#38 - The Games Maker

What do you think of when you hear a title like that? I think of creativeness above all else. Too bad this movie really doesn’t do it for me. The Gamesmaker was released in 2014 and has 40% rotten tomatoes rating with a 47% with audiences.

We have another Signature one here, man do they keep cropping up. Such gems as Debug, Norm of the North, Kung Fu Rabbit, Barely Lethal, Robot Overlords, Time Runners (coming next year), and a fair few others owe their existence to signature. I don’t know whether to send them flowers or a hand-grenade, although I’m veering toward the hand-grenade.

But their last movie with a child protagonist, Robot Overlords was my favourite of the ones I’ve watched. (I’ve seen enough of Norm of the North to know it’s my least favourite – might’ve made my top 10 if it were last year) so without further ado, let’s give them a shot.

After a lecture about games interrupting what are actually creative-looking credits we find some people playing a game called ‘The life of Ivan Drago.’ This is used as a framing device for the movie. How is someone’s (who’s presumably dead at the time) life equitable to a board game? You make choices in a game, in a biographical game, how the f*ck could that work? The choices were already made.

We actually open the movie at the funfair, Ivan’s 10^th birthday. He’s not exactly having fun, ungrateful pr*ck. He decides to try out an archery stall where board games are the prizes, despite his father’s objection of ‘we don’t play games...’ Someone has deep seeded issues and should see a psychologist immediately. Anyway, he misses all his shots but the stall keeper decides he doesn’t want to break even today and gives Ivan a comic.

Inside he finds a competition for the creation of a board game. Prizes to the winner. Given the look of the comic I’d say it was from too long ago to enter now, this is pointed out later by the way, but he enters now anyway. How can someone who’s never played a board game before be so good at creating them?

His idea is creative I guess but if you’re drawing in each square when you play, wouldn’t that ruin the board, or would you have to use a pad of them and eventually run out? The mother hides this from his father. The only interesting thing about him is he’s played by Tom Cavanagh, aka the only good thing about the Flash at the moment.

So he sends off his competition and after a stupid transition we cut back to Ivan receiving a letter saying he was among the top 10,000 applicants. You know, the best-selling comics at the moment regularly sell at most 150,000 units, with no indication of what the prize actually is, I’d be surprised if 10,000 actually entered the competition at all.

Anyway, to proceed further he needs to invent another game, inspired by the suggestion that the competition may go on forever, he comes up with the endless wrestling game. If a game is endless, how do you know who wins? And how do you do intricate wresting moves on a f*cking board game? So he devises teams of wrestling figurines which he has now and says a load of wrestling moves which I still can’t tell how they relate to the figurines.

His father was worried about it and tries to force upon physical activities. You know, you’re not a very attentive father, are you? Anyway, he comes up with another game based on a disastrous bike ride, a game they never see fit to show us, by the way, and he’s now in the top 100 entrants. Thanks to some games based on sports they don’t show us either, he’s whittled down to the top 10.

His final entry is yet another one we don’t see, based on his father’s passion for hot air ballooning and around the world in 80 days. He’s officially declared the winner. A guy who has never played a board game won a competition to design them. Just let that sink in.

The prize is… a tattoo. He puts it on and finds it won’t come off. His father eventually sees it and says ‘you have no idea what that symbol means’ – then explain you tw*tty moron! His mother had broken her promise not to tell out of worry. Lady, it’s a tattoo, not even that big a one, why were you worried?

With a ‘sinister premonition’ Ivan’s father rings his father, and shows Ivan a projection (waking him up in the middle of the night – d*ck) showing that his father was a games-maker. He cut all ties with his father and the world of games to protect Ivan from vague plot stuff that STILL DOESN’T EXPLAIN!

And aren’t you just enthralled with the creative characters we’ve seen so far. We have the stickler father, the rebellious imaginative child and the mother, whose purpose is yet to be defined. CREATIVE!!!

