These days Reality TV is far from real, fortunes are won and lost in cyberspace and we spend more and more time connecting with friends in the virtual world.  The Internet is no longer only the domain of geeks and perverts.  So it is easy to imagine the kind of futuristic world portrayed in Gamer, one where reality entertainment and addictive online gaming are disturbingly twisted together.  A world where the avatars in the games played are actually real people and the population is divided into those who pay to control and those who are paid to be controlled.
Gamer includes a garbled presentation as to how this behaviour control is possible –with injections of nano-cells that replace brain cells and turn a person into a walking mobile receiver, awaiting instructions.  Whatever.  The point is that this technology enables Ken Castle, a reclusive Bill-Gates-type genius, to develop two games that utilize real live-action heroes.  ‘Society’ (think Second Life) is a world full of gorgeous, glamorous, wackily dressed actors being controlled by socially inept, foully fat, creeps.  It is predictably indulgent and debauched.  ‘Slayer’ is a battleground where death row convicts (i-cons) are recruited to fight to the death for the chance to win their freedom.  These i-cons are controlled, or played, by dispassionate teenagers and their battles are broadcast to audiences across the globe.
The star i-con is Kable and his player is a spoilt 17-year old kid called Simon.  Both Kable and Simon are famous for their achievements in ‘Slayer’.  But, whereas Simon is determined to win the game, Kable is not interested in being a hero.  He wants to survive and be reunited with his wife and daughter.  There are shades of Gladiator as Kable travels with his fellow slayers to the battlegrounds.  Kable is on the verge of becoming the first i-con ever to gain his freedom when Ken Castle introduces a rogue slayer into the game, a killer who is “without strings”; a slayer who is not being played by anyone.  He has one objective – to kill Kable.
Fortunately, a human rights group – the Humanz – is working to emancipate Kable from his controlling nano-cells and expose Ken Castle as an evil megalomaniac.  They have to convince Simon that his only chance to win is by giving up his control of Kable and letting him fight his own battles.
As you might expect, Gamer includes a lot of the graphic violence, frenetic fighting and confusion that characterizes online shoot ‘em up games.  Blood and bits of bodies spray, fly and splatter as the slayers duck and run along empty streets and through deserted warehouses.  When Kable takes his fight out into the “real world”, the violence is no less brutal and this depiction of the future is pretty bleak. The idea for Gamer has many of the elements of a sci-fi cult movie, such as Blade Runner or The Matrix.  Unfortunately the resulting film is insubstantial, preferring to shock with gore and depravity, rather than develop any storyline.  Game Over.

Venue:  Ster-Kinekor Maerua Mall
Director: Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor
Screenplay: Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor
Cast: Gerard Butler, Amber Valletta, Michael C. Hall, Kyra Sedgwick, Ludacris
Genre: Science Fiction/Action
Rating: 3 stars