Call Up, The

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UK • 2016 • 90m •

• Directed by: Charles Barker. • Starring: Chris Obi, Tom Benedict Knight, Morfydd Clark, Max Deacon, Parker Sawyers, Douggie McMeekin, Dino Fazzani, Ali Cook, Adriana Randall, Greg Kolpakchi, Dave Goshorn, Malcolm Modele, Stuart McNeil. • Music by: Tom Raybould.

A group of online gamers are invited to trial a state-of-the-art virtual reality video game. But things take a turn for the sinister when these master of the shoot 'em up discover they will literally be fighting for their lives.

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Trailer #1

1:47

Trailer #2

2:08

Trailer #3

2:02

Review:

TL;DR: This movie is an awful disaster; maybe barely a step above Christian YouTube cinema. It is an incomprehensible nightmare and I absolutely do not understand why anyone would honestly give it more than one star.

I don't write a lot of reviews, but I often come to this site to check out a user review of two. Based on the most recommended, with 10 out of 10 stars, I was quite hopeful. Abandon hope. That review must have been written by the producer, or whoever invested in this train wreck.

I'm having a hard time trying to figure this movie out. I'm not talking about the plot. I'm talking about the way they seemed to have chosen to spend the bulk of the money they raised on the FX. The actors-- I mean, the actors must have been volunteers. Every scene feels like a first take. The cinematography is equally abysmal. The CGI is really on-point, so it's a strangely confusing experience. Usually all the elements of a movie are somewhat on par with each other. Not in this movie. I have seen YouTube movies with better acting and camera work. It just doesn't fit with the FX and art direction.

OK on to the plot, and I promise no spoilers. Not a single moment is dedicated to the characters' different motivations. They seemed to be written as interchangeable line-delivery vehicles. Not that mysterious characters are necessarily a bad thing, if you write the story in such a way the character's individual stories emerge. None of that ever happens in this movie. I'm not even sure what particular stereotype or cliché you could possibly even attempt to attach to any of the characters in this thing. You can't even call them one-dimensional. They lack almost all dimension entirely. The robots in iRobot have more personality. Literally the most interesting thing about them is how it is possible to do that consistently that bad of a job delivering every line, and every action. The actual story line itself is not at all a terrible premise, it just couldn't have conceivably been executed more poorly.

The acting is so bad, the actors themselves seem to have trouble simply moving from one point in space to another. Literally all of their physical actions seems forced and awkward. I really try not to hate on any actors. Even if they aren't all Oscar-worthy, you can at least detect a measure of professional effort. Not with this group. Maybe the director is such an over-the-top weirdo the actors couldn't get comfortable in their own skin at any point during filming. Either that, or the editor deliberately and maliciously cut together all the worst possible takes. It really is that bad.

This is how I imagine production of this film went: The people who made this movie, except the CGI people, all wake up in a room together. They discover they all have amnesia; no memory of who they are or how they got there. The room is locked and they are trapped. Everything needed to make a movie is there in the room, along with a short note telling them they have 3 days to make a movie about elite gamers in a VR world or they would all be gassed to death. For reference, they are given the box to the first Halo game, a Green Lantern comic and a box of NES light guns. Since they have no memories, they just delegate all the different jobs including acting to whoever is willing to do it. That took two and a half days. In a race against time, they proceeded to use the last twelve hours to make this movie. Then they were freed and the footage given to some top-notch CGI company, then edited by Satan.

The absolute worst part, by far, is the clear lack of consulting from actual gamers. Rest assured no gamers were harmed in the making of this movie. The creators of this "movie" I think may have seen some video of a kid playing Call of Duty at Walmart and decided to make a movie based solely on that. On that note, I don't think they have ever even seen an actual movie-- not a whole one, anyway.

It's really not clear what the makers of this film know less about: gaming, or movies.

Review by sinrise from the Internet Movie Database.