After a balloon race, his father promises to take Ivan to see his Grandfather. Ivan writes an apology to his mother and we all know where this is going…

Yup, the balloon veers off course and the parents go missing. Hope you enjoyed Tom Cavanagh, you won’t be seeing him for a while.

Ivan is sent to a boarding school named Possum, a sinking school built on a swamp that somehow hasn’t been shut down years ago. So we’ve gone to house where fun isn’t allowed to boarding school where fun isn’t allowed. Variety! Speaking of which, isn’t a boarding school kinda expensive? Don’t know where this is set so it’s hard to tell whether or not this is even practical.

So here we have Principal Possum, an assistant named Frau Blum and some other people. He’s taken to a class and judging by what I’m seeing on the blackboard he’s way too young to be learning it. Seriously do you learn Calculus at aged 12 at… wherever the f*ck this story is supposed to take place?

OK, this is really bugging me. Principal Possum then says that not everyone is lucky enough to have parents with the means of sending them here. So why the f*ck would (presumably United States since we don’t use the word Principle in the UK) send him here? One of the kids spots the tattoo and asks about it and gets told off for it. Let me guess, he’ll be the stock bully for the remainder of this set piece. And he promises that Ivan will pay for this… Yeah, he’s the stock bully. DO SOMETHING CREATIVE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

Ivan spots 2 kids playing a game that looks eerily similar to his wrestling one. Well, no sh*t, you submitted designs to a game company, probably signing a contract saying they could use those designs for actual products. Hell, under most circumstances, the development of an idea into an actual game would be the first prize.

So he shows them a few tricks about playing the game. But is soon attacked by the stock bully, who notices the tattoo bears a slight similarity to the logos on his cards and is prepared to saw his f*cking hand off to get to it. Kid, you’re a f*cking psychopath. Fortunately, Ivan is saved by the bell. He’s shown to his living quarters and left to look at a photo with him and his parents.

He hears someone calling to him, a girl’s voice. Turns out Ivan is the only kid that boards at the school. This school is looking less economically viable by the second! Well, the only kid apart from this girl, who’s a secret or something. Her parents are actually dead, killed in a car accident. Gee, can’t you see the imagination and originality bleeding out of this?

The stock bully apparently made some kind of deal with the Principal regarding games and I don’t care… Frau Blum comes in to investigate the noise. OK, where are you sleeping? Serious question. He’s sleeping in a big dormitory and he’s alone, he’s not even near the front walls. And he’s not shouting either, how did you hear him?

OK, he wants to escape and head to Zyl, where his grandfather lives because only there can he get answers about the tattoo and his parents. The tattoo, probably, but why do you think he’d know anything about your parents? They were lost on a balloon, not taken away in a van marked with the same logo. This is going to be a consistent problem with this story. He has no reason to believe there’s some conspiracy at work regarding his parents and yet until he finds out for certain that there is one (and there is) he acts as if there must be. Again, lost on a balloon, not kidnapped or murdered, lost on a balloon.

A week later (glad we didn’t miss anything, certain those calculus classes were fun, and clearly what’s his face didn’t find a saw) he’s accused of being a plague upon their institution because the kids are having more fun. SHOW DON'T TELL! Also, you couldn’t make the Principal any more a stock villain if you tried. He’s sentenced to permanent grounding for such heinous acts and… I have no f*cking clue what that even means in regards to the school.

And in case you thought I wasn’t serious when I said the school bully was going to cut off his arm, he finds a piece of paper on his desk which shows his arm being cut off. Oi, Principr*ck Possum, your school is home to a bunch of psychos, stop playing possum and sort them out before you start stopping kids from having fun.

