Rish Outfield's reviews
This was a trite little Full Moon release starring hottie Megan Ward that I saw by accident. It's more Sci-Fi than Horror, but don't tell the boss, okay? At one point during Arcade one of the characters says, "If you're smart you'll run like hell." That warning should be placed on the box.
Okay, knock-out virginal Alex and her friends are offered a free trial of the newest virtual reality game, Arcade, which, it turns out, has a life of its own and captures the souls of those who lose the game. When Alex's boyfriend is sucked into the game, it's up to her and dorky Peter Billingsley to defeat the game and save them.
It's been a while since I've wanted to add a Skull to our site, but all the way through this one, I was wishing there was a "Boredom Ensues" category. I turned it off about twenty minutes in, turned in back on, and turned it off again after ten more minutes. Since this was obviously made for kids, didn't they keep in mind that young people today have no attention spans? I just turned it off again myself.
This was a pretty awful movie, kids. I could feel it trying to be fun and hip (and even poignant in a scene or two), but it was rushed, childish, cheap, and all but brain dead. It's like a bunch of high school kids were given a million dollars to make a movie, and computer animation was added later. But if that were the case, there'd be an excuse for Arcade.
There were some familiar faces in the cast, and the teenagers really looked like teenagers (for once), but most of the performances were weak at best. Peter Billingsley, so great in A Christmas Story and as Messy Marvin, was actually the worst actor of the bunch. Every line seemed barely memorized and never real (which I'm sure was hard since most of the dialogue sounded like a poor translation from another language), and he looked so awkward in front of the camera, you'd think he'd never done this before. "Star Trek"'s John De Lancie is actually pretty good, though I'll bet money he's undergone hypnosis to forget about it. Megan Ward is magically delicious as the female lead, and it's too bad her career never really took off (she probably made the mistake of putting Arcade on her resume). And lastly, your friend and mine, Seth Green appears here (although looking somewhat different than we now know him). He does make the best of his scenes (quite a testament to his talent), but I'm surprised he's STILL playing a high school kid in movies seven years later.
Okay, I'd better go back and finish the movie now. Maybe it will get better.
Well, it got a little better, but then it sucked again.
Best Scare: The game's voice was nice and menacing, and I think it had at least one good line.
I'd Recommend It To: Pre-teens maybe. But even fans of the actors should just avoid it, okay?
Note: In the better-than-the-feature documentary after the film, it was revealed that the movie was actually made in 1991. Wow, how too old is our man Seth now?