Gamer is a good action movie with a video game twist.  If you are in to action movies or video games then this movie is for you. If you are into First or Third Person Shooter video games in particular then Gamer is chock full jokes just for you.   If you are a rare person who stumbled on this web site and does not like shooter games then Gamer is not as easy to recommend, but there is still something there for the non-gamer crowd. For the non-gamer Gamer still delivers the action movie staples of solid action scenes and boobs but not much else.  In short, Gamer’s story is a good enough for an action movie, the humor is funny but it has a limited audience, and the actors are very well cast.

Gamer is an action movie and has the kind of story every action movie should have, a simple one.  In an action movie the story should never get in the way of all the action.  The story goes that in the near future Ken Castle, played by Micheal C. Hall, creates a way to control people remotely and uses that technology to create games that use people as game avatars.  The movie revolves around two games, Slayers and Society.  Slayers is a third person shooter that uses death row inmates as its game avatars.  Society is a real world simulator like Second Life or the Sims that uses the downtrodden and dispossessed as game avatars.  In Gamer, Kable, played by Gerrard Butler, is a wrongfully imprisoned death row inmate that is forced to fight in Slayers.  Kable’s wife Angie, played by Amber Valletta, is a game avatar in Society that is forced to do all kinds of hedonistic and depraved things.  Both Kable and Angie are used and abused by their respective games and have to escape from their games.  That is Gamer in a nutshell and the games Society and Slayers provide the perfect set up for the two things that every great action movie must have, explosions and boobs.  Gamer understands that good action movies are built around boobs and violence and delivers two tons of both.

Gamer has these

And a lot of these

Boobs and explosions are important to making a good action movie but to be a great action movie there needs to be some humor.  The humor is where Gamer becomes great for gamers but I doubt it can be more than good for non-gamers.  Other than a few clever one liners and inspired musical numbers most of the humor in Gamer is video game specific.  For example, non-gamers would not get a tea bagging reference or the utterly ridiculous screen  names that are not to far from what gamers regularly use.  There is more video game humor than those two things but I am not going to spoil it.  There is one funny bit that I am going to spoil a little.  I hope I just give away to make it a teaser.  Micheal C. Hall has one truly off-beat and hilarious scene where he does a song and dance number.  All humor aside one of the good parts of Gamer is the is cast.

Gamer has a great cast for an action movie.  Gerrard Butler plays a stoic hero out to rescue his family and he does it very well.  Gerrard Butler might not be able to play anything other than a stoic hero but if he keeps making movies like Law Abiding Citizen and 300 then I hope he keeps doing what he is doing.  The other very well cast actor in Gamer is Michael C. Hall.  Michael C. Hall is not as well known as Gerrard Butler but most of you would recognize him as Dexter.

Michael C. Hall aka Dexter

Michael C. Hall is cast as the big bad guy Ken Castle.  In Dexter like in Gamer Michael C. Hall plays a completely charming bad guy.  Michael C. Hall might not be able to play anything other than a charming bad guy but if he keeps giving us stuff like Dexter and Gamer then he should keep on doing it.  The rest of the cast plays their parts well but the big focus of Gamer is on Gerrard Butler and Michael C. Hall and they deliver.

Gamer delivers a good action movie with a solid cast and a well done video game twist.  This is not to say that Gamer is a great movie.  At the end of the day Gamer is a cheesy, campy action movie that somehow managed to get  big budget.  The only question that remains is whether you should go see Gamer or not.  If you want a fun action romp with some boobs and big ka-booms then you should check Gamer out.  If you turn you nose up at a movie that is held together with nudity and violence then forget Gamer and go watch Barney again.

For a slightly more professional opinion of Gamer try here.  Movie Bob has a solid, entertaining review of Gamer.

Movie Bob reviews Gamer for the Escapist