Gamer Review

Gamer, a movie staring Gerard Butler of 300 and The Ugly Truth fame, is about a man trapped in a game controlled by another human.

This movie isn't for everyone. As the title implies, people who like games- or more specifically video games- will find some enjoyment out of this movie.

The movie takes place in the not so distant future. The world is in utter chaos, with the prison system on the verge of collapse. Michael C. Hall, known best for Dexter, plays billionaire software mogul Ken Castle. He has created this virtual reality where people can vicariously control every movement of another human being.

Castle has created two worlds, the first called Social, which is what it sounds like, a place for people to get together and mingle with each other. They can be anyone they want to be and live out any fantasy they wish. When I first saw this, it made me think of an application for Sony's Playstation 3. The application, called Home, allows you to create an avatar and be who or whatever you want. But in Gamer, it is taken to the extreme. All Social really is is a place to have sex and show gratuitous amounts of nudity. I understand the message that they were getting across, but it served no purpose whatsoever.

The second world, Slayer, is where most of the movie takes place. The players that are in Slayer are death row inmates who have an opportunity to be set free if they win and stay alive. They must win 30 sessions to be free. No one has beaten it before. Instead, most of the people die in over-the-top ways, with a good number of head shots, might I add. Gerard Butler's character, Kable, has won twenty-seven matches, with only three more to go. The matches consist of Kable shooting people in various way, a-la the video game Call of Duty 4.

While this movie is supposed to appeal to gamers, it does to some degree, while also failing miserably. The movie carries along with it the stigma that is attached to people who play video games, that it is only kids or fat adults that don't have anything better to do with their lives. There also is a dance number in the movie. I have no idea why it was in there, but I guess it was supposed to add some comic relief. It just didn't fit the style of the movie.

If you are someone who likes to play video games, then this movie might appeal to you more than just the average moviegoer. It had some good action scenes, as well as everything else in between. Overall it just another movie with a lot of killing.

7.5 out of 10

Halloween 2 Review

This weekend marks the return of 2 horror franchises, Final Destination and Halloween. Unfortunately, they have both failed to make a comeback.

In Halloween 2, Rob Zombie's remake failed to capture what is great about the series. Zombie, who wrote and directed this film, tried to explore both the mind of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode, the sole survivor of Zombie's first Halloween.

The movie starts off right where the first one ended. Laurie is rushed to the hospital in the wake of Michael's reign of terror. Myer's body, presumed dead, is transported in a van to the coroner's office. The van just happens to crash into a cow in the middle of the road, reawakening Myers.

A year later, Laurie is trying to cope with the horror that had befallen her. She is now living with her friend, whose father is the sheriff. She starts having bad dreams that, unfortunately, the viewer has to experience with her.

The movie tries to show the mind of Myers and Laurie. While it might be an interesting idea, the execution is awful. The viewer is transported into these "trippy" scenes that look into Michael's and Laurie's pasts. This unfortunately pulls the viewer out of the movie.

One thing that I did find interesting was the fact that it showed the contrast between Laurie's life and Dr. Samuel Loomis. Loomis, Michael's former psychologist, has struck it rich with his books about the killer, while the books have negatively impacted the people that have been effected by Myers. It shows how Dr. Loomis has gotten rich off of his story and how the fame and fortune has gone to his head. Laurie, on the other hand, starts sinking more and more into depravity, until she finally loses it.

This movie isn't as good as Zombie's first, but it still has it moments. It felt a lot more visceral than his previous movie, leading to more suspense and more horrific kills.

The ending was something that I didn't expect. I am not going to spoil it, but with the way it was set up, it could lead to a new Halloween that we have never seen the likes of before.

The idea of looking into the minds of Myers and Laurie was a great idea, but it just did not turn out how I would have liked it. This movie will probably not be at the box office long, so if you want to see how the story of Zombie's Michael Myers continues, you better get there fast.

6.5 out of 10

The Final Destination 3D Review

The Final Destination is the fourth and final movie in the long running horror franchise. Like in all the previous Final Destination movies, where the main character foresees the untimely deaths of other characters through gruesome accidents, this one involves a teen that has a premonition of a deadly car race.

The teen, named Nick, realizes that death is coming for him, so he leaves the racetrack along with some of his friends and a few other people who heed his warning. Soon, some of the people are dying and it is up to Nick to keep everyone alive.

This movie is just a rehash of the other three movies, only with a different cast. It still has the same gruesome dismemberment scenes that we have all come to know from this series.

Some events leading up to the death seen even more convoluted than in past iterations. One event happens, and then another, and the events eventually culminate into the horrible death of a person. They draw it out too much instead of making the cause of death somewhat plausible.

The Final Destination can be either seen in 2D or 3D. I saw it in 3D. The added dimension did not really have that much of an impact on the movie. It felt like it was just an afterthought. An object would come flying at the audience, letting the viewer know that in the coming minutes someone was about to get killed by that very object. The movie did this countless times. I felt that it really detracted from the overall experience of the movie.

The acting in this movie was awful. Most of the acting felt forced, which is not something I want to see. Even though this series has never had a good track record for acting, you think that by the fourth movie they would have gotten a little better.

Lastly, the story was laughable. There were scenes where they tried to add comedy, but it failed miserably. The previous movies, especially Final Destination 2, tried to have a story. While it did not work on all levels, it did, however, give us a connection with the characters. It made us care for them and care whether they lived or died. The Final Destination, however, did not do this. If a person died, it was just another person. The viewer did not have that same sense of compassion as in some of the previous movies. The whole movie just felt like many people died for no reason.

This movie is a standard horror flick. It's nothing that hasn't been done before. If the viewer likes to see various gruesome deaths, this is the right movie. If you are squeamish around blood, then this isn't your movie.

7 out of 10