“It’s like watching someone else play a video game” goes the common criticism of action movies in the CGI-era. We’ve all had that experience—watching a bloated, overlong sequence where weightless enemy after weightless enemy is despatched without ever making you care once. But there’s a way of using video game language to the benefit of a movie (think of “Edge Of Tomorrow” last year, for instance), and the latest film to attempt it is “Hardcore.”
Currently screening at TIFF, the film, from newcomer Ilya Naishuller, produced by “Wanted” director Timur Bekmambetov, and starring and executive produced by “District 9” star Sharlto Copley, is selling itself as the first action movie told entirely from first-person perspective, “Call Of Duty” style. Now, you can have a proper look thanks to the film’s first trailer.
The promo promises some “District 9”-style inventive low-budget sci-fi action, with a smattering of ultraviolence, and a side order of motion sickness. It certainly looks impressivley staged, but will it be able to move beyond the experience of looking over your mate’s shoulder as he plays “Goldeneye?” We’ll find out as and when the movie gets picked up for release.