He sees a finger through a hole in a portrait, which tells him to come over. He asks to use the loo and leaves the classroom. Which he’s somehow locked out of as the bully brigade come (the head bully had received an infection trying to replicate the tattoo) fortunately the girl saves him and takes him via secret passage to her room. She’d apparently seen the Principal open a letter to him and struggle to assemble a giant jigsaw puzzles, one of Ivan’s grandfather’s specialties. He finishes the puzzle which tells him of a TV channel to tune into at midnight. Of course…

They sneak into the Principal’s office, grab the TV and bring it to some active power, he tunes it to see the right channel, Zyl TV apparently. That’s going to raise some questions later. Anyway, Ivan’s grandfather, Nicholas (good, I was getting tired of calling him anything else) tells him he’s been looking for him since the accident but was turned away from the school because the schools are full of morons, bullies and stock villains because this show really hasn’t a creative bone in its entire f*cking body! Or at least thus far.

So he decided to leave this exceptionally complicated riddle that could easily have been caught if Principal Possum could assemble a jigsaw. They head down to the library, which is a bit flooded. Just a bit though, wouldn’t want our protagonists getting their feet wet. They’re looking for whatever it is that’s sinking the school so they can kick it a bit and close the school down to facilitate his escape. Gee, it’s almost like a sinking school is a bad idea or something.

They find a book with the blueprints of the school (convenient) but run from the splash of a frog. With the blueprints in hand, they begin formulating a plan, passing on invitations to the students to some sort of treasure hunt on a Saturday. OK, wasn’t the school a conventional school, they banned Ivan from weekends, remember, why would anyone go there on a Saturday?

Anyway, with Frau Blum locked away they begin their plan. And the girl upstages him whilst he’s giving out instructions. You had one job! It’s some sort of scavenger hunt but as Ivan prepares to make his escape, the stock bullies confront him, and they have a saw now. Fortunately, he manages to escape before the school sinks and makes his leave. Fortunately, everyone makes it out of the building alive, conveniently.

Ivan arrives at the train as the girl decides to head to her aunt she’d previously run away from as Ivan heads away on the train with a ticket he suddenly has now. The conductor warns him that few people get off the train at Zyl. The conductor also gives him a comic that was lost property, not sure he can do that but whatever. It’s the same comic he got when he started but it now hosts an ad for a tour of the Profound Games Company, which carries the same logo as his tattoo.

*Sigh* they’re the villains, aren’t they? So, Ivan arrives at Zyl so half the movie being nothing but filler, we can have some plot, right? He’s picked up by the two stooges Knight and Bishop aka the Checkmates. Turns out Zyl is a bit run down and deserted because of course it is. So why do they have an expensive television network?

Anyway, Ivan finally meets Nicholas and maybe now we can get an explanation for the ominous tattoo? Nope, just more conspiracy theories about Ivan’s parents and that maybe the comic means something… No, I don’t get it, at all. So after a discussion about how strategy can help you win the day even if the odds are against you demonstrated via a board game (yeah, they confirm here that Ivan’s never played a board game against someone, so I reiterate again, how is he so good at it?!) Ivan continues to try and convince me that he has a reason to believe the Tattoo is linked to his parents.

No, he doesn’t! And it’s rather frustrating as an audience member to see this. He’s right, so anything at all that could set him on this path would be nice to know! In the next scene he’s all mopy, he thought Nicholas might have answers. AGAIN, THEY WERE NOT KILLED, THEY WERE NOT (to your knowledge) KIDNAPPED, THEY GOT LOST ON A BALLOON, probably from a freak gust of wind! What answers were you expecting him to have?

Anyway, the name Morodian keeps cropping up, Ivan decides a to visit an exhibit called the magic brain to find answers. Nicholas finds evidence of the profound games company, and stops them from using the brain. He takes them to a museum for an exposition dump that finally get the plot moving.

