You have to hand it to any movie that can make a man who kills hundreds of people a week the most sympathetic character in the story.

That’s more or less the goal of Gamer, a movie where a killing machine with a heart of gold, branded as Kable (Gerard Butler) by the evil corporate video game he is trapped in, must kill his way to freedom.

The game, called “Slayers,” takes convicted felons and throws them into a penned off combat zone where they are controlled by over-privileged, over-wired 17-year-olds. If they are successfully piloted for 30 games, they win their freedom, something that’s never happened, though Kable has come close.

In between lessons on how to keep fight sequences from getting dull, because they’re most of the movie, there’s lacerating satire. In fact, the opening sequence has people actually bunny hopping and tea-bagging their opponents like those jackasses you see all the time in online games.

Topping that winning combination are supporting characters of pure uncut greatness, including Michael C. Hall chewing on scenery with a Southern drawl and using phrases like “a cock-solid 68%,” as Ken Castle. He even has a song and dance number to Sinatra’s Under My Skin that blends into a fight sequence.

Kyra Sedgwick plays Gina Parker Smith, a journalist loyal only to herself. While  Ludacris rounds out the cast as Humanz Brother, the leader of the rebel faction bent on bringing down the system that allows Slayers, and it’s Second Life-like counterpart-”Society”, where people go for this world’s version of cybersex-to exist.

Like The Running Man before him, Kable isn’t getting off as easy “30 games and your out,” as Castle is needs Kable dead-or at lest under his control-so he can essentially control the world with Nanex, the micro-machines that allow all this gaming goodness to happen. Nano-bots being to modern sci-fi what “nuclear” was to sci-fi in the 50’s.

While the plot needlessly diverges in places, there are some truly great moments. One in particular stands out: After a punishing match filled with bullets and bodies, they jump-cut to thousands of people around the world cheering. It’s a grotesque sight that left me feeling queasy, as good satire should.

One of the best parts of this movie is spotting all the cameos. John de Lancie, Allison Lohman, Terry Crews all make appearances. But the cherry on top: Milo Ventimiglia as Rick Rape, a latex fetishist that gets Bane-broken over Kable’s knee.

While most of the “social commentary” the film has to offer has been done before, and done better (Rollerball, Death Race 2000), if you check your brain at the door, this is a sweet blow-some-shit-up action fest.  You could easily pair it with the another Gerard Butler absurd-violence-vehicle like 300 or  Law Abiding Citizen. If you wanted to go a more cerebral route, you could go with another surprisingly subversive film, Josie and the Pussy Cats. (Really?-The Management)

The Setup

In digging through the dregs of the illustrious history of motion pictures, we can sometimes end up with some rather esoteric thematic selections for our Cavalcade events (Blaxploitation Horror, anyone?). We embrace this, for this is part of our love. We embrace this facet of our nerdom, this fetishistic desire to find the worst that cinema has to offer and share it with others. So as the hands of fate wended us from theme to theme, until leading us inexorably towards video game adaptations, we looked to the skies and gave thanks: because it was good.

Enough florid prose, let’s get down to brass tacks, shall we?

There’s no way to avoid a simple truth: All video game adaptations suck. The rare exceptions are the Tomb Raider films. The first Mortal Kombat movie also qualifies, just because its dumb fun. But even its sequel was a total mess.

The Formula

There really only seems to be one formula for video game adaptations.

1. Take an existing successful game franchise.
2. Warp it beyond all recognition
3. Throw in a few nominal references to the source material
4. Chuck it in a meat grinder
5. Shove it out the door.

Now, the first step makes complete sense from a business point of view, which is why we see so many adaptations of other materials. If you have an established property, you have an established audience for that property. Hell, even step 2 makes a kind of sense. The video game properties frequently adapted tend to exist very much in their own reality, one where it makes sense to have structured street fights as part of a martial arts tournament held by an evil multinational conglomerate, terrorist organization, invading dimension, or demonic overlord.

Other games feature brightly-garbed latex fetishists diving through the air while shooting rabid cybernetic zombie alligators in the face. The point being that in some games, the central tenet required for fun is the gameplay, and not necessarily the story. In others, such as Role Playing games, they have so much story to tell that there’s no way it’s going to fit into a movie.

Again, these are all problems that occur in other adaptations, but they are exacerbated tenfold by a singular belief that Hollywood has about fans of video games, and that is that we’re all 16-year-old slack-jawed idiots with limited intelligence, and most of our social skills running down our torn jeans and piddling on the floor. This is the same belief that held comic book adaptations back for as long as they did, and hell; they’ve been around for over 80 years.

