampire movie made but he was hot anyway! Loved him also in the 2nd Lara Croft movie, he aced the bad guy and then died!!!

    Gamer saw on PPV, figured was not good enough to see at the movies and watched alone so DH would not sneer at my pick. (I enjoyed it in places and not so much in others)

    jackie b central texas



  4. Lori T
    January 24th, 2010 at 12:59 pm · Link

    I thought that it was okay. Yes, Gerard Butler was the draw for me too.

    I loved the musical number too.