There was nothing particularly original about Press Start, and nothing particularly remarkable about it. It was a predictable jumble of cliches and Shout Outs, scored by The Jimmy Hart Version of songs (the victory theme sounded like the illegitimate love-child of the Final Fantasy victory theme and the Overworld theme from The Legend Of Zelda Spirit Tracks...which had ironically not come out at that time). The acting was absolutely painful at times.
Here's the thing, though: this is a parody. A parody of video games, which tend to, more often than not, embrace cliches. Most the Shout Outs were written in well (I felt stupid for not realizing right away that the magic, green-topped fungus was a 1up mushroom), the obscure references were hilarious to those who caught them ("Don't tell me my dog has worms again...the ones with the bazookas."), and the bad acting just might have been done on purpose to poke fun at the fact that many video games contain horrible voice acting.
The movie was, to be frank, quite lame. But that's the thing...it was trying to be lame. Parodies poke fun of the source material, and video games are still pretty cheesy. I found myself grinning instead of groaning at the cliches because, while they were played completely straight, it's done to demonstrate just why Video Game Movies Suck. Decent movie, great parody, definitely worth watching.
Camp, lame, and cheesy...and better for it.
There was nothing particularly original about Press Start, and nothing particularly remarkable about it. It was a predictable jumble of cliches and Shout Outs, scored by The Jimmy Hart Version of songs (the victory theme sounded like the illegitimate love-child of the Final Fantasy victory theme and the Overworld theme from The Legend Of Zelda Spirit Tracks...which had ironically not come out at that time). The acting was absolutely painful at times.
Here's the thing, though: this is a parody. A parody of video games, which tend to, more often than not, embrace cliches. Most the Shout Outs were written in well (I felt stupid for not realizing right away that the magic, green-topped fungus was a 1up mushroom), the obscure references were hilarious to those who caught them ("Don't tell me my dog has worms again...the ones with the bazookas."), and the bad acting just might have been done on purpose to poke fun at the fact that many video games contain horrible voice acting.
The movie was, to be frank, quite lame. But that's the thing...it was trying to be lame. Parodies poke fun of the source material, and video games are still pretty cheesy. I found myself grinning instead of groaning at the cliches because, while they were played completely straight, it's done to demonstrate just why Video Game Movies Suck. Decent movie, great parody, definitely worth watching.