(MENAFN- Arab Times) 'Have you learned nothing from video games?' asks one
character during a momentary lull from noisy mayhem in 'Guns Akimbo'. It's the
wrong question for this movie, whose makers have clearly learned from little
else. Those wanting to kiss a few brain cells goodbye may enjoy this bombastic,
crassly jokey action cartoon with Daniel Radcliffe as a dweeb who finds himself
unpleasantly designated a new player in the unsimulated kill-or-die game he's
been watching online.
Jason Lei Howden's Kiwi-German co-production should do a bit
better than last year's vaguely similar 'Nekrotronic', but it still seems
primarily a streaming item.
Radcliffe's Miles is a stereotypical 21st-century nerd living
alone in an action-figure-crammed flat, whose only girlfriend is the ex he's
still stuck on (Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Nova), and who's bullied by a frat-bro
boss at his job working for a company that specializes in cheesy video games
for kids. His major emotional outlet is watching the notorious 'Skizm', a
real-life 'death match' between a rolling cast of 'weirdos and criminals', shot
live by drones, followed by a growing audience of vicarious-thrill seekers. The
reigning champion is Nix (Samara Weaving), a Harley Quinn type who's played a
major role in racking up the numerous fatalities to date that have police
frantic to stop this public bloodbath.
Miles gets into the roid-raging spirit of the thing by
applauding each bullet-riddled kill, while sparring with equally bloodthirsty
trolls who clamber online to gloat. His bravado behind the safety of a keyboard
attracts the wrong kind of attention, so that one day he finds several Mad Max
rejects breaking down his apartment door to smack him around. Once he regains
consciousness, he discovers major weaponry has been painfully bolted to his
hands – rendering them extremely awkward for anything else, such as opening a
door or having a wee – and that he's the new opponent of highly lethal Nix.
Hyperactive
The rest of hyperactive 'Guns Akimbo' is pretty much all
bang, splat and boom, a nonstop chase with frequent gaming and text-messaging
graphics onscreen further heightening the resemblance to 'Grand Theft Auto' and
similar games. There's also wall-to-wall, on-the-nose oldies filling in any
audio space not occupied by Enis Rotthoff's thumping techno score.
This is all meant to be a commentary on
the rise of dehumanizing spectacle in the internet age, but of course the
problem is that 'Guns' is exactly what it's satirizing. When the alleged satire
is as broad and dependent on crass quips as it is here, you very much have a
case of pot accusing kettle. An intended joke here is seeing a violent game
junkie like Miles thrown into real, messy peril. Yet the action here is often
every bit as ludicrously over-the-top as it would be in the fantasy context of
any pure popcorn movie. Howden's prior feature 'Deathgasm' was a gory horror
comedy that similarly mixed high energy with lowbrow humor to eventually
wearying effect. But if its script soon ran out of ideas, that film still had a
handmade likability that gets lost in this much more elaborate, impersonal
pileup of incessant stunt-work and effects.
Providing some point of identification is Radcliffe, an
adventuresome talent who throws himself into the role's physicality, and flexes
comic chops whenever he can. But he usually has more discerning choice in
vehicles. It's disappointing to see him turn action hero in a juvenile toy of a
movie geared toward viewers whose imaginations were probably more active back
when they were reading 'Harry Potter'. This part could have been played by any
young Hollywood turk, particularly since he and nearly all other principal cast
members speak with American accents. (Though shot in Munich and Auckland, the
movie is set in a fictional metropolis.)
Weaving capably plays not so much a character as a familiar
poster image – Chick With Uzi – while Ned Dennehy is more strenuously
uninspired as Ricktor, the chrome-domed, heavily-tattooed main villain. The
film's tech and design personnel all contribute polished work, yet the movie
somehow doesn't feel like it has unifying style so much as a whole lot of
every-which-way stimulus. Except, you know, the thinky kind.
Also:
LOS ANGELES: The upcoming 'Ghostbuster' sequel will
focus on the descendants of the original ghost-catchers who rushed around New York City in proton packs and jumpsuits.
Ivan Reitman and Dan Aykroyd revealed details of the new film,
saying it is expected out next year and will star Paul Rudd , Finn Wolfhard , Carrie Coon and McKenna Grace . Reitman directed the original 1984
film and Aykroyd co-wrote and co-starred in it. Reitman's son, Jason , is directing the new movie.
'I think it's a wonderful story because people seem to
continue to be interested in 35 years after we came out with the first one. And
I think we're trying to expand it a little bit. And I think Jason's movie does
that,' Ivan Reitman said Thursday. 'This is a story about a family.'
Both men were at Universal Studios Hollywood, where they were
promoting a 'Ghostbusters'-themed 'Halloween Horror Nights' maze attraction.
The franchise was last revived in 2016 with a group of four
actresses – Melissa McCarthy , Kristen
Wiig , Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones – taking over as the title
characters, a gender reversal from the original.
Aykroyd, who is a producer along with Reitman on the new
'Ghostbusters', praised the 2016 film but said it was time to hand off the
mantle 'to a new generation'. (Agencies)
'Although the girls' movie kept the concept and the ideas
alive – and it was really good, they were great in it – it wasn't like giving
it to the new generation, the actual descendants of the original Ghostbusters.
So we're going to link to the DNA old and new there,' he said. (Agencies)
By Dennis Harvey
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