Gamebox 1.0 (2004)

I love this movie so much

Just what I expected

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

OK So I watched this on NETFLIX and didn't expect to get more than 10 minutes into it before shutting it down, but I immediately related to the lead character. This film obviously had no budget but still it grabbed me and I couldn't turn away from it. The storyline was really quite good and kept moving. I would LOVE to see GAMEBOX 2.0 with something like a $30,000,000.00 budget. Some great CGI ala Avatar. Some of todays video game effects and of course some SEX and EXPLOSIONS! Wow, this could easily become the new franchise line of films done correctly, right up to GAMEBOX 13.0. Seriously, SAW has grown old, Friday the 13th, Halloween and Freddy are done and in remakes. I really wish some exec with a ton of cash sees the promise of this film.

People come into movies with expectations. If you're expecting a thought-provoking drama, you won't be happy if the movie's a hokey musical. My advice? Don't go into a movie expecting the exact same thing you've always seen. I don't know what the budget was for Gamebox 1.0, but from what I can tell it certainly wasn't a "major motion picture." That being said, I think this was a lot more entertaining than people are giving it credit for. Starting off it was a little rickety. I didn't know what to make of the protagonist, but as the story went on and they developed his character it was a fun story to follow. I think the reason this movie won't appeal to everyone is the fact that it is what it promises. If you've ever played a relatively recent RPG or shooter, the game-scenes in the movie are like actual video game cut-scenes. It's an interesting idea -- not necessarily completely original, but certainly well executed. It was a journey for the main character and a way for him to grow, and the story only got more entertaining as it went along. I thought the ending was good. Each aspect of the film fit in neatly to make it so. People were probably put off by the simplicity or the unrealistic nature, but it comes back to going in with the right expectations. You don't play a video game to explore moral ambiguity or some deep, profound ideal. Don't go into a film that's supposed to be modeled after a video game expecting something like that.

Well, the first thing I saw after looking at the DVD box was "Best Screenplay" and thought this would be a good rental. WOW, was I mistaken! I'm sure at one time there was a good movie in here, but after the incredibly poor acting and "video game" production values, this ends up looking like Tron's retarded half-brother. The first scene sets up the overall atmosphere of the entire movie. Five minutes into it, you'll be asking yourself, "What the Hell am i watching?", and it will just snowball from there. An awful soundtrack that makes every song sound like Rob Zombie's "Dragula" rounds out this miserable piece of crap into a laughably bad movie. On a side note, #3 most romantic quote in a movie - "I think you're the final destination."

Gamebox 1.0 has nobody in that you've seen before except Danielle Fishel and no one I know has heard about it except me. I saw a sneak screening in Hollywood with people off the street who also didn't know it existed. All that said, it's the best movie I've seen this year. The lead actor is a guy whose girlfriend got killed by a crooked cop. He's a miserable wreck doing nothing with his life except mope and watch old videos of her. Then he ends up with a video game that somehow sucks you into another world. (I'm not clear on how or why he gets the game. That could have been made clearer.) He ends up meeting his dead ex in the other world and the cop who killed her is now an evil gangster trying to kill him. Everything is clever and well thought out and people were crying at the end. I don't know if it's going into the theaters or coming out in blockbuster but you're getting your money's worth either way.