In the not too distant future, America has embraced its history of violent entertainment when a waelthy inventor/media mogul creates a way for gamers to actually control real people instead of computer generated characters. Once such game is "Slayer" where Gerard Butler's Kable plays to win his freedom from death row. Kable is the closest anyone comes, but they can't just let him leave. Kable gets in a literal fight to the death as he leaves the gaming world thanks to some concerned hackers and goes after the men who created the game.
I really really want to like Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, but their obsession with video games, which also had a big influence on the Crank movies, is getting tired really fast. The movie is already suffering from being a retread of Running Man and Death Race. It also relies heavily on shaky cam, bright flashy lights, and distracting video game-esque icons flying across the screen. Michael C Hall is the cheesy cherry on top as he hams it up as the film's Kentucky fried villain, surprising since Hall does so well on his TV series, "Dexter."
The movie is full of faults but it is not without a few upsides. Like Starship Troopers, despite its cliched action movie elements it has some pretty interesting underlying satire involving violence and role-playing games in the media. Gerard Butler continues to show immense talent and charisma on screen even when all he really has to do is kick people's ass. And despite Michael C Hall, the rest of the cast is pretty decent and backs up Butler pretty well. The action scenes were pretty kick-ass when you could actually see stuff to, especially the earlier gameplay moments.
Butler is awesome, but the rest of the movie is touch-and-go.
5/10
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