As a gamer, I can't say I like this film. Fact is, I down right hate it. I tried to watch it as open minded as possible, but when it gets down to it, it feels rather insulting to my social group.
To me, there are several reasons why.
1. The characters seem unnatural. I've met lots of players, of all different walks of life. I don't know any who act like any of the characters in the film. It's like the producers of the film have taken the worst aspects of the worst stereotypes and put them all into 5 people. Most gamers are rather social people, some with rather active lives.
2. The style doesn't work. The mockumentary style is ill suited to the subject matter of the film. An actual documentary on gamers would actually work better. While it is good looking (I.E. cleanly put together), it isn't very good.
3. The dialogue feels forced, unnatural. It also seems to lack any real world context. Gamers swear, I'll admit that, but we don't have Tourette's Syndrome.
4. The humor is lacking. While self-deprecating humor is a mainstay of my group and several other groups I've encountered, this is less self-deprecation, and more like toilet humor. Likewise, a large part of gamer humor is full of in-jokes and anecdotes, not toilet humor. Most gamers would balk at and shun anybody who made such jokes.
5. The biggest problem to me is basically this: Accuracy. I don't mean rules, but instead dynamics. Invariably, this film is going to be compared to the even lower budget films The Gamers and The Gamers: Dorkness Rising, both of which portray the players as actual people playing an actual game. The difference is, Gamers: The Movie presents a situation where you want to beat the players senseless vs. The Gamers, where you can say something like: "Huh, I know a guy like that... Yep, that's definitely like Gary."
To me, there are several reasons why.
1. The characters seem unnatural. I've met lots of players, of all different walks of life. I don't know any who act like any of the characters in the film. It's like the producers of the film have taken the worst aspects of the worst stereotypes and put them all into 5 people. Most gamers are rather social people, some with rather active lives.
2. The style doesn't work. The mockumentary style is ill suited to the subject matter of the film. An actual documentary on gamers would actually work better. While it is good looking (I.E. cleanly put together), it isn't very good.
3. The dialogue feels forced, unnatural. It also seems to lack any real world context. Gamers swear, I'll admit that, but we don't have Tourette's Syndrome.
4. The humor is lacking. While self-deprecating humor is a mainstay of my group and several other groups I've encountered, this is less self-deprecation, and more like toilet humor. Likewise, a large part of gamer humor is full of in-jokes and anecdotes, not toilet humor. Most gamers would balk at and shun anybody who made such jokes.
5. The biggest problem to me is basically this: Accuracy. I don't mean rules, but instead dynamics. Invariably, this film is going to be compared to the even lower budget films The Gamers and The Gamers: Dorkness Rising, both of which portray the players as actual people playing an actual game. The difference is, Gamers: The Movie presents a situation where you want to beat the players senseless vs. The Gamers, where you can say something like: "Huh, I know a guy like that... Yep, that's definitely like Gary."