Reviewed by Alicia Glass

Review Rating: 7.5

In the future where life and death is played out by millions on mass multi-player online Role-Playing Games, famous criminal Kable takes on the creator of the games Ken Castle, for his freedom.

This is a great movie for any gamer or RPG geek out there, and let’s face it, we’ve all but taken over the world at this point anyway. Yes there are plenty of other stars: Ludacris as leader of the resistance of sorts, Logan Lerman as Simon the player, Amber Valetta as wife and character Angie. But really, the movie more or less centers around two people: Gerard Butler as Kable and Michael C. Hall as Ken Castle, game creator and evil billionaire. Gerard Butler is already well known for such roles as King Leonidas in 300, The Phantom in Phantom of the Opera 2004, and Terry in Lara Croft Tomb Raider. And everyone knows, or everyone should know, Michael C. Hall from his stint on the wildly popular Showtime show Dexter. Of course, Butler’s role in Gamer is very similar to his other roles: the extremely strong and violent but quiet if not silent type, desperate and dangerous and always attractive to watch, covered in dirt and blood or not. Hall on the other hand plays a character that is mighty different from Dexter, at least the way I see it: Castle is an odd mix of down-home buddy-buddy-ship and ruthlessly clever and plotting bad guy. (There’s more than one reference to other incredibly rich and eccentric computer moguls in the film as comparisons too.)

Plus, yes, there’s the entire Society and Slayer world for the gamer geek in all of us to enjoy, wince at, and in general empathize with. To see a tall gaudily dressed relatively attractive woman who’s voluntarily renting out her body to be played by a, how can I put this nicely, total pig of a guy gamer, is something us computer game addicts can understand but totally want to run from. It’s a game, and the reality behind it is something we all want to stay safely hidden, thanks.

No matter if your game is RPG, hack-n-slash, or anything else, Gamer is a movie all gamers weird and dear will enjoy!