vchimpanzee
Liberation Force is the biggest selling video game, and William runs the company that makes it. However, he has never played a video game.William gets a mysterious call from someone with a strange-sounding voice asking if he likes to play games.William and wife Melissa are celebrating an anniversary, but he devotes too much time to his job and it's not much of a celebration. Melissa gives William some tea to help him sleep.And William really does sleep. He wakes up late and finds Melissa gone, and a ransom note.Then William finds out what he has to do. He gets a message and a key to his old home office, which has been completely redesigned. He is told he has eight hours to play Liberation Force, starting at 1:00 Mountain Time, and to get his wife back he must win.The cops can do a lot to help William because he is worth billions. The interactive game has many competitors, and the best of these are found. It is hard to make contact with them, but clever ways are found, and this movie turns into a comedy. All the major TV channels around the country run a crawl, like a news bulletin, telling the top competitors what they need to do.Fragmaster is the best, and he lives in Florida. He has responsibilities but manages to get around those. Another competitor is a cop in his town, and the electric utility is asked to help.Knarf37 is a loser living in his mother's basement. Athena is a Duke University student. PappaPooh happens to be home with his kids in Portland, Oregon, which provides many opportunities for laughs. And Master Chief, whose wife is hot and shows up later, is fortunate to get out of the most boring business meeting imaginable, as legalese is being read by a very monotonous voice.At 1:00, the players are ready, and they introduce themselves. William is "Rookie" and knows absolutely nothing, but with no incentive to do so, the other players are happy to help him learn. Everyone has a microphone so their voices can be heard on each screen when the proper steps are taken. William even needs to learn how to do that. And each person is represented by an image on the screen which look somewhat realistic. There are backgrounds showing where our heroes are as they attempt to reach their goal, which is somewhere in Hawaii.A Mr. Lee is also a player, but we never see his real identity. Alien drop ships land and our heroes have to go to Hawaii to do battle. William is not allowed to say why he is playing (if he does he loses), and only later does he offer all the players one million dollars. There are many rules, the most important of which is each player can only die once, and if Rookie dies, everyone dies and the game is lost. But there are many different means of protection available.The action begins, and while we still have comedy, it's not as much a part of the movie as it was. The players all must deal with important decisions and moral dilemmas. The one million dollars, if that is indeed real, certainly provides an incentive, but these players really do care about each other, even though they are all over the country and have never actually met. There are disagreements, but they get resolved. Sacrifices must be made, and the players learn to work together.So will William reach his goal and save Melissa? The actors playing the competitors are really good, and they make us care about them. There are plenty of laughs as well as touching moments.The actress playing Captain Jenkins does a capable job. Her second in command is good for a few laughs.The one major weakness is Bob Rue as William. He seems like he is auditioning for the role, or perhaps reading with the person auditioning for another role. While he has his moments, he should have been told, "Thank you, we'll let you know."The video game art is what I will call video game realistic. Not real realistic, but quite detailed.I have no experience whatsoever with video games of any type, and the closest I have gotten to this type of experience is an episode of "Community". Still, I had a good time.It's quite entertaining.
jahnhenrik
THIS IS GREAT FUN! Not too good actors. Sometimes ( in the beginning) you feel that they are reading directly from the manuscript. They are "stiff" as zombies! And sometimes I was wondering if the director had a day off... The plot is OK. This COULD have been a great one with real players and real directors. Could have been a good SF in fact now that we have "good" tools to make it.... But the mix of "real" and VR? Great for relaxing! Okay -I guess X-Box (Microsoft) payed for the whole shabang, but still! Loved it! :) Maybe a little violent for kids. But as a time killer? Have fun even though it's kind of old. ;)To end this outburst: This is not a great movie. This is not even a "good" movie. This is totally relaxing. Just bare with the first 15 minutes and you will either fall asleep or enjoy. :)
lemon_magic
I spent a fair amount of time on Playstation and Dreamcast and Nintendo 64 in the late 90's and on X-Box in early 2003 or so, so I might be considered part of the target audience for this film. It's not as if I don't understand the conventions of computer games and the way they approach story telling.But let's be honest here - "The Controller" is a horrible misfire. I happened across it one night on a cable channel and was transfixed by the amazingly bad graphics and the awful dialog the actors were forced to mouth.I can't judge whether the actors were actually any good or not because the dialog they had to work with was impossible for any live human being to deliver. Seriously, if you were a writer and tried to pass this for dialog in a cut scene from "Net/Hack" or "Metal Gear Solid" or any other video or computer game from 2008 (or 1998), the game producers would have had you beaten to a pulp.Maybe it's my imagination, but I swear I can see the actors dying inside and hating themselves and each other as they try to make these wretched scenes work.Supposedly this was an independent venture. I tend to believe that, because no real experienced producer would have allowed this thing to be released.
luis-225
It gets a 9 out of 10, comedy, action, the gorgeous Mrs Master Chief, the insane but comic Mr Master Chief and the typical teenager Knarf37 make this film a must for all young at heart. This is a wonderful, fun and interesting movie. Although the primary cast aren't actors as a first profession, they are very natural together and the film flows very well because of it. Don't listen to the comments left on this page by idiots who don't get the film. They have no idea what it takes to produce an independent feature film containing vast amounts of video game imagery. So the plot wasn't full of 'save the world' ambitions and the good guy was a millionaire, can anyone say Bill Gates, but who cares? It was a gorgeous straightforward film about two people who love each other. After hearing about this movie at the Kids First Festival, I was sad I wouldn't get a chance to see it. Luckily it's being shown on the Stars network I just saw it and it's a wonderful movie.
