“Have you learned nothing from video games?” asks one character during a momentary lull from noisy mayhem in “Guns Akimbo.” It’s the wrong question for this movie, whose makers have clearly learned…
Daniel Radcliffe, Samara Weaving, Natasha Liu Bodizzo, Ned Dennehy, Grant Bowler, Edwin Wright, Rhys Darby. “Have you learned nothing from video games?” asks one character during a momentary lull from noisy mayhem in “Guns Akimbo.” It’s the wrong question for this movie, whose makers have clearly learned from little else.
Radcliffe’s Miles is a stereotypical 21st-century nerd living alone in an action-figure-crammed flat, whose only girlfriend is the ex he’s still stuck on , and who’s bullied by a frat-bro boss at his job working for a company that specializes in cheesy video games for kids. His major emotional outlet is watching the notorious “Skizm,” a real-life “death match” between a rolling cast of “weirdos and criminals,” shot live by drones, followed by a growing audience of vicarious-thrill seekers.
This is all meant to be a commentary on the rise of dehumanizing spectacle in the internet age, but of course the problem is that “Guns” is exactly what it’s satirizing. When the alleged satire is as broad and dependent on crass quips as it is here, you very much have a case of pot accusing kettle. An intended joke here is seeing a violent game junkie like Miles thrown into real, messy peril.
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