STUDIO: Lionsgate | DIRECTORS: Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor | CAST: Gerard Butler, Amber Valletta, Michael C. Hall, Zoe Bell
RELEASE DATE: 1/19/2010 | PRICE: DVD$29.95, Blu-ray
$39.99
BONUSES: behind-the-scenes featurettes, commentary, exclusive trailer
SPECS: R | 95 min. | Science-fiction action | 1:85:1 | Dolby 5.1, 7.1 HD Master | English, Spanish subtitlesRATINGS (out of 5 dishes): Movie
| Audio
| Video
Action is packed in this movie, and rightly so, as it’s from the writer/director team behind the Crank movies, Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, who do a great job getting it all on the screen.
Gamer follows Gerard Butler (The Bounty Hunter) as an ex-con who lives in a futuristic world and has volunteered to be a game piece, controlled by videogame players, in a deadly but profitable game with the promise of freedom if he survives. The film has a good cast, with Michael C. Hall (TV’s Dexter) playing the brilliant if eccentric game creator, Kyra Sedgwick (TV’s The Closer) as a TV show host, Amber Valletta (The Spy Next Door) as Butler’s wife and Alison Lohman (Matchstick Men) as the game’s opposition.
With Blu-ray’s high-definition video, all the explosions and bloody action is gruesomely clear, and the audio pounds the speakers. It definitely makes you feel enveloped in this world.
Lionsgate piled special features onto the Blu-ray version, more than the DVD. Users can get behind-the-scenes information in the interactive I-Con Mode as well as the featurette “Inside the Game: Controlling Gamer.”
Another featurette, “First Person Shooter: The Evolution of Red,” will be of interest to filmmakers, as the program explores Neveldine and Taylor’s extensive use of the new, inexpensive but impressive Red digital cameras.
Lionsgate also included a theatrical trailer that wasn’t shown in theaters — we can see why — and commentary with Neveldine, Taylor, Valletta, Lohman and actor Terry Crews.
Incidentally, the DVD version includes only the commentary and two featurettes.
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