The Weekly Planet - Gamer - Caravan Of Garbage

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

It's time for another look at a movie about and featuring video games but not actually based on a video game. This time it's 2009's Gamer starring Gerard Butler, Logan Lerman, Michael C Hall and directed by Crank duo Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. Set in the far distant future of 2034 in a world where the game Slayers (an online third person shooter) uses real life death-row prisoners in a real life murder arena controlled by players safely at home. In many ways it's ahead of it's time and in many other ways it has aged horrible. Thanks for watching our Caravan Of Garbage reviewSUBSCRIBE HERE ►► http://goo.gl/pQ39jNHelp support the show and get early episodes ► https://bigsandwich.co/Patreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesJames' Twitter ► http://twitter.com/mrsundaymoviesMaso's Twitter ► http://twitter.com/wikipediabrownPatreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesT-Shirts/Merch ► https://www.teepublic.com/stores/mr-sunday-movies The Weekly Planet iTunes ► https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weekly-planet/id718158767?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 The Weekly Planet Direct Download ► https://play.acast.com/s/theweeklyplanetAmazon Affiliate Link ► https://amzn.to/2nc12P4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back everybody to another episode of Caravana Garbage where we're talking about... Gamer! Gamer, yes, but specifically gamer because we're doing movies that are about video games and have video games in them, but they're not based on video games. Gamer. The game's not called Gamer. No, it's not, but I've watched this a few days ago, and I've just spent the intervening time just going, gamer to myself.

For some reason. Nobody says gamer. Nobody does it all, do they? But I'm like, this guy's a real gamer. Oh, mate, he's got that two thousand. 2009 gamer language, doesn't he? Oh, hell yeah. We can't use any of it in this video because you shouldn't.

No. But he's saying it. He's saying it. I thought you meant FPS and like... Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm saying slurs or whatever. You're saying slurs. Yeah, I'm saying slurs.

You're saying slurs. I'm not saying slurs. Someone's saying slurs. If you're saying slurs, you're not allowed in here. Get out of you. Fuck off. That logging Lerman, he's saying slur. He's doing it, isn't he?

He's certainly logging a few slurs while he's logging time on this game. And he's certainly logging a few appearances on Caravan of Garbage in the last 12 months, isn't he? True. So he did Percy Jackson after this. Yeah, yeah. Rising star, Logan, Lerman. Absolutely. He could have been Spider-Man, I feel like, at some point.

Maybe he nearly was. Rising star, Logan, Lerman, and static star, Gerard Butler. Stationary star. I love Jerry Butler. Me too. So you say station, please leave it like. So you say, so you say, so you stay, so you stay, so you stay, so you stay stationary. Yes.

Because he's just remained at this level. Like he's doing a Greenland 2, which is the equivalent to. I think so, yes. And various things have fallen the movie. Yeah, sure, yeah, yeah. That lamp over there has fallen and so on and so forth. You know what I like about Jerry Butler? Yes. Where's he from? What's his accent? I mean, we know in real life, but in movies. Where's he from? What's his accent? Boston. Maybe. Like on the border where the accent's a little weaker. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah. So yeah, we're looking at the Jerry Butler classic 2009's gamer. How were we saying it, though? Gamer. Thank you.

This is directed by a couple of boys Who I know you're a big fan of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor Who were the guys who directed Crank and Crank High Voltage And Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance Oh yeah Which was the final movie they did after this And they haven't done anything moody since

Oh yeah, okay They're responsible for like They're responsible for filming things on rollerblades They love doing that Well this was red digital cameras Like handheld cameras So it's got that handheld vibe, but it's also a handheld vibe in what's obviously like Vancouver, Canada or like a bunch of backlots or whatever. I should know this.

I did look it up. I bet it's like Romania or something. It's Eastern Europe. I think I'm pretty sure it's not. I think it's in the US. Well. While I look this up, let me just. Gamer.

Albuquerque. There you go. All right. Breaking Bad Zone. The Vancouver of the Midwest. American Midwest? Midwest. The Vancouver of the American Midwest, except it's warm.

So I was right in a way. In a way you were, Mason. Yeah. But so let me ask you this, James. Why is it that crank and crank high voltage work and this one doesn't at all? Yeah, I don't know. I think... Because James.

Oh, sorry. Because James... Sorry, I didn't realize that you weren't actually asking me. I didn't realize you didn't want my opinion. I guess I'll just shut up forever then. Forever, forever? No, I have to be in these videos. Damn, and you promise, too.

because crank and crank high voltage both have a video game vibe to it. Because both of them, it's Jason Stapham. It was nearly Jerry Butler. The script went to him first, actually. Yeah, I was watching some BTS on this. And he said, no, I've got to work on my accent. I could be several years. But Jason Statham as Chev Chelios, there's something wrong with his art.

