Mini Review - RPG

OK, this is blind mini review. I have never seen this movie prior to this review. This is Real-Playing Game (RPG)

A Portuguese science fiction movie, seems to be another passion project, that of Tino Navarro and made for $500,000. Oh boy, we could be in for something bad here. It holds a 4.8 rating on IMDb but the vast majority of reviews on the site are negative. Still, I only paid £1 for this so… here we go.

Actually, not bad, not too bad.

Steve Battier, suffering from a fatal illness is desperate to be young again, he takes a chance on a game. He is placed in the mind of a young man in a simulation game with 9 others. Every hour at least one of them will die and only one will come out alive.

It’s a take on a dystopian horror/action genre that’s been popularised by the likes of the Hunger Games and Maze Runner. And recent experience with movies like Andron tell me that there are far worse movies out there than RPG

The idea is unique and it’s played out pretty well but what’s important here is that the ambition doesn’t outstrip its minimal budget. For the majority of the movie, you’re in 1 location with 10 actors, the only real expense after that are some admittedly cheap-looking holograms. Rutger Hauer is really only there for name recognition as he’s really in the film for about 20 minutes.

The acting is ok… It’s nothing to write home about but I didn’t cringe every time I heard a line, like something like Genesis 7 (see Diamanda Hagan’s reviews). The guy who briefly plays a villain before his demise was funny in his over-the-topness

That’s not to say there aren’t problems. I think some of the identities are a little too predictable, the Asian guy is Asian, the guy with the Russian accent is Russian and the princess is the last woman standing. They said at the beginning that not everyone chose the right genders and whilst it’s a question that pops up after the 1 male in a female body is revealed, nothing further is done with it. I also think it may have worked better from an audience perspective if we didn’t know early on who Steve’s alter-ego was.

There’s also the fact that, whilst they're in the bodies of younger actors, they act like younger characters, sure there are hints of their characteristics which is used as the hints to determine their identities but they all act like young adults, with sex, kissing, lesbian kissing and stuff that largely provokes the R-rating. They should act like they have a little more life experience than this.

The ending had me a little confused. Sorry to spoil but I think from what I understand the whole thing was a con and Steve is still in his dying original body, and looking worse???

Still, for a movie produced with a budget that small, I think something a lot worse could’ve come from it.

Rating 60/100