Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Gerard Butler's GAME tested last night and we got our first reaction, which ain't pretty. From the CRANK directors this seemed like a no-brainer... Gerard Butler being badass, an avatar of video game player in the future where you don't play computer-created characters, but real, living people. Dexter's Michael C. Hall as the baddie and a kind of crazy R-rated extremely violent TRON-ish movie. Maybe Sexy Whisk, who has written in before with early reviews, is the exception to the general feeling of the flick, but I get the feeling that he wanted this movie to entertain him and was let down. As usual, keep in mind this is a very early screening and that the filmmakers are still working on getting the film ready. Now here's Sexy Whisk with his thoughts on the flick:
Greetings Harry - it's Sexy Whisk again - Back with I believe the first ever review of the action pic "Game" - Ugh what a horrible title. I would pray to god they change it before it's eventual release - but in the meanwhile GAME is what we must call this film debacle from the creators of "CRANK" and "CRANK 2". I can only imagine how this movie was born - these creators were in the movie theater watching "Death Race" and thought aloud to themselves "whoa this would be so much cooler if it was video games, instead of car racing!" The plot is as ridiculous as it sounds: in a not so distant future - video game players control REAL people, rather than computer generated characters. Has something to do with nano-technology and brain chips but who cares, sounds like it could be goofy fun action concept right? WRONG - this movie was beyond boring and the action was completely unexciting. You know these female singers who try to hit all the high notes with their "oohs" and "ahhs" all at various octaves? They do it A LOT on American Idol and well it annoys the hell out of me - just sing the damn song and stop trying to impress me with all the Mariah Carey like scatting!! Ugh! Well movies have a similar annoying fad - the jump cut. It happens a lot in action flicks - and even more often in BAD action flicks. Flicks that are trying soo hard to overdo their action sequences they intercut from 800 angles that by the end of the scene you have absolutely no idea how the character got from point A to point B. And that's no good for an action movie like this. I'm sure most of you remember "Children of Men" - whether you loved it or hated it - you must agree how amazingly chaotic and action packed it was without ever having to cut the camera! Now that is talent. GAME however is the complete opposite - it's trying sooo hard to be exciting and fresh and appeal to "gamers" - its cuts from dark to computer screens to action to more computer screens to close-ups - its unexcusable. And trust me I looked - Michael J. Fox did not edit this movie - so what other excuse is there? We "gamers" don't need you to over-edit the movie to keep us interested Mr. Crank Directors - we want to understand what we're seeing - we want to root for the good guy - and we want to have FUN. Sadly that's the main thing this picture is missing. Death Race was a shitty movie, but it was FUN. It had its tongue placed firmly in its cheek, it gave some great car chases, and it had an exciting dynamic between Jason Statham and the prickly warden played by Joan Allen. Game had nothing. What's shocking is that the cast of this flick is awesome - Gerard Butler ("300")- whom I'm a big fan of - does his best Jason Statham impression and pulls it off fine - but he deserves such better material than this confusing chaotic schlock. He deserves to be a bad ass we're rooting for, not just kicking ass completely confused the entire picture. He doesn't even open his mouth until almost 20-30 minutes in. We have no idea or care about what he's doing in this bizarre prison . Then at one point, after clearly a long, long while of being slave to this "game" his teenage player talks to him. And it's played like "who are you?", "Back off player, just let me do my thing" - it makes absolutely no sense. The villian is played by the wonderful Michael C Hall of "Dexter" fame whom I also love. But he's completely wasted here. He basically shows up twice - once in the begining with one accent, and then again in the end somehow with a seemingly different accent - but the extreme lack of inter-play between our hero and villain leaves us no suspenseful build-up, nor an exciting final showdown, merely a super boring one. GAME takes itself way too seriously. In fact the movie is filled with these super bizarre dark scenes with sweaty obese gamers, controlling real life hot women who strip, touch themselves and pee in public. Yes they really showed a woman peeing - None of it is hot or sexy in the slightest - instead it just comes off as creepy, offensive and exploitative. Were these filmmakers trying to say something here? "Oooh People are dark and gross and fat when they're left to their own devices." Whatever. It's way too weird of a message to fit into the subplot of a film with such a silly concept. We want a bad ass hero cleverly blowing shit up - rather than "running to a save point" every battle. We want a villain who torments our hero and knocks him down even lower. We want that hero to crawl through shit to finally meet his maker, and the beat the bloody hell out of him. And we want him to say some funny shit along the way. Sadly this game misses the mark in all accounts. Let's hope they completely re-edit and re-shoot this beast before its release date.
