You don't live to play ... you play to live (Gamer [2009] (DVD))

Member Name: aylawarner

Product:	Gamer [2009] (DVD)
Date:	16/10/09 (84 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brilliant storyline, great cast, very realistic virtual worlds

Disadvantages: Too much of a quick and easy ending

In 2034, Ken Castle has changed the world by creating mind-control technology and turning them into simulation games. These games involve taking control of a real person and sending them into a society to do with them as you wish, playing them against other people. Society was his first game where characters could do anything they wanted and be anyone they wanted. But Castle's latest game, Slayers has taken the world by storm, allowing gamers to control death row prisoners in a real-life shoot out game. If the shooter reaches 30 games without being killed first, he wins his freedom back.

Kable, the most popular character in Slayers, has only 3 games left to go before he wins his freedom and is able to return to his wife and daughter. But in a world where humans are able to control each other, freedom is a far-off dream, and when Kable is told that he'll never be let out alive, he makes his escape in a bid to destroy Castle and all that he has made.

~ Cast ~
Kable - Gerard Butler
Angie - Amber Valletta
Ken Castle - Michael Hall
Simon - Logan Lerman
Hackman - Terry Crews
Gina Parker Smith - Kyra Sedgwick
Trace - Alison Lohman

The film starts off with the soldier characters from Slayers running around deserted streets, buildings and warehouses, exactly the same as I've seen them do on actual computer games such as Call of Duty. I thought this was done very well and it was made to look like we were actually watching the game being played with signals and firing targets popping up on the screen. Despite the characters all being on death row, it's still pretty horrifying to watch them in a real-life shoot out game where they are more than likely to die.

The virtual world of Society is very weird yet managed to look very much like a simulated world and reminded me of the game Sims - strange looking people walking around doing random things being controlled by someone at home. Although this world tended to be quite perverted as the humans controlling them all seemed to create their own pseudo character which meant that they could express themselves more and do things they wouldn't normally do in a place where they can't be judged. This meant that most of the Society characters dressed like hippies or in the skimpiest clothes you've ever seen (or no clothes whatsoever in some cases). Most of them smoked, beat people up for no reason and had sex with someone they'd just that second laid their eyes on. But, although these characters were only made up and created by someone else, they were actually real people, so this just made the whole thing even more perverted, especially when there's a huge fat bloke at home getting off on what his sexy female character is doing on screen. Ugh, makes me sick just thinking about it!

I've only ever seen Gerard Butler in soppy films such as P.S. I Love You and The Ugly Truth, and haven't seen him in his more action related roles such as 300, so I was a little wary of his role in this to be honest. However, he played it brilliantly and was very much a man with his rugged handsome looks, burly physique and intimidating nature. But he also had a gentle and sensitive side in that he desperately wanted to be with his wife and daughter again, and this made him the perfect character for viewers to love.

All of the cast in this were very good actually, I can't find fault in anyone. Any fans of Dexter will love Michael Hall in this who plays yet another slightly insane man who doesn't seem to mind killing people. Terry Crews (the father in Everybody Hates Chris) was brilliant as the very huge and very scary Hackman, brought in purely to dispose of Kable.

There were lots of funny moments throughout from the teenage Simon, who was trying to control Kable, to Ken Castle making all his cronies dance by controlling them.

The whole film was built up throughout and I was expecting a big ending with lots of big fighting scenes full of action and panic but I felt it was all a bit quick. The ending was good and went the way I'd hoped it would, but there just wasn't enough oomph in it and it seemed, I suppose, too easy.

I thought the story and the film was great, I just thought that more could have been done towards the end to finish the film of perfectly.

Running time: 95 minutes
Certificate rating: 18
Director: Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor

Summary: I enjoyed this a lot but it just seemed to finish too quickly