I’ve been thinking about Gamer for a while and I’ve been hesitant to post about it because it really is a bad movie. But I also think it firmly falls into the cyberpunk category. So here we are.

The movie is about a company that invents some new technology which allows you to remotely control other humans. They use this technology to make a new reality TV show where death-row inmates fight to the death for the chance at a pardon. So similar to Running Man, except here the inmates are remotely controlled by teenage video gamers. And while that makes absolutely no sense, that’s the story they went with.

However, there’s a subplot with a second TV show (or just video game?) run by the same company, and this game is called Society. Society is basically The Sims except you’re controlling real people who get paid to be avatars. This is where the movie goes off the deep-end with social commentary and it isn’t subtle.

Because this woman signs up to be a character:

And ends up being controlled by this guy:

And that goes about as well as you’d expect. So the plot points are already unsettling but the movie goes out of their way to make it as disgusting as they can.

Anyway, eventually it’s revealed that the CEO of the company wants to use his technology to mind-control everyone and only Gerard Butler can stop him. It’s a very strange movie and if it didn’t try so hard to be gross I feel like it could’ve been a good movie.

Here’s a trailer. You can watch it on Tubi.

  • Rose Thorne(She/Her)
    13•7 months ago

    This movie is absolute shlock, and I love it for it. It’s definitely one of those “get a couple people and just rip it to hell and back” flicks, but it is a fun one.

    Heavily a 3 out of 10, and only because Gerard Butler. He’s not even particularly good in it, but he’s in it, and that’s something to look at.

    • @Rolando
      3•7 months ago

      Apparently Ludacris and Terry Crews are in it too!

      • HammerjackOPMEnglish
        4•7 months ago

        And Michael C. Hall does a great job as the evil CEO.

        • @SkyezOpen
          2•7 months ago

          The dance scene was amazing.

  • circuitfarmer
    9•7 months ago

    The movie is about a company that invents some new technology which allows you to remotely control other humans

    I think about it whenever I think about Neuralink. Someone is inevitably gonna hack that shit.

    • nyahlathotepEnglish
      18•7 months ago

      Have you heard of an obscure documentary called Ghost in the Shell?

  • @[email protected]English
    8•7 months ago

    This was the first movie I wanted to walk out of. I hated it so much.

    Apart from everything else wrong with the movie, the events that I remember the most is Gerard Butler’s character chugging a pint of vodka, running through the battlefield to a truck, puking into the gas tank, then driving off to escape.

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️English
    2•7 months ago

    I finally had the joy of trying pistachio butter, which I have been looking for ever since this movie first came out and I saw it in theaters lol

    Also the talk of a movie based on The Sims recently has me wondering if they will go the dark route and make it like Society.

      • @[email protected]English
        9•7 months ago

        Mans has a whole bit about pistachio butter and doesn’t tell us if it’s actually good.

        • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️English
          6•7 months ago

          It was like liquid pistachio. Peanutbutter has a distinct difference in flavor between just eating peanuts but the pistachio butter had no difference between eating solid nuts aside from the texture.

          Absolutely overpowers any jelly I tried it with. But I like pistachios so it was nice 😌 It was $8 for a 4oz jar though. Too expensive to be a full time PB replacement.