Gamebox 1.0 Review
Starring: Nate Richert, Danielle Fishel, Patrick Kilpatrick
Director: David Hillenbrand, Scott Hillenbrand
Year: 2004
Ah, another movie featured around video games. These are usually very hit or miss, but this one I find more of a hit. The movie is featured around a guy who has buried his life in video games since his girlfriend died and doesn’t seem like likely to change his depressing routine. He is sent a virtual reality game in the mail, and after trying it out he learns the game has a mind of its own, and it seems to want to force Charlie to play to the end, that’s if there is an end. The movie is colorful and has a huge video game feeling when in the game world, that is due to the creators doing everything in their power to mix video game art style into the scenes. From camera angles moving from first-person shooter style and plenty of other camera techniques along side the heavy virtual style to it, there’s enough here for any gamer to say it looks like a video game. The movie’s first half seems to be more in the real world, and the second half in game world. All I know is it flows nicely and switches off when it needed to. I also liked just how the game world worked, as in the functions they gave to the Charlie. Because the game is in his mind, his thoughts and memories were integrated with the surroundings. Also when he felt pain, he really felt pain as it was part of his conscious. He wasn’t given extra strength and he could act with anything around him. There were no limitations, as the game tells him. The game speaks to him during the film multiple times, and has a personality as well as a mind. It seems to fuck with him in all corners it can, but it does seem to have backward moments at times. It feels like it wants him to die, but wants to help him at times, but in the end it doesn’t seem to have a vendetta, and just does its job. But the game is a character, and a good one at that. What I don’t get is why the cover of the movie is a tattered controller when there was never a controller involved in the film except when people were playing video games. But anyway the game itself is a worthy antagonist, and not the only good character. The main characters are good and have good actors. Charlie was always thinking the same as me and did the job every protagonist should use. He was relatable, and with the message of the story his character had a good ending. The game’s resolution I actually really like and had good closure for everybody. The theme, the acting, the story, and much more of the movie just did a really good job, and I’m pretty sure these guys got some inspiration from Tron. Anyway I find this a really underrated movie since I’ve really never heard anyone else talk about it, and I would actually like a sequel even though it’ll never happen. Anyway definitely watch this movie and if you like it add it to your collection like I did.
Gamebox 1.0 gets a 3/5
Spoilers: One thing I liked was in the beginning it showed the person who died from the Gamebox before Charlie played it. At first I thought it was really random and kind of dumb but when I just saw it again now I heard all the little details on the radio, and learned how the kid had internal organs screwed up but nothing penetrated his skin. That I thought actually helped the movie more and the origin of the box was welcome. Also the cop was a very interesting character, and was a complete ass. For his short screen time he killed somebody, tried to sell drugs to the guys girlfriend, beat his ass, then threaten to track him down once he got out of a coma. That is an asshole if I ever saw one, let alone he was a realistic game boss when he was stopping all those bullets. But on a final note I liked this movie, liked the feel good ending with Charlie moving on and even the little aftermath where the cop played the game.
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