In a future mind-controlling game, death row convicts are forced to battle in a 'Doom'-type environment. To the players, Kable and the other inmates are just simulated characters. But, to a resistance group that opposes the game's inventor, Kable is a critical component of their plan to end the inventor's form of high-tech slavery.
In the press materials Mr. Butler informs us enthusiastically that the movie "has all the hallmarks of Neveldine's and Taylor's sick, yet genius minds." At least he's half right.
Groucho Reviews
February 16, 2010
What to make of short-attention-span artists satirizing a short-attention-span world? [Blu-ray]
As the brutish Kable, Gerard Butler must find out who's pulling his strings, but it's the audience whose chain gets yanked by this headache-inducing techno-violent mishmash.
Neveldine and Taylor simply spray their venom across the screen with little vision, once again making a friendly trip to the multiplex feel like undeserved torture.
It's a deeply cynical and joyless point of view, completely lacking in the winking visual style that made Crank worth a look.
Hollywood Reporter
September 08, 2009
Crass, nonstop action triumphs over narrative and character in this movie-length simulation of a video game.
Cinematical
December 17, 2009
At times striking, and at others silly, and and yet at others sickening, but never too stupid, at least not compared to so much else flash and pop peddled to the masses these days.
Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor have slowly started garnering actual critical consideration for their Crank movies; with Gamer, they make another good case for taking them seriously.
