Reviews

The story is a fairly by the numbers mafia drama in terms of structure but,it is very well executed. The sense of high stakes is always present trough the whole film, every action has a consequence. As the script has no unnecessary filler plots, it keeps the story moving at a prefect pace.

The main themes of the movie are brotherhood and revenge, and even if the characters ar not too deep, you get to know them enough to care for them in dangerous situations and you feel some empathy for the main character in his struggle ro fit into a violent world that does not treat him as an equal Nick is not a hero or a good person at all but he shows enough principles for the audience to understand his perspective.

Is this movie unique? Not at all but it more than a time waster that deserves your attention.

The debate about the effects of violent video-games on people had existed long before GTA (when Mortal Kombat was released it was the first time I personally heard about it) but, with GTA something changed that made the debate much more heated and aggressive. Conservatives all over the world were open arms about how these evil games were turning the children into potential killing machines. Jack Thompson although not the only one, was the more well known among these people.

The movie starts one day after the release of Vice City and spans across all the creative process and release of San Andreas. Within set time frames two plot lines are follow, the legal battle between Thompson and Rockstar, and the development of San Andreas. These plot lines flow nicely and never feel too slow-paced.

I was surprised at how balanced the film was, it does not takes any sides and does not portray Thompson as just an asshole, it shows a man who believes he is doing the right thing (whether or not is truly the right thing is for us to decide) And although this story does have objectively a winner at the end, the effort of presenting the event fairly and not in a one sided manner is something to applaud for.

Daniel Radcliffe is good as Houser. I cannot say it is a remarkable performance. The same goes for Paxton's character although he projects a lot more energy into the role but, that has to do more with the way the character is written than anything else the supporting cast does the job but, there is no one particularly memorable.

The influence of The Social Network in this movie cannot be denied and its one of the reason some people have criticized this film strongly, stating that is just a carbon copy of it is not. The influences are present in the tone of the movie but, saying it is a carbon copy of David Fincher's film is more than a stretch.

All things considered, The Gamechangers is an entertaining TV movie about a controversial subject which remains still. I doubt it will be a classic by any means but, it does the job of telling the story in a fun an effective manner.

The first Rampage was a shocker for most people because of its crude violence, as we rarely see these days and was a wind of fresh air for those of us who are tired of a movie industry that is too afraid of doing anything remotely controversial.

Rampage 2 succeeds because it doesn't take the easy route, which will be just to replicate all we already saw in the first movie. Here,we have less killings, but in exchange of that, we are taken into a ride where the main character explain why he thinks that this society is rotten to the core and must be cleansed. Bill essentially deems every political party and corporation as responsible for the injustice in the world. Topics as censorship, corruption, religion and invasion of privacy are constantly brought up by the main character as prime examples of how decadent the society is in his eyes.

Regarding the action scenes, they are more or less on the same level that we saw on the original, nobody should expect anything new or ground breaking on this department, but hey, why fix what's not broken is just more of the same but the death toll in this movie is not even close to the one on the first one, mainly because in this movie take place inside a T.V station and is a hostages situation, not a killing spree out in the open.

If you are interested on the character's motivations for his extreme actions, peppered with some good shooting segments, I think you will enjoy this movie, but if you expect a carnage just as big or bigger than the one on Rampage 1, you better start looking for another movie to quench your thirst of blood.