5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome concept somewhat hampered by low budget..., May 7, 2007
Gamebox 1.0 (originally titled Game Over) is NOT a horror movie as the cover art implies. It is actually a very family friendly PG-13 sci-fi/action adventure movie involving a guy who gets sucked into a virtual reality video game where if he dies in the game, he dies in real life.
This movie was made with a $200,000 budget, which is pretty impressive considering what the final product ended up looking like. The first half of the movie, in which our hero is in a Grand Theft Auto-esque virtual world, looks wonderful. The computer generated background is rich in detail and full of eye candy. Once the movie shifts gears, and the characters end up in the next two games (ZombieLand and Alien Planet), the special effects are much less impressive, which was a bit disappointing. It would be great if they would remake this movie with a "movie theater quality" budget!
With that being said, the movie goes by very quickly and holds your interest. The story is fascinating, and, unlike a lot of movies I have seen recently, the ending is actually very good and extremely satisfying. This is a great movie for tweenage boys (8-12), especially ones that are into video games. There is very little swearing, and all the violence is very toned down, such as when someone gets shot in the video game, there is just like a small smoking hole in their shirt and no blood. I'm pretty picky about what our 10 and 11 year olds watch, but after screening this, I had no qualms about letting them see it; I knew it would be right up their alley, and they did love it!
If this sounds like something you would be remotely interested in, check it out. Oh, and if you want to see how they did the special effects, check out some of the behind the scenes footage in the special features. It's actually pretty cool! Highly recommended!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Friday Night Line Up, February 25, 2008
I found the special features on this movie to be very interesting. It shows how the movie was created mostly on green screen. It also explains how they created a look to the movie that was mixed between film and video game. All this was done on a very low budget. That's great! Also, I believe it is great for the younger audience as well. The two main characters are from the old ABC Friday Nite Line Up. Nate Richert was Harvey on Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Danielle Fishel was Topenga on Boy Meets World. These two actors together make for a very entertaining family movie. No guts, no gore......... just interesting concepts in movie creation. Don't miss the special features section on the video.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
It's Ok, June 1, 2007
It's got its moments. Not to bad for a low budget film. Feels almost like it's from the 80s. It looks kind of crummy but I think it was intentional to give the feel of it being in a video game. It's an ok rental, think twice about actually buying. And it's definately better than most other low budget films such as Raptor Island (A very crappy movie).
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