Gamer
2009 · Directed by Brian Taylor, Mark Neveldine
Original language: English
- action
- thriller
- science fiction
The story
Mind-control technology has taken society by a storm, a multiplayer on-line game called "Slayers" allows players to control human prisoners in mass-scale. Simon controls Kable, the online champion of the game. Kable's ultimate challenge becomes regaining his identity and independence by defeating the game's mastermind.
What it’s like
Frenetic, lurid, and deliberately ugly: handheld and rapid-cut camera work, jittery video-game POV inserts, and saturated neon and sweaty fluorescent interiors give the film a sun-bleached, overstimulated dread. Much of it plays like a feed of livestreams, with split screens, on-screen overlays, and grimy urban sprawl under smoggy orange skies. The score is a pounding electronic pulse with gunfire and screaming layered over it, so there is little room to breathe. Its vibe is chaotic and cynical, a loud midnight binge rather than a quiet evening, suited to a late-night watch with friends or a gleefully nasty action fix. Pacing is relentless, and the emotional register stays hard and ironic; the central arc follows a wrongly convicted man who loses control of his own body and fights to reclaim it. Intensity is high: frequent gun battles, bloody deaths, grisly close-ups, and sexual content and crude language throughout, with brutal violence that lands as spectacle rather than horror. It suits viewers who want loud, violent sci-fi satire and are not looking for anything gentle.
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