GAMER - sporadically interesting Running Man remake

GAMER is a remake of the seminal Schwarzenegger sci-fi flick, RUNNING MAN. It's set in a dystopian future, where sex and violence are commercialised in computer games, allowing obese couch potatoes to fuck beautiful women and teenagers to control ultra-violent prisoners in live-action shoot-em-ups. Why have a virtual avatar when you can remote control actual people? The game is controlled by billionaire Ken Castle (a typically mischievous Michael C Hall) and peopled by set-up con Kable (Gerard Butler) and his wife turned hooker Angie (Amber Valetta). As in the original flick, the action really takes off when the "running man", Kable, escapes the game, aided by revolutionaries (Ludcaris, Aaron Yoo and Alison Lohman).

Despite all the CGI, GAMER doesn't have the visceral thrills of the action sequences in RUNNING MAN - for a start, there are no ridiculous baddies - remember the ice-hockey guy with the chainsaw?! In fact, the action sequences were pretty dull, which has to count as a big negative in a summer action movie. It was more interesting seeing how the film-makers had updated the dystopian future to capture the full weirdness of modern gaming. In terms of style, I was pleased to see Neveldine calm down the frenetic style of the CRANK movies, delivering a film with a nice bleak, almost monochrome look, while retaining their ability to mesh computer graphics and standard live-action film. I also like the fact that this film has more layers to it than the CRANK films - simultaneously critiquing and glorying in the voyeurism and nastiness of modern entertaining culture. And let me not forgot, a song-and-dance sequence in which Michael C Hall plays to Sammy Davis Junior's I've Got You Under My Skin. Worth the price of entry alone!

GAMER is on release in Greece, Canada, Finland, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the USA, Belgium, Estonia, France, the Philippines, Russia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Cyprus, Denmark, Latvia, the UK, the Czech Republic and Austria. It opens next week in South Korea and Bulgaria. It opens in October in Brazil, the Netherlands, Iceland, Croatia and Lithuania. It opens on January 7th in Germany.

Random DVD round-up 3: TRANSPORTER 2

Jason Statham's career baffles me. Here he is in TRANSPORTER 2 reprising his role as Frank, the ex Special Forces tough guy who will drive anything anywhere, no questions asked. Frank has an American accent about as convincing as Dick Van Dyke's cockney in MARY POPPINS. And I guarantee that no studio would ever have put money on a skinny bald kid making it as an action hero. Still, you can't deny that Jason Statham is the world champion at spouting ridiculous dialogue and fronting absurd action sequences with a completely straight face. He never tries to wink at the camera and that alone prevents his movies descending from mindless fun into painful self-parody.

And let me reiterate: TRANSPORTER 2 is mindless. The plot is ridiculous; the emotional depth of the characters incredible; the action sequences lifted from a computer game. (Colombian drug-lords kidnap the cute kid of a millionaire DEA official that Frank happens to be chauffeuring at the time: They return the kid but not before unleashing a biological weapon.)

But for all that, the movie is fun, watchable and never dull. Writer Luc Besson may not be able to string a credible sentence together, but he knows how to make a satisfyingly "twisty" plot. And director Louis Laterrier (soon to be famous for THE INCREDIBLE HULK) also knows how to shoot a fast-paced, visually thrilling action sequence.

I also have to say that there is something wonderful about a movie as straightforwardly entertaining as TRANSPORTER 2. Critics may get sniffy, but what's wrong with a good old-fashioned action flick? I'm totally unsurprised that the movie took so much money, and look forward to the threequel, which will be directed by the brilliantly named Olivier Megaton.

TRANSPORTER 2 was released in 2005 and stomped on box office predictions to set a new record for Labor Day weekend. It is available on DVD.

PREMONITION - dreary time-travel thriller

In which Sandra Bullock - an actress who is charming in romantic-comedies - opts once again to make a feeble sci-fi movie of little originality or interest. Has her husband (Julian McMahon) really died? Or is she having a premonition? Can she save him and her daughter by following the clues scooby-doo style? Is the shrink (Peter Stormare) up to no good? Do we care? No.

THE PREMONITION is on release in the US and UK. It opens in Portugal, Italy and Spain on March 30th, in the Netherlands on April 19th, in Austrlia and Turey on April 25th, in Belgum on May 16th and in France o nAugust 22nd and in Germany on September 20th.

HITCH - formulaic rom-com saved by Will Smith

HITCH is a paint-by-numbers romantic-comedy featuring Will Smith and Eva Mendes, Kevin James and Carmen Diaz-lite, Amber Valetta. Smith plays a “date doctor” who specialises in coaching men with low self-esteem on how to appear attractive to their dream-women. He is helping the earnest, sweet, but unattractive Kevin-James-character win the misunderstood social butterfly Amber-Valetta-character over. Cue lots of “odd couple” type jokes. Meanwhile he is also wooing the Eva-Mendes character. This chick has a lot of trust issues, and is also the gossip columnist who exposes the James-Valetta relationship. Cue lots of comedy-misunderstandings.

Now, I have nothing against romantic comedies per se. It just so happens that the majority of romantic-comedies produced by Hollywood studios are formulaic superficial nonsense, usually designed as vehicles for some cute star and directed by a talentless hack. In addition, they mostly have plots that rely on key members of the cast forming ridiculous misunderstandings of each other’s motives and actions that in the real world would be cleared up in a second, but in the tortuous world of celluloid dating take a more marketable ninety minutes to unravel. In the case of HITCH, the hack director is Andy Tennant, who seems to specialise in these disposable comedies. (I submit that monstrously flawed Reese Witherspoon-Josh Lucas vehicle, SWEET HOME ALABAMA into evidence for the prosecution.)

Having said all this, I actually rather enjoyed HITCH and that is down to one factor alone: Will Smith. It is testament to how charming Will Smith is that he can single-handedly sell you a movie that is the utterly formulaic. In fact, he is so charming that he can almost makes us believe that men would actually pay the “date doctor” to learn cheesy lines like, “life is not the amount of breaths you take, it's the moments that take your breath away.” Or that women would be impressed by lines like: “Never lie, steal, cheat, or drink. But if you must lie, lie in the arms of the one you love. If you must steal, steal away from bad company. If you must cheat, cheat death. And if you must drink, drink in the moments that take your breath away.” As you can see from these *choice* quotations, HITCH is a really schmaltzy movie. Its appeal rests solely on casting Will Smith in the lead role. I think that alone just about saves it from the trashcan of cinematic history. But, it’s a close call.

HITCH is already on release in the US, Germany and Austria and opens in the UK today. It opens in France next week.