Gamer (2009)

Directed by: A 40W Lightbulb
Starring: SPARTA!!!!, Dexter
Not About: Cider

Where to begin? What to think? Who to blame?
I blame the founders of Atari, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. When they created Computer Space in 1971 they unwittingly unleashed a sequence of events that would eventually lead to Gamer. Cause and effect. I could go back further, but that would be churlish. No, this falls squarely on Bushnell and Dabney. May God have mercy on their souls.

So, again, where to begin? Let's start with Genesis, Chapter 1, verses 1 to 3.

1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

Where's the Goddamn light? It's so murky that I feel like I'm drowning in the water from Shark in Venice. I can barely see SPARTA'S face.

Poor Lighting = -100pts
Crap HUD = -20pts

So, we start with a dark battle, which in these post-Saving Private Ryan days of visceral battle detail isn't actually that brutal at all.

Flying Grenade Man = 50pts
Save Point = 5pts
New High Score = AAA

No, we're in the game.....and Sparta has won a battle. And then we move on, out of the game to the brightly lit world outside. See what they did there? Darkness = Bad men killing each other. Light = Bad hair. Nothing is quite making sense yet.

It is here we meet Dexter, the creator of Society, some futuristic porno-real version of The Sims who also happened to create this murderous game that SPARTA!!! is trapped in, called Slayers. A hatchet job of the story pops in now in the guise of a cheesy chat show - men on death row play in Slayers and if they survive 30 battles, they're free.....except no one ever has.

Cheap ripoff of Running Man = -100pts
Nanocell in the brain controls the player = 20pts
Ludacris as a hacker!! = 100pts

This isn't even funny.....and then something really fucking mad happens. With The Bad Touch by The Bloodhound Gang playing we a treated to a strange segue to explain what happens in Society.....

Priest with balloons = 1000pts

Yes, a priest with balloons. Someone has literally shit this out after eating some funny cake. We know it's a game, but now we are introduced to the kid that "plays" SPARTA! - and once again he wins a battle, No. 28 - only two more until he's released - the world celebrates in unison like at the end of Independence Day.

No, seriously - Los Angeles, Baghdad, Bombay, Beijing......WHAT THE FUCK? Honestly, they're making you care less and less about what happens from now on in by not explaining anything resembling a story. You've been introduced to a bunch of characters so far with no motive whatsoever - and you don't even know who half of them are! So, you have to sit through more turgid and dimly lit shit whilst a resolution is convoluted out of nothing.

Turns out that they're trying to kill SPARTA.....Ludacris the hacker is on his side and helps the kid out that is controlling him by give him a mod to speak to him Battle 29, wins....are you still following this? GIVE ME A STORY!!! GIVE ME A REASON!!

Here we go! I think it's past halfway through now and they've realised they need to patch something together. Sparta's wife, who is a Society porn star that is controlled by a hideous fat man that we briefly saw earlier, is trying to get custody of their child back but fails spectacularly.

We don't care about this because it's not clear who the hell this woman is - the only time we've seen her she was wearing a wig, making out with a man with a fake pig's nose strapped to his face whilst she was being controlled by the hideous naked fat man whilst he touched himself and ate cake.

Lack of SPARTA! = -200pts

Back to Slayers - Ludacris wants the kid to give up control of Sparta for battle No. 30 and let him do it his own way.....so, reluctantly, he does....and what does Sparta do in preparation for his final battle? He necks a fucking bottle of vodka???? What the hell? So, he's drunk, falling all over the place like a concussed babboon and kind of goes off the grid of the game. He then VOMITS INTO THE PETROL TANK OF A CAR!!! And, after he's done vomiting into the petrol tank, HE FUCKING PISSES INTO IT TOO!! And it starts! Presumably because of the vodka and not because of some leftover fuel....

This is where I started eating paper = -200pts
Sparta Escapes = 50pts

Hooks up with Ludacris, rescues his wife from being anally violated by a nutjob in rubber whilst fat man rubs his nipples, gets loads of people killed and gets his wife's nanocell thing reversed so she's normal again....

AND HERE'S WHERE THE STORY KICKS IN!

Military Project = -250pts
He was framed = -500pts
Dexter adopted his kid = -1000pts

So, now he's after the rich bad guy that wants to rule the world by remote control drones to rescue his daughter from probably being groomed by a man with bad hair and halitosis. And here comes the showdown.....

....what the fuck just happened there? Did they really just have I've Got You Under My Skin lip-synched to a weird robo-dance whilst SPARTA went all 300 on a bunch of drones? Yes they fucking did. Oh. My. God.

After all that has gone before, the ending is actually disappointing. It's some kind of weird self-controlled Mexican stand-off on a basketball court with two men holding a knife whilst the world looks on and presumably whilst looting is taking place.

Dexter dies, Sparta tells some techy guy in black to turn off all the nanocells, and presumably millions of people are now out of a job and the world is going to fall into some global meltdown. It's all okay though, because Sparta can now play happy family whilst society crumbles and adapts to having to play an old Atari 2600 console because nothing else works.

John Carpenter-esque music kicks in = 100pts

GAMER OVER

Final Score = -1045
Enter Initials: WTF