His heart. There's nothing wrong with his art. No. His art is punching people and he does it really well. And rooting in public. He roots in public. But there's something wrong with his art. There's nothing wrong with his rooting in public.

It's very good. He's got it down to a fine art. A fine root. That's nothing, by the way, what you've said. No, I know, absolutely not. And it's basically him going through a series of levels where he has to recharge his heart over and over again. Kickstart his heart.

Absolutely. Is that any of them? No. I don't know, actually. Probably couldn't afford it. I don't think I've seen two. We have done a commentary over the first one. It's the same.

But I think those work just because they're simpler. Yeah, okay. You know what I mean? Because it's Stathom. You don't need to establish a whole universe, right? Yeah. Which this does. Because it's influenced by like reality shows and ultimate fighting and Sims and second life or whatever.

This is Call of Duty real blokes, basically. The year is 2034. Ooh, not far now. We're fast approaching it. And it's kind of a death. We're not going to make it. No, I don't think so. And it's not going to be this cool.

And by that I mean awful. It's going to be awful, but in a different way than this is awful. It's going to be awful. awful in a boring way. Yeah. So yeah, it's basically death race or rollerball or the running man or whatever. Those are all movies that Jason Statham's probably been in. He's in death race, at the very least.

How would you explain it? It's Call of Duty, but everybody, but you can control a real guy and their prisoner and they've got microchip nanobots in their brain, and Dexter did it. And because he's a creep CEO, and he's working with the government, and it's the prison industrial complex. And maybe this got through on a popular vote, or maybe the vote wasn't real or whatever. Oh, I'm glad I let you talk. because you pretty much summarised it.

Thanks. Yeah. So Jerry Butler is in prison for a crime. He didn't commit. Well, he did commit it. Yeah. But it was the nanobots. I thought it was...

It was the Dexter Nanobos that did it. Yeah, yeah. I thought it was Jerry Butler kills his wife one of those movies because he's done a few, I think. But it's not. No. He hasn't killed his wife in this. But it does have that vibe,

but he killed his wife. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But for whatever reason, the government have been like, yeah, we'll let teenagers use these men on death row, These real men, these dangerous criminals on death row, who as far as everybody else knows, have done real crimes and have served in real times. Oh, yeah. In real time.

Yes. We'll let teenagers control them remotely, like video game characters. And if they blow up enough people, we'll let them free. Yeah. Pretty cool. Yeah, like you win enough death races, you win the running man, you can... But you don't. You never get out.

You have to break the system and to escape and whatever, yeah. But also, if you're not a death race, throw prisoner. If you're not up to the task of being controlled by a log and leerman, for example, you can just be like an NPC, you can just be sent out there to like, you know, walk around carrying one of those lollipop stop signs or whatever, like in a circle. And if you survive, which you will not, because the log and leerman will just, or an evil log and leerman will just machine gun you. Yeah, yeah. Usually as a human shield, you buy a car, whatever. If you survive one, you get out. Yeah. You know what I mean?

There's a deeper conspiracy of foot, isn't there? And it's too, complicated. It's not interesting. They've tried to make it interesting, because they've brought Michael C. Hall. He's a lot of fun. As the evil CEO. Yeah. Sorry, I meant regular CEO.

Regular standard stuff. Actually, not as evil as a normal CEO. No. He does have that vibe of that guy who's like, I'm living forever, but he just looks like he's dying. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever the fuck, that idiot's name is. Yeah.

But he actually puts all the data online that he measures and all the blood from his son that he puts in his body and he measures his erections and he tells you what his erections are. Hey man, don't. What about measuring his son's erections? I think he also does that too, yes, that's what I'm saying. You're saying that's okay. No, I'm not Mason.

Interesting, because you didn't mention it before. You mentioned, you said measuring his erections was bad. Look, we'll let it, we'll agree to disagree. We're both disagreeing, just to be clear. All right. But look, I don't buy this. I don't buy that, like, the CEO is like this campy evil villain. You know why?

Because in the subsequent years, we've seen so many real-life billionaire CEOs who are evil and boring. Yeah. They're just vampires but boring somehow. Yeah, absolutely. But this guy's doing a little dance and he's doing that. He also actually invented something. Like he invented nanobots that can completely erase somebody's mind and you can control

them remotely. Like an actual CEO has never made anything good. So, you know. Yeah. But his fortune did surpass Bill Gates, which, um... Anyway, here's some current headlines regarding Bill Gates. Yeah. Just a few at random.

There's a few. Also, ludicrous, he's not having it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It feels like there's bits of, like, Johnnynemonic in this. Totally. Even though that didn't do well and nobody liked it.

And we've done a commentary on it. That's correct. We like it. It's not good. So, anyway, John Tillman, or Cable with the K, as he's known, is Jerry Butler's character. So he's being controlled by Logan Lerman.

