Gamer (2009, USA)

I'm apparently on something of a Neveldine/Taylor (seriously, guys?) streak. After finally seeing Crank earlier this week, I decided to queue up Gamer on the recollection that it wasn't supposed to be quite as stupid as it seems on the surface. Aaaaand . . . entertaining, yes. Especially in the first half. But, unlike Crank, the duo doesn't give itself a finite playground upon which to wreak its mayhem - in Crank, Statham's Chev Chelios must fight his battles in near-real time, within a limited number of Los Angeles neighborhoods. But with the blank slate of techno science fiction, Gamer loses all sense of relativity. I'm not asking for realism here - the most entertaining aspect of Crank was how batshit crazy it was - but when point A doesn't meet point B, and doesn't even seem to exist on the same plane of existence of point C, the whole exercise seems futile. Gamer is an excellent example of a movie making shit up as it goes along - almost as if they shot it in sequence - but the rule changes are arbitrary and ultimately pointless. However, totally worth it for Michael C. Hall's puppet dance. Seriously. That was awesome.