August 22, 2008

Rick Rape sets the record straight on Game

What do you get when you combine Death Race, the Running Man, and fecal matter? The answer might just be this movie.

The game in “Game” — from “Crank” and “Pathology” creators Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor — is a futuristic multiplayer in which you can control other people. Gerard Butler’s, John Leguizamo’s, and Ventimiglia’s characters are forced to play first person games, and are considered just Sim-like avatars by the people who play them, and control their actions remotely, much like you would on a Wii.

The game is watched by millions online, and the players are pop culture heroes. But in the real world, the players are death row prisoners, who hope that playing the game will set them free. If you win 30 games, you’re out (hey, it’s one way to alleviate an overburdened prison system). Butler’s character, John Tillman — who plays under the handle
Kable — is the first person to ever get close to that number.

While Butler’s Kable — who may have been falsely imprisoned — is forced to kill in the game called “Slayerz”, what Ventimiglia’s character does is “a little more disturbing,” as you might guess from his name — Rick Rape. “He’s a very misunderstood character,” Ventimiglia said. “He’s kind of loose and slippery and he doesn’t operate like a regular human being.”

Visually, he should be disturbing as well, Ventimiglia said, since the character wears a latex outfit that makes him look like “a bumblee f—ed a black widow and acts like a snake.” Quite an image.

I was okay with the premise, however absurd and cliche. I was okay with the columnist's obvious classic, non-gamer approach to 'video games', but when an actor descrives his character as “a bumblee f—ed a black widow and acts like a snake,” it's time to realize that there's no hope for the movie. Also, the nick name obviously wasn't doing the movie any service.

MTV

No comments: