Game Over, Man! (2018) - Movie Review

 

Oh goody, another bloody Die Hard clone. After what happened last time with Skyscraper, not to mention how listless so many of the others have been like Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, I should be outright dreading this. There’s only so many ways to do this story properly, and it seems like no-one working today has found any of them.

Or I would be saying that, were it not for the fact that this latest effort was courtesy of Point Grey Pictures, a studio I have come to rely on for some genuinely good comedy. From The Disaster Artist to the Bad Neighbours films, even Blockers from earlier this year, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg sure do know how to back the right productions. And quite honestly, this follows in that pattern.

Coming from a first-time director and writer in the feature-length racket in Kyle Newacheck and Anders Holm respectively, this definitely shows some creativity in both its jokes and its action. It leans on line-a-rama in a lot of scenes, but the exchanges themselves actually land more times than not and the main trio of Holms, Adam Devine and Blake Anderson push this film through even the duller moments.

Of course, between revenge best served with random dude’s ass, a robo-zombie windmill and a seriously fun villain, dull moments are in short supply here. Yeah, on top of everything else, this film is graphic as fuck, with enough blood spray to fill a Yoshihiro Nishimura wet dream and enough male full-frontal to make the surprisingly prominent gay pride moments ring true. It’s amazingly over-the-top in a lot of respects, and while certain elements like Steve Jablonsky’s soundtrack and the main trio’s methodology are reminiscent of video games, this manages to hit that same note of all-out digital assault that made Hardcore Henry so damn fun.

Sure, I could be spending more time discussing those aforementioned gay pride moments, or the bromance writ large in the story, or the occasional jabs at Instagram culture, or even point out that this has not one but two of Point Grey’s finest licensed music picks to date. But that really isn’t necessary here because this film is just that much fun all on its own. I was genuinely worried about this one, between its mediocre reception elsewhere and it still being yet another Die Hard clone, but Point Grey have done it again and pulled through with a fun piece of cinema.