Gamer

I watched Gamer last night. You know, the one where game players control real flesh-and-blood humans in a gory death match, broadcast on live TV? If you haven't heard of the movie I'm not surprised, considering it vanished about as quickly as a movie can. If watching it is at the top of your to-do list though, run away, as this post will spoil you silly.

The movie takes place in a not-too-distant future where The Guy From Dexter has invented a thingy that replicates the cells of your brain to...he invented mind control. What he does with this awesome power is get people to pay to watch death row inmates shoot each other, and give players the chance to control them in combat.

I knew from previews that this wasn't gonna be great, but I wanted to see it anyway, as the movie is based on a pretty common fear of the effects of increased realism of games and the implications of sex and violence in a realistic system. While the movie focuses on the "Slayers" death match game, the far more interesting "Society" is what raised the most questions. "Society" is like Second Life, but people can choose to play an avatar in the game or be an avatar, giving up complete control to whoever is playing you. Like Second Life, "Society" consists mainly of fucking and doing drugs in silly costumes (if that's not cultural commentary I don't know what is!). But of course, the avatars are real people made into puppets. There's plenty here that a different movie could have sunk it's teeth into; it's almost a shame they wasted it on an action movie.

Ultimately the movie falls flat because rather than confront the idea of a society engrossed in these pastimes, the movie portrays the players as what folks would like to believe they are, douche-bag teens and fat people, even "deviants" with (gasp!) tongue peircings. And of course it all boils down to The Guy From Dexter's evil plot to extend his mind control to everyone, allowing him to control what they buy, watch, and do. This final reveal seemed particularly unnecessary, not to mention ignorant of the far more terrifying implications of the humankind portrayed by the film: that controlling the consumer tastes of the globe doesn't require anything nearly as fancy as biological mind control, and that, in many ways, we've already surrendered control to Google, Microsoft, Pfizer, and on and on and on.

Avatar

I've found myself continuing to think about Avatar days after watching it. Every time a friend asks if I've seen it yet I get caught up re-imagining the movie again, almost like I'm back in the theater. It was that kind of experience. I don't know if I could point to one single element that made it so memorable, but some combination of the 3D, the fantastic motion capture, CGI, and the color just made it an experience more than just a movie.

That's not to say there weren't things that through me off though. While the flora and fauna of the alien planet were wonderful, some of the plants in particular were a little silly. Everything glowed, which looks awesome in 3D on the big screen, but doesn't really make sense if you're a plant trying not to get eaten.

The biggest criticism I've heard so far is that the story is cliche, which is true. But I think that's an incomplete picture. For one thing, cliches are cliches because they are stories that work. They are simple and powerful, which is why they get used so often. Avatar's story has been compared to Dances with Wolves, Pocahontas, and the Smurfs, all of which are fair comparisons (well maybe the Smurfs is cheating a little...) but what makes it work is the context. The well-imagined alien world and the 3D are designed to immerse the viewer. The cliched story works the same way. It's familiar and immediate, and allows the audience to "get it" without a too much exposition. Though I would love to know more about the back story, the movie had to work within reasonable time limits, and the story was just another way to get us there. Sometimes predictable can be powerful. For my part, I was so anguished when everything was going to hell I was glad I could count on things turning out alright in the end.

Several of the folks I saw the movie with thought the story was "dumb." They're wrong, but the important thing to know is that they still enjoyed the movie. I myself had low expectations from the previews. I was wrong too. If you do hear bad things about the film, ignore it and go anyway. And see it in 3D.