If you've seen The Running Man, then you have the basic premise of Gamer. Audiences everywhere are voyeuristically living other lives through their "avatars." In one game, Society, the avatars allow someone else to control their actions for pay, like prostitutes, but in the second game from the billionaire creator, Castle (Michael Hall), death row inmates are pitted against each other in Slayers. Given that Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Val Kilmer tried this in Hardwired and didn't quite pull it off, the main competition for Gamer is Surrogates, which actually releases on DVD a week later.

Having seen both movies, I can easily tell you that this R-rated version is much more brutal in terms of violence and sex. The virtuality that the writers of Crank (if that tells you anything about what you'll be subjected to) means that sex, violence, even drinking a Coke is objectified and boiled down until there is next to nothing about being human that makes us real at all. The Humanz, led by Ludacris' Humanz Brother, battles in the underground against the nannite control that Castle proposes, and of course, there's the central figure Kable (Gerard Butler) that everyone is fighting over.

The plot follows a Running Man-The Condemned-Hardwired-Death Racestoryline (even while dealing with the sentiments of Surrogates), as we see overweight neurotics manipulating people across genders and age, like online pedophiles presenting themselves as little children. Granted Hall's Castle is sick and demented, and the exploitative nature of video gamers finding perverse pleasure in games like Grand Theft Auto is magnified. But quite honestly, it was so sickening, it was hardly enjoyable. Seriously, if you agree with the sentiment that the movie proposes, that we're overrun by violence, illicit sex, greed, and salesmanship, then how can you enjoy a movie that rocks you with it?

In the end, though, this is the story of a father's love, and the way that Kable goes relentlessly into battle to free his family from the exploitation around them. It's a reminder to live lives of truth and wholesomeness, and to surround yourself with beauty and truth. And sometimes, it means turning off the television or ignoring that DVD. Is this one you should be ignoring? That's up to you to decide. We all have choices, and we each need to know ourselves well enough to make that call.