Correct. But there's a slight delay on his movements. And also, sometimes he can control himself, maybe, I don't know. It's whatever the plot required to, like, to get some. stuff done, basically.

Yeah. You know what I don't like about this movie also, which I don't think is terrible, is that I don't think the glitching and the slow motion nature and the camera work adds to this movie at all. I think it makes the action worse, because if you see the behind-the-scenes stuff of this, there's like extensive sets and locations that look really good and clear, and then you get in this and you're just like glitching around. And sometimes they're just like awkwardly pasted text over the building or whatever.

And it's like, spend another 50 bucks. What are you doing? What are you doing? This is, some of these looks so cheap. This has more budget than you would think and we'd talk about it. And also I'm like, oh, how are they even watching what everybody's doing? Because it's third person some of the time. Is there like a drone following him that's filming it?

Yes, sometimes. But do you see them? Sometimes you do at least once. Also, the motion controllers in this, they were popular at the time because there was a Nintendo way. And this was a year before Connect. Oh, because Loggin doesn't have, he doesn't have a control. Doesn't have physical control. Realistically, you should have a PS5 controller

because that's the perfect controller. Yeah. But he's just, he's doing the, what do they call it? The connect. The connect. Motion controls. What did they? Remember the only where you washed windows?

Yeah, yeah. The Xbox Connect, Mason. There we go, okay. The PlayStation. Xbox Connect is what you're thinking of. That's what I'm thinking of. The PlayStation move was like the Wii. Yeah, yeah.

But again, yeah. All this went away. Don't worry about it. Yeah. Because it was vague and you could only use it for washing windows. Also, like, standing up and like holding your arms in position and controlling things like that. If you've ever used any of this shit, it sucks.

And they're now, they're trying to work it into augmented reality. And it's still, it's not good. Nobody wants to do this. Maybe that's why everything about this feels off. Because it's, you know, when in a movie or a TV show, somebody is playing a video game inaccurately, like it's an inactive. They've got the wrong controller or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or they're like, you know, wildly tapping away, but it's a point and click adventure game or whatever. Yeah, something like that. It's like, nobody's, nobody's, nobody's. Nobody's doing it. Nobody swiping and wiping? Nobody's swiping and wiping, yeah. Except a man on Tinder and on the toilet. He's swiping and wiping.

He's doing it all. Hashtag swiping and wiping. That's a two-hand job. Excuse me? It would be a two-hand job what you're describing. Okay. Speaking of, Terry Cruz is in this. He is?

You know the problem with Terry Cruz? This is well prior to Brooklyn Nine-9. Yes, that's what I'm... Is it post office linebacker? post-idiocracy, I'm pretty sure. Maybe, or around this time. It's not his fault. He's supposed to be terrifying in this,

but because he's been so big and silly since, I don't buy that. And it's not because he's bad, because he's not, he's doing a good job. That scene where he comes out with blood on his hands, he was like, I'm going to do this naked,

and they're like, all right, if you want. She's actually naked in that said, I didn't notice. But, uh, you didn't notice. So, you know, in all of these types of movies, there has to be an escape. And maybe he's helped by the resistance and whatever. And it's like,

eh, can't go past the, the, conclusions are. Can't go past the prohibited area unless you do. The idea to use biofuel are quite like that. That's a fun little wrinkle. Because he drinks some booze before he goes out in the field and then he uses to fill up like an ethanol-powered car. And then he's off and he's with the resistance. And piss, he uses piss. He uses piss and and ludicrous is there and egg is there. And it's an incredible cast of characters looking to overthrow the government or whatever. Why doesn't Michael C. Hall?

Why didn't he just kill him years ago? Okay, yeah. So another element of the stories. We have to... Let's bring it back, Mason. You've just thrown something out there. Like people have seen this. Sorry.

We know that no one has. No one currently alive has seen this movie. We saw it at the movies at the time. I think we did, yes. Mean, nasty movie. It is. Jerry Butler is the first nanobot takeover brain guy.

Ever. He was the first... He was the test model. Yeah. Yeah. And so he shoots his friend and then goes to prison and whatever, and then he becomes cable with a K in the game. But yeah, why would you use that guy who has knowledge of all of this? And also is incredibly skilled in combat, you know?

Why would you do that? And then you let like the best player in the game, like you let that pairing up even happen. Like you would control all of this environment, presumably, but maybe he thought he was. Uh-huh. Yeah. Uh-huh.

See, that's another thing that's unrealistic. a competent CEO. I mean, he is to a point until he isn't. But, but yeah. I was speaking of, we get a jazzy Michael C. Hall at the end. And that's a, that's a fun moment. It's a jazzy showdown. And it's Jerry Butler just fucking bodying normal people who are mind controlled.

