where: CENTURY 14 VALLEJO in Vallejo, CA
when: Friday, September 4th, 2009
show: 11:45 a.m. "Dollar Off special on first show" Matinee
costs: $6.00 + $4.25 medium Diet/Zero ( w/ Barq's & Cherry flavors ) Coke + $5.00 small Popcorn = $15.25
auditorium: 14
seat: 3rd row, 5th column
synopsis: Uber-billionaire game developer Ken Castle ( Michael C. Hall ) has come up with his mega-hit game which allows humans to play with each other via the use of real humans as game avatars. This game has three components of performers: Society, in which gamers interact which each other through their "actor" avatars in vicarious ways; Slayers, in which death-row inmates are used as avatars and pitted against each other in actual battles; and "Walkers," those death-row inmates who chose to be avatars forced to walk in cross-fires.
While the "actors" are not necessarily put in harm's way, they are at times when a Slayer game spills over into a Society game. A death-row inmate gets a reprieve if he/she survives one Slayer game as a "walker" or 30 Slayer games as a combatant.
Kable ( Gerard Butler ), an ex-military on death-row, is controlled by a highly-skilled young gamer, Simon Silverston ( Logan Lerman ). Together, they battle the odds to become the first Slayer team to win a reprieve. There is just one problem: no slayer or walker ever lived long enough to win a reprieve. This problem is all the more compounded in Kable's case since he knows too much about the "hidden agenda" which killed his friend Scotch ( Johnny Whitworth ).
noteworthy scenes: 1.) First battle; 2.) The interview; 3.) The star gamer; 4.) Fat gamer; 5.) Second battle; 6.) The Nanex command module; 7.) Hackman ( Terry Crews ); 8.) The relay delay; 9.) "Stringless;" 10.) Game modification; 11.) Third battle; 12.) Child custody hearing; 13.) Humanz Brother ( Ludacris ); 14.) Vodka; 15.) Fourth battle; 16.) The news; 17.) Angie ( Amber Valletta ) and Kable; 18.) The rave; 19,) Interrogation room; 20.) Anti-spyware program; 21.) Tech support; 22.) Crucial flashback; 23.) Simon's game room; 24.) Kastle's home; and 25.) Reason for Nanex.
audience reaction: Average, on the whole.
recommendation: This is just a typical and senseless action movie. It was just a so-so movie experience for me. You may or may not like this movie at all.
spoiler alert! The truck that Kable did his MacGyver-inspired "improvisation" on is one that has a typical ( approximate ) 15-mile city mpg ( a gallon is 128 ounces ). With the amount that he put in the gas tank (assuming that he put in 16 ounces [450 ml bottle]--it was more like 12 ounces [350 ml bottle ] --and knowing that not all of it went into the tank ), he would just have gotten a one-mile use out of it, At The Most--but he couldn't have gotten even that far because of his hard accelerations, decelerations and hard stops! As they were racing through the city on a motorbike, Kable's jacket's hood didn't come off even though he didn't tie it down. Why was the previously "stringless", "strung" in a deciding battle, as Kable, himself, pointed out? Can anybody in the actual world really come up with a game that kills ( i.e. murders ) innocent bystanders and get away with such an heinous crime? Why was the P.O.V. camera-work jerky and/or fast-paced except when in those scenes where it focused-in on Angie's crotch? Don't get me wrong, I liked her crotch! But the rest of the movie suffered for it by a lot!
fyi: One of my friend's sons went to automotive school in Phoenix, Arizona. One day, just to prove a point, the instructor had the tank of a test engine emptied out. Next, the instructor put in Dr. Pepper and started the engine. Supposedly, it ran on this, according to my friend's son. I'm not sure whether or not he was just "pulling my leg" on this story. I'm just telling you what he told me, that's all.
word of advice: You can't get away with murder. Sooner or later, it's gonna catch up with you.
"Live by the sword, die by the sword." ( Matthew 26:52 )
tidbits: When I exited the cinema, I saw a man parking his yellow Honda Reflex motor scooter. I went over to him and chatted him up a bit about his scooter. I didn't know that the 250cc Reflex can reach a speed of 90 mph, albeit inadvisable.
Next, I went to Postal Annex to see if a package of meditation CDs has arrived for me. My box was empty because, as it turned out, some idiot addressed the package wrong. So, now, the sender is putting a trace on it to know its whereabouts. And I was so hoping that the package had arrived because I was planning on doing an eight-hour marathon meditation with it and another set which I've used for six years running because I have a hunch that both sets will produce a synergistic effect on me. But I guess Fate has a different plan in mind.
