Arcade

List Price: $89.95
Buy Used: from $1.88 (click here)
Category: VHS Video
See more movie releases

(Click here)

Product details

VHS Movie Reviews of Arcade

Movie Review: Great Movie
Summary: 5 Stars

Movie Review: shocker!
Summary: 5 Stars

Movie Review: But they dressed her funny
Summary: 3 Stars

Movie Review: The only winning move is not to buy this movie...
Summary: 1 Stars

Plot Synopsis: DeLancie is a software game marketer whose job is on the bubble if he does not market an addictive game soon. He hogties a group of kids into being beta testers for a new untested virtual reality game called "Arcade". The game somehow manages to make the kids literally disappear and "steals thier souls".

The protagonist, (played by Megan Ward) a girl who is having emotional problems due to her mother's suicide (not that it matters), is the first to notice the bizzare effects of the game when she suspects that her boyfriend has disappeared while playing the game (see below). She brings home a portable version of the game and hooks it up to her TV set and the game proceeds to taunt her and calls by her first name. At one point the game calls her a "bit_h" and rants "I AM ARCADE, I AM THE FUTURE" (hysterical laughter).

After finding another friend dead from the effects of the game (she too disappears after death like Yoda), Ward and another friend go to see DeLancie. DeLancie, after about 20 seconds of screen time, then introduces her to the game's designer. Apparently, he does not fully understand the workings of the game and confesses to using human brain cells in the construction of the software (oh...my...God hold me back). Finally, the protagonist realizes that the only way to rescue her disappeared friends is to win the game.

This idea could have worked if excecuted as Sci Fi-proper, or even horror, or even action. However, in trying to toe the line between three genres, the film makes some glaring mistakes.

Primarily, the lack of any semi-viable explanations for the following elements of the movie will make the informed sci-fi grind teeth. First, and foremost, how does the game make people disappear? - C'mon throw me a bone here. Is there some kind "molecular disruption interface" that causes it to consume living matter as well as dead tissue? If so, why bother marketing it as a game when you can make much more selling it to the CIA? Second, how do you incorporate "human brain cells" into a softare program? Perhaps you smash them up with a mortar and pestle and smear them all over your hard drive?

No, in the end, we are expected to believe that the some things are just unexplainable. The program (I suppose because of the brain cells or something) is supernatural. Then, this is NOT Sci Fci.

Three things could heve redeemed this movie. First, thoughtful explanations could have been worked out for the bizarre behavior of "Arcade". Scientific ones. Second, the game itself, could have been more exciting in terms of its special effects. Two levels of the game look like bad versions of that game from the Lawnmower Man. Like the lack of explanations for the plotline the game is also thoughlessly constructed. Finally, I know that DeLancie is a talented writer as well as actor. I'll bet a dollar to a donut that if it the producers of this movie would have given him creative access to the script, he could have probably saved the day.

Movie Review: The Game Wants To Play With You!!!!!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars

Science Fiction & Fantasy Video

• Genres
• Science Fiction & Fantasy - General