BEFORE: Gerard Butler carries over from "The Game of Their Lives", and I guess life is back to normal in New York City, or as normal as it gets, anyway. People were riding on the subway today almost as if nothing had ever happened, I know because I was one of them. Of course, I took yesterday off so I had some time to recover and mentally deal with it all, but you know, life has to go on, people still have to get to work the next day, and really, if you think about it, with everybody on high alert and on edge and being THAT much more aware of their surroundings, there really couldn't BE a safer time to travel around this city. There were probably more police on the subway today than ever before, so there's that - and the odds against there being two shootings in a row on consecutive days are astronomically high, so that's another sigh of relief.
Plus, THEY CAUGHT THE GUY today, a little over 24 hours after the incident. Clearly the NYPD had some things to prove, that this city is safe (by and large) and if you shoot up the subway, you WILL be caught, and quite quickly, too. I can only imagine the rush that was put on this manhunt, it was either find this guy right away or watch all the progress made in tourism dollars since the pandemic (sort of) ended go right down the tubes.
I'd hate to think that we, as a city, as a country, as humans, are so jaded now after watching so many people die in a pandemic, after watching terrorists crash two planes into two buildings and kill 3,000 people, that we just go right back to normal-ish after a tragedy. I kind of worry what that says about us in the long run, so let's just chalk it up to the fact that New Yorkers are tough, and we get right back up on the horse, but first we pause to help the fallen. Yeah, let's go with that because I need to be able to sleep at night, too.
THE PLOT: In a future mind-controlling game, death row convicts are forced to battle in a "Doom"-type environment. Convict Kable, controlled by Simon, a skilled teenage gamer, must survive thirty sessions in order to be set free.
AFTER: That's four for Gerard, and that's enough. I had hopes that things would get better after "Geostorm", but it didn't happen - the films kept getting worse, mostly, and this is like the bottom of the barrel. Most of the time, I couldn't even tell what was happening on the screen, or what was SUPPOSED to be happening, I guess. How can I tell if the director succeeded at what he was trying to do, if I couldn't even tell what that was in the first place, I ask you?
This is just action-movie first-shooter porn, really, with no purpose or story or plot - just a video-game like scenario enlarged to Hollywood-size with real-looking visual effects. But that's it, there's nothing really to think about or deduce or anything that would make you say, "Huh, yeah, I guess life is funny like that sometimes..." It's just shoot-em-up, blow-it-up, dirty action. Come on, man, read the room! This movie's timing is terrible, to be on the schedule one day after a mass shooting here in New York City! Sucks to be you, "Gamer", I'm just not in the mood for your antics.
Look, I don't know what inspired this movie, whether it was "Call of Duty" or "Second Life" or "The Sims", I can't remember which of these were popular back in 2009, maybe all of them. But the premise here is that the best gamers in the world are able to take control of the bodies of death-row inmates, and run them through video-game like scenarios, only with REAL weapons, real explosives, real danger. So one false move and they COULD die, like for reals. BUT if they manage to survive for 30 sessions, the inmates win their freedom - and all of America gets entertained, in the end.
BUT, the game is more rigged than "The Masked Singer" is. (Oops, sorry, you didn't really think that the audience votes on that show are COUNTED, did you? Bad news, that show is so easy to fox, since no audience members see how everybody votes. I don't believe the 2020 election was stolen, but I'm fairly sure this FOX TV show's voting is crooked.) The secret plan is to allow Kable to live for 29 days, get the maximum ratings possible for his last show, and then make sure he dies. Whoops, sorry, no freedom for you, Kable. It's really dastardly.
But Kable is somehow able to connect with the teen controlling him, Simon. Or maybe it's the other way around, maybe Simon figures out how to talk to Kable, I'm not sure. Either way, Kable asks to be in control on Day 30, so he can really cut loose, insure his survival and win his freedom. Umm, OK, but if the teen gamer is really the bad-ass he claims to be, what makes Kable thinks his odds will increase if he's in control of his own body? Like nearly everything about this film, the reasoning is very, very unclear.
Meanwhile, in addition to "Slayers", there's another game going on, using the same body-takeover technology, it's called "Society". Like an X-rated version of "The Sims", it allows people to earn money by allowing others to control their bodies, and people pay for that privilege, to dress the players up, make them interact and (most likely) have sex with each other. Somehow this is legal in the future, or the big billionaire behind the tech paid off enough lawmakers to make it legal, but that doesn't make it any less disgusting. You might say this is a logical extension to web-cam porn, or OnlyFans, but with people having no control over their own bodies, it sounds way too close to rape mixed with prostitution. So, umm, HOW is this legal, exactly? And why are all the controllers portrayed as male, ugly and fat, while the people being controlled are all the hot chicks? Yeah, don't answer that, I think I know already, but I still don't like it.
While Kable (aka John Tillman) works toward his release, his wife is a controlled player in the "Society" game, so she's forced to have sex with other players, to earn money to get their daughter back, or something - again, really unclear - or who knows, maybe she just likes it? Meanwhile there's an underground organization called the Humanz, and they're trying to disrupt both games, because they believe that this technology will one day be used to control everyone, not just the gamers. But the exact plans of the Humanz are, you guessed it, very unclear.
The world watches as Kable appears to die, only the feed cuts out, the death isn't broadcast. Why? It's unclear. Simon, the controller, is labeled a "cheater" and his accounts are frozen. Why? Again, it's unclear. The inventor of the brain nanites technology turns out to be the man who adopted Kable's daughter. Why? Unclear, unclear, unclear. But the Humanz were right, he does want to take over the world and make everybody his puppets. Why? Umm, unclear?
Finally, all the important characters end up in one place - Kable, his Sim-porn wife, their daughter, the inventor of the tech, and the gamer teen who's been controlling Kable. Will the inventor be able to make Kable kill his own family, or will the teen regain control of Kable's body and make him kill the inventor? Honestly, it's a toss-up, but how in the hell did it all come down to this? If this is gaming in the future, honestly, I want no part of it. We already have porn actors who are willing to do just about anything you can imagine on camera, there's no need to invent brain nanites just for the extra thrill of controlling other people and making them do dirty stuff they wouldn't ordinarily do. That's just nasty. And then to take that same concept and apply it to violence, instead of sex - that seems even worse, doesn't it?
Also starring Amber Valletta (last seen in "The Family Man"), Michael C. Hall (last seen in "The Report"), Kyra Sedgwick (last seen in "Man on a Ledge"), Logan Lerman (last seen in "Shirley"), Alison Lohman (last seen in "Matchstick Men"), Terry Crews (last seen in "Middle Men"), Ludacris (last seen in "RocknRolla"), Aaron Yoo (last seen in "Killing Gunther"), Michael Weston (last seen in "The Last Kiss"), Milo Ventimiglia (last seen in "She's All That"), Zoë Bell (last seen in "Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood"), John Leguizamo (last seen in "The Night Clerk"), Johnny Whitworth (last seen in "Factory Girl"), Keith Jardine (last seen in "Running With the Devil"), Joseph D. Reitman (last seen in "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot"), John De Lancie (last seen in "Reign Over Me"), Jonathan Chase, Keith David (last seen in "Eye for an Eye"), James Roday Rodriguez, Maggie Lawson (last seen in "Cleaner"), Sam Witwer (last heard in "Solo: A Star Wars Story"), Mimi Michaels, Ashley Rickards, Jade Ramsey, Nikita Ramsey, Ariana Scott, with cameos from Lloyd Kaufman (last seen in "The Suicide Squad"), Efren Ramirez (last seen in "Employee of the Month").
RATING: 2 out of 10 dirty user names
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