The Menu

The Booze: The Yoshi and The Big Mario/Luigi

Blessings of the nerd gods on the people of Denmark! Specifically the students of the IT University of Copenhagen, who held a ridiculously cool bash dedicated to Super Mario Brothers at a local bar, and posted the entire menu of drink concoctions online! The drinks we’re borrowing:

Yoshi

Fruity, tongue-pleasing cocktail

• 2 cl Sour Apple liqueur
• 1 cl Melon Bols
• 1 cl Lime juice
• 4 cl Apple juice

Directions: Shake. Serve with ice.

Garnish: Two lime wedges

and

Big Mario and Luigi Shot

Layered shot… with a Vodka power-up!

• 1 cl Grenadine
• 1 cl Kiwi Bols
• 1 cl Vodka

Directions: Grenadine first. Then pour Bols – slowly! – over a bar spoon. Vodka goes on top.

The Food: Chips and Pizza, of course!

This may, in fact, be the easiest menu we’ve ever had to come up with. One stereotype that is fairly accurate for gamers is our predilection for junk food. So look for a wide variety of chips and such!

The Movies

As we are bridging from Event 21, we had to get creative in our first selection…

Double Dragon (1994) : Mark Dacascos and Scott Wolf as Jimmy and Billy Lee, along with Alyssa Milano as Marian, and Robert Patrick as the “evil I want to take over the world with shadows and my freaky bleached hair” dude. Taking place in the “future world” of 2007, this movie is so full of sucktastic awesome, it has to be seen to be believed.

Super Mario Bros. (1993): Mario (Bob Hoskins) and his brother Luigi (John Leguizamo ) in a comical dystopia ruled by King Koopa (Dennis Hopper).<—This is the straight-up description of the movie! It has NOTHING to do with the games, and it. Is. TERRIBLE. We have to admit, we’ve always wanted to share this one with people.

Suggested Alternatives

Well we certainly aren’t hurting for candidates for alternatives, that’s for sure. The hard part is narrowing it down to 3.

• We would be remiss if we didn’t mention Uwe Boll’s entire filmography , as he has failed utterly at ever making a decent picture. But special attention has to be paid to his turn on House of the Dead (2003). To save money on production, Boll actually used game footage to stand-in for some of the action sequences-and to convince us he wasn’t whoring an already nonsensical game franchise.
• Wing Commander (1993): Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Matt Lillard “headline” this terrible space opera supposedly based on the fantastic game series that featured, at the time, Mark freakin’ Hammil! What makes this even worse is the fact that it was written and directed by Chris Roberts, the guy who created the game franchise. That’s right! He has nobody to blame but himself.
• Street Fighter (1994): Words cannot express how bad this movie is. It really does kinda have to be seen to be believed. Featuring Jean Claude Van-Damme and Raul Julia in his last role before his death, this movie is simply a glorious exploration of how many ways a movie can go wrong. But really, it’s a laugh-a-minute, and firmly recommended for a Cavalcade.

Further Information

For further information regarding the February 6th, 2010 event, please check the following resources:

Cavalcade Event 22 Flyer

Event Page on Facebook

Important note: Please note the date of the event is February 6th, the first weekend in the month!

Year three kicked off with such a bang that we’re ready to rock right into event 22! We’re really excited about some of our choices for the next gathering. Since our last event was Dragons, we had to get kind of creative in our interpretation of the bridging guidelines. With the limited time between events, this poll will close on the 23rd!

Sci-Fi: Video Games

Because frankly, when the best one out there is the first Mortal Kombat movie? You know we’re looking in the right place! First, let’s knock the bridging movie out of the way:

• Double Dragon (1994) -Mark Dacascos and Scott Wolf as Jimmy and Billy Lee, along with Alyssa Milano as Marian, and Robert Patrick as the “evil I want to take over the world with shadows and my freaky bleached hair” dude. Taking place in the “future world” of 2007, this movie is so fuck of sucktastic awesome, it has to be seen to be believed.
• Super Mario Bros. (1993) – Mario (Bob Hoskins) and his brother Luigi (John Leguizamo) in a comical dystopia ruled by King Koopa (Dennis Hopper).<—This is the straight-up description of the movie! It has NOTHING to do with the games, and it. Is. TERRIBLE. We have to admit, we’ve always wanted to share this one with people.
• Oh, and lest we forget UWE BOLL’s entire staple of pictures: Alone in the Dark, In the Name of the King, Far Cry, Bloodrayne…

Action: Kung Fu

• The Last Dragon (1985) – Take the music of Mowtown, mix it with Kung Fu, throw in a heaping helping of camp, and you have a testament to the eighties that has to be seen to be believed. Starring Taimak, Vanity, Christopher Murney, and Faith Prince. With cameos from William H. Macy and Chazz Palminteri. Seriously, Julius Carry plays a character named “Sho’nuff: The Shogun of Harlem”.
• Master of the Flying Guillotine (1977) – If this movie sounds familiar, it’s because we covered it for one of our Weaponized Wednesday reviews. One of the great tournament fighters, this movie features two of the biggest badasses in 70s Kung Fu coming together for a grand battle royale. The One Armed Boxer and The Flying Guillotine. This movie would go on to inspire Capcom’s Street Fighter and a whole slew of filmmakers. Never mind how silly it is.
• Even though we’ve already done Ninjas, we’d have to have Ninja Terminator as an alternate selection. This movie may, in fact, epitomize everything that a Cavalcade movie hopes to be. Nonsensical, full of fury, and insanely bad dubbing. Plus: There’s a Ninja in full camo gear. Besides, the “Hero” of the picture is all about Kung Fu, and isn’t a ninja at all.

