CAST: A bunch of people who should fire their agents.

IMDB Rating: 3.4/10

BOX OFFICE: $23 million, outgrossing Lucky Number Slevin, 
                       a vastly superior film.

Stay Alive

2006

*

     A group of video gamers (Jon Foster, Samaire Armstrong, Frankie Muniz, Sophia Bush, Jimmi Simpson, and Adam Goldberg) discover a video game that kills you when your character dies after a friend of theirs (Milo Ventimiglia) plays it.  And dies.

     Now, I did not go into this film with high expectations.  I expected it to be predictable, obvious, and stupid.

     But I didn’t think it would manage to be this predictable, obvious, and stupid.  I mean, this film seriously seems to be going for some kind of record in the idiotic department.  Characters do things so ludicrously stupid that it’s impossible to feel anything at all for any of them.

     Not that any of them are well-developed either.  Worse, pretty much all of them might as well be wearing red shirts; within fifteen minutes, you know exactly who’s going to live, who’s going to die, and who’s going to end up in love.  And you’ll be right. (Well, there is a little credit in this department, actually: the fate of one character is uncertain, because he’s clearly either a red shirt guy or the Deus ex Machina; neither is especially good, but I didn’t know which direction it would go)

     Nor is there any suspence, or excitement, or involvement.  It’s boring.

     There are a couple of plusses in the film: the actors are good.  In fact, they’re way better than they have any right to be.  It’s not Oscar-worthy work or anything, but they actually seem to be trying to create characters from the blanks the screenplay gives them.  And Alejandro Martinez’s cinematography is beautiful and stylish.  He does wonders with colors, making parts of the film look like paintings come to life.  Unfortunately, his great work was wasted on a piece of junk.

     No matter whether or not you’re a fan of the genre, you won’t like this film.  Unlike some horror films that are universally disliked by critics and audiences come to like, this does not have a single element in it that makes it worth the entire 85 minutes (was it really only that long?  It felt like about twice as long) it takes to sit through it.