Rating
2.0

This is a review of Gamer, the new film from Crank writer/directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor.

In 1987, Arnold Schwarzenegger and director Paul Michael Glaser made a little movie called The Running Man. The film told the story of a totalitarian future where criminals would have the opportunity to earn their freedom if they survived a reality TV show entitled “The Running Man.” Schwarzenegger played a falsely-accused cop who became the show’s next contestant. The now-govenor had to do battle with all sorts of brutes and the TV show’s host (who betrayed him at some point and was the reason he was in prison in the first place) in order to fight his way to freedom.

Gamer is the exact same story, with the replacement of “reality TV show” with “video game,” “The Running Man” with “Stalkers,” and “Arnold Schwarzenegger” with “Gerard Butler.”

Moving on.

In The Running Man, Schwarzenegger joins up with some people who act as a resistance to the show’s host, Damon Killian (Richard Dawson). Their mission is to change the mind of the public and reveal the truth about Killian’s evil plans and Schwarzenegger’s character’s innocence. 

Gamer (shockingly) is about the same thing, but features Ludacris as the leader of the resistence, and Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall) in the place of Killian. And while the comparisons certaintly don’t end there, I think my point is made.

Now, I’m not saying that homage is a bad thing. Who doesn’t like a good throwback now and again? But I think there’s a pretty big difference between making a respectful reference, and blatant thievery. Go back and watch The Running Man and realize that these writer/directors should have a lawsuit coming to them, because unless they paid some royalties to Glaser and Co., they made the same damn movie. 

There are some original ideas in Gamer, such as their real-life turn on The Sims, and the rather fancy cinematography (a talent the filmmakers’ showed in their highly original Crank and its sequel, Crank: High Voltage). However, Neveldine and Taylor show the unfortunate tendency of modern day filmmakers of putting the camera before the story. Simply telling the tale of a world where gamers control other real people in a realistic environment, or focusing on the video game players themselves rather than the brutes they control, is original enough to create a solid narrative.

Instead, we get a movie we’ve already seen before, and will probably see again. And all the nifty camera angles, all the small ideas, all the sex and blood they can throw at the camera, none of it can hide the fact that Gamer is simply a bad rip off of an older, better movie.