Metacritic reviews

The trouble with Gamer is that it’s weird, but not weird enough for the long haul.

The audience gets played in Gamer. This latest eye-scraper from writer-directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor is as hopped up as their "Crank" pics, but with dour Gerard Butler as a soldier commandeered by a teenage gamer, it's considerably less interactive.

The technical barrage of visual and digital effects, quick cuts and strobe lighting does produce something akin to the sensation of playing a video game. So why, one wonders, don't potential viewers simply play one instead of watching this pale imitation?

I wonder if Gamer might make a good game; it certainly doesn't make a good movie.

For long stretches of the PlayStation-minded Gamer, the action does drag.

Rarely have the words "game over" come as such sweet relief.

As the brutish Kable, Gerard Butler must find out who's pulling his strings, but it's the audience whose chain gets yanked by this headache-inducing techno-violent mishmash.

What the movie needs more than anything else is a fast-forward button.

Directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor were responsible for the delirious "Crank" and "Crank 2" but left the magic behind when they threw together this tedious mash-up of "Tron," "Rollerball," "The Matrix," etc.

A futuristic vomitorium of bosoms and bullets.