Nicholas took on an apprentice called Morodian but as his games began to get darker he was banished from the town. That is literally the stupidest backstory I’ve ever heard! Anyway, he blames Nicholas because he took the case to the brain who agreed with banishment and he stole the missing piece and that’s the metaphor for the abandonment of the town. Ivan says he needs to find Morodian to find out what happens to his parents. SERIOUSLY, WRITERS, EVEN NOW HE HAS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THE INCIDENTS ARE CONNECTED! This is madness, insanity, he should be locked up in a mental ward. And just because he’s proven right doesn’t change a damn thing!

He finds his way to the free bus to the profound games company. He’s dropped off there and heads in, after the relevant paperwork (was that supposed to be a joke, it’s not funny) and he meets a professional Ivan, he suddenly got creepy. The guards are people tied together in cr*ppy costumes. Fake Ivan continues to be creepy in a way I’m not comfortable with.

Ivan meets Morodian or Mr Profundus as he prefers now. He gives them a tour with various games, demonstrating his preference for profit over making anything good, safe or really interesting. Ivan also sees Principal Possum because yes, Mordodian admitted he’s interfered in several stages of his life because f*ck logic and any semblance of common sense. He’s also built a theme park attraction based on the wrestling game and plans to make Ivan’s life a star attraction because… because he’s out of ideas, this is so f*cked up. We also see around the table that the place is full of plants because… because the plot says so.

And even at this point he hasn’t indicated that he’s done anything to Ivan’s parents, although at this point you could at least argue it’s implied. Ivan is knocked out so his knew life can begin in the morning. He wakes up in a replica of his house I think. Man Profoundus is a creepy pr*ck. Ivan runs and finds the balloon, the one his parents were using, or possibly a replica. Profundus takes him to his office where he’ll be able to create games and sign autographs.

Ivan refuses to scribe but he’s shown an aquarium where his parents might be and a show about the invisible girl from the orphanage stuff and he reluctantly stands down. Fake Ivan gives Ivan the casting notes for Ivan, calling him a hero and resourceful. With Fake Ivan’s help he sneaks into the discard area. There he spots a guy mentioned in the briefing who shows him a room dedicated to his life. He asks if Morodian had anything to do with his parents’ disappearance, he replies that the only way to get such answers is from Morodian himself.

Ivan finds a way back to the surface and finds her friend. He promises to rescue her and goes to scribe Morodian’s dreams. He uses the items to scribe the dream revealing he wanted to keep his parents away from him so he could lure him to the company. He gets out his penknife and almost uses it against Morodian, but it’s a PG so don’t worry about it. He instead uses it to steal that puzzle piece he stole, but in doing so set off the alarm and wakes up Morodian. Turns out he was playing the entire time and this was a loyalty test. Or a f*cking stupid test, really.

He rescues his friend and runs into fake Ivan who decides to tag along for some reason. And here is the next time we see Tom Cavanagh. They rescue him, taking out the stock bully from earlier. More guards arrive and that stupid suit has got to be a nightmare for moving. It’s stupid, just like the rest of this movie. They decide their best means of escape is by hot air balloon. I’m just lost for words here. Ivan drops his knife and leaves the balloon and is soon cornered. He fires an arrow with the lost piece to others, proving he’s not such a hopeless shot but it means little.

They take off but manage to come around and Pick Ivan up, delivering a heavy blow to Morodian in the process. He survived, I’m so glad. They blow open the walls and the people are set free, in case you cared. Yeah, the life of Ivan Drago was manufactured in Zyl because of course it was. Zyl regained prosperity and everything lived I feel sickly ever after.

The DVD quote on the box calls this movie. “A wonderful mix of the Wizard of Oz and Harry Potter.” And I suppose it is that mix, if you take out the action, interesting characters, interesting villains, likeable adults, plot, intrigue, suspense, morals and most importantly creativity.

This movie is stupid on so many levels when it’s not being generic and boring, and no part of ‘it was the villain’s plan the entire time’ excuses that!

THIS MOVIE GIVES ME RAGE ISSUES!

Rage Rating 35%

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Images/clips used in this review are from The Games Maker and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use