Most people enjoy video games. I know I do. Since I got my XBOX 360, I've been devoting a great deal of my time to HALO 3 on XBOX LIVE, time that I should be spending being more social. But in this dark and disturbing vision of the future, the world of online gaming pretty much destroys our moral judgement. I was going to play HALO 3 after I saw this movie and I don't think I want to play video games for a week.

This is Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor's third film together, their first two being the ridiculous but fun CRANK and it's way-over-the-top-but-so-much-fun sequel, and I have to say that it's a lot of fun. This one could take place in the same universe as those movies. This movie is a combination of last summers DEATH RACE and Arnold Schwarzenegger's THE RUNNING MAN. Here, we have Gerard Butler who hasn't kicked this much ass since 300. He plays Kable, a convict who participates in the deadly game of SLAYERS where he is controlled by a gamer, played by Logan Lerman. Kable is close to winning his freedom but Ken Castle, played by DEXTER's Michael C. Hall, is in no position to allow that to happen.

This movie works not only as a fun action film, but also as a social commentary on online gaming and how far it can go. There are some really disturbing scenes where a gamer controls a woman to go around places and have sexual encounters with people. It's scary to think that one of those people who spends the day sitting in a chair in front of 6 flatscreens will watch this movie on some website and see those scenes and have the desire to control real people to do whatever they want. The thought of it sickens me. Also, the fact that human beings no longer have any sense of morality makes this more disturbing.

Aside from all of these aspects of the film, the action scenes deliver. The scenes are really flashy and edited in a frenetic style but I'm not criticizing the film. I really dig Neveldine/Taylor's direction here as I did with CRANK and CRANK 2. These guys are really good at making something for a small amount of money and still making it kickass. The film looks amazing as well. I really bought into this world and it's amazing to see that being

This movie does have it flaws of course, but no one should go into this to expect a great piece of science fiction. I think that it's worth seeing in the theater but only if you watched the ads and really want to see it. Overall, it's a great rental and definitely worth check out on BLU-RAY. It's not as fun as CRANK 2 was, nor was it as ridiculous and over the top, but it's pure adrenaline fun. It's nice to see that Neveldine/Taylor have tried to do something different from the CRANK movies. They don't have just one card trick to show us. I am really looking forward to seeing what these guys try to do next. I also curious to see what these guys would do with a really big budget.

Rating: MATINEE