Horror: Reptiles

We’ve done Giant Monsters. We’ve had Dragons. But we’ve never simply done killer reptile horror. Which is a real shame, because there’s some awesome selections! The bridging movie is not one of these…

• Komodo Vs. Cobra (2005) – The title pretty much sums it up. There’s a killer Komodo and a creepy Cobra. They fight. The badness comes from the fact that this is a Sci-Fi Channel Original. Yup. We fully expect this one to get voted off the island.
• Killer Snakes (1975) – Take the story of Willard, and change the rats to snakes. It’s actually supposed to be pretty damn cool, in a sicko Cavalcade kind of way.
• An interesting choice would have to be Jaws of Satan (1981). Take the plots of Jaws and the Exorcist, and throw in Christina Applegate in her first film role. Yup, it’s like that.

So there you have it, our three choices for the February 6th event! Vote below!

 Loading ...

Damn you Eliza Dushku and your ever expanding media presence!!!

Wet is one of those games that has some really, really entertaining elements that are lessened by game fattening crap like mandatory training levels and-ugh-quick time events. It also suffers from a growing problem among cinematic games. To focus on story or fun?

In this case, the story appears to have be written by tenth graders after a pixie stick binge and a trip to Target to raid the five dollar DVD bin, so really they should have chosen fun-but writers are probably cheaper to find these days…especially if  you pay them in pixie sticks.

The elements of the story are entertaining and cool on that 10th grade level, as it includes:

1. An albino ninja woman in leather
2. A German cowboy fencer
3. Asian gangstas
4. Malcolm MacDowell
and of course:
5. Il Dushku playing Rubi, the protagonist, and loving every minute of it.

In fact, one of the best parts of the game is Rubi trash talking the enemies almost constantly, saving the player the trouble with bon mots like “You guys fight like old people fuck, slow and sloppy.” Dushku sounds like she had a really fun time swearing after being on network TV for all these years. She’s not wrong either, as most of the time the AI is so amazingly dimwitted until it’s dramatically appropriate for them to turn into Ding Chavez.

Speaking of drama, the game does have some sublime little story moments, one of which is Rubi promising a guy whose brother, unknown to him, has betrayed him. This is the classic dying friend scene prevalent in the grindhouse fair that inspired this game and it’s played to great effect when the character has Ruby swear not to let them hurt the wayward sibling. Dushku does a nice piece of voice acting here, giving her response a sincere edge,  the subtext being that they’re not going to hurt him but she’s sure as hell’s gonna’.

It was quite touching, despite having coming after spending nearly an hour trying to figure out a shooting puzzle.

Yes, shooting puzzles. I’ve always loathed these sorts of situations, because I know damned well if I need to open something by pushing two buttons at once I’m not going to use bullets.

Obviously, I’m going to use tennis balls and duct tape.

Is my life so joyless that I cannot enjoy a silly video game? Probably so. However, if I have enough time to think that logically, it speaks more to the the game’s lack of narrative momentum than it does to my being a pallid shut-in.

To be fair, the only time I really did not have to time to think was  during the Arena levels, which are set to crunchy power chord rockabilly tunes, and have you kill a nearly endless stream of mooks before you can move on to the next stage. It’s actually pretty fun in and of itself, but as the game progresses they become punishingly difficult and again, the momentum suffers as you load the levels over and over and over.

The driving levels, however, are the perfect synergy of the games control style. It combines quicktime moments with the actual shooting at enemies as Rubi rides on the roof a car speeding down the highway. These levels are pulse-pounding and fun, unfortunately there’s only two of them.

Finally, as with all games with female protagonists, when you get frustrated you may find yourself using inappropriate gender-based invectives, by which I mean “GODDAMMIT! JUMP YOU WHORE! GAAAAA!”

Which I don’t advise unless you live in a house by yourself. Otherwise, you might give the wrong impression.

All in all, Wet is a good-but not great-time spent with a video game. For sheer grindhouse-style-schlock, it kicks it pretty nicely. Unfortunately, touchy controls and odd gameplay choices bring the experience down a bit. Rent first.