Yeah. Also. So again, mean and nasty. Like, people are just coping it who don't deserve it. In the crank movies, everybody who cops it absolutely deserves it, except for Glenn Howerton who cops it and he's done nothing wrong. And Dwight Yoakum, I don't know what happens to him. but he's there.

Oh, okay, yeah, fair enough. Okay, good. So that's fun. But in this, it's just mind control people being shot in their head or run over. Yeah, exactly. He also does a double neck break on Terry Cruz. You don't see that often, do you? No, that's true.

You don't see that that often. Because he's bad at it? I guess, yeah, he didn't do it right. Because most people, it's one and done. It's one and done, mate. But he probably, he cracked the guy's neck and he's like, maybe I've actually improved his posture here. I better do it again.

Crack, double crack. Absolutely. And we find out that the ultimate goal of CEO is that he's going to put these nanomites and everybody in the world, which means you can control every single person and become a rule of them to buy cereal. Yeah, or whatever he's doing. Buy cereal.

Get some cereal, man. That's right. Get some Michael C. Hallows or whatever. Dexteros? Dexteros. There we go, yeah. High dexteros. Dexteros?

Yes, but he didn't... Oh, and his wife's in this and she's in like awful Sims. Shout out to Milo Ventimilia. That's the character, Rick Ripp. I'm going to have to bleep. That's the second part of that. Why is he in this?

What the fuck's happening? Why was he in this? Of course, you know... What's going on? Most of our viewers, of course, would know him from Gilmore Girls and a smaller percentage would know him from heroes. This would have been around that time? It would have been yet.

So he's probably got a lot of... This is post like Rocky Balboa as well. Oh, okay. Well, he's made a bad choice, that isn't it? Absolutely. It's madness. Is this a favour? What's going on?

It's also weird because the two options for these nanobot-controlled video games, you as a player can play. You can play as these people. You can either play gamer. Gamer. Whatever it's called. Slayers? Slayers.

Slayers. It should be called Call of Duty, but everyone's a real bloke. Exactly. Where you can machine gun people, or you can play a weird version of the Sims. You're a disgusting fat slob and you live in your basement or whatever. And you control all these beautiful people in weird, skimpy little outfits? Yeah, in a courtyard. Why are none of these people models?

What's going on? I don't know. I mean, you know, not every good-looking person is a model, as we know. That's so true. Some are podcasters. That's so true. That's so true. We're too short.

Yeah. That's it, I think. It's hard being only 6'1, both of us, isn't it? That's right. That's right. And they turn their nose up at our 1% body fat is what's happening. But like, Jerry Butler's wife, the actor playing her, model in real life. Absolutely.

But she can only get work as just walking around and, I don't know, falling over. Yeah. For some big fat guy. It's bizarre. It's really... What's that actor's name? I should know her name. Amber Vallette.

She's really good in this, actually. Amber Valette. You really, it's like, oh, this is awful. She's doing a really good job at having the worst time. Yeah, I looked at her filmography and it's quite scant, I suspect, because she had a bad experience on the movie gamer. Potentially, yeah. Anyway, it's good that Jerry Butler takes out Rick Bske,

like how Bain took out Batman. Just fucking bang. Also, we don't know, like, the guy. Yeah, he's not, he's not the actual guy, unless he is, but I don't think he is. I don't think he is. No, because he's being controlled by another guy. Yeah, exactly. So this guy...

Well, some guys aren't controlled by other guys. It's like... Some guys are like, um, John Leguizamo. Yeah, exactly. And whatever. And Terry Cruz, he's just a guy. Yeah, but this guy,

yeah, he's probably, he's a nice guy in a bad circumstance, and his player has given him the name Rick Bleep. Yes. And he's, and every time he comes home from that job, he's going to chafe because he's all rubber all the time. Yeah, and this time, he's not,

he probably hasn't been talced correctly. I doubt he has, Mason. And Jerry Butler killed him. Jerry Butler killed him. Yeah. He's going to be, he's going to feel awful when he gets. home from work. I think it's okay that Jerry Butler's killing poval. I guess. I think they should

let him do it in real life. Yeah. You cool with that? I think so too, yeah. I should point out, I really like Jerry Butler. Me too, you said that earlier. Okay, I just want to make it clear. Yeah. Like, he's always good and compelling. I like his big white face. I like everything about him. You liked him even when he was narrow. I did

like him when he was narrow and rain of fire. Yes. And timeline. Yeah, and timeline. Yeah. And timeline. Yeah. Great movie. He's logging a few hours on Caravan and Garbage in the last 12 months. He certainly is, Mason. Yeah. Anyway, Logan Lerman, he won the game in the end, the ultimate game, which is killing a billionaire. That's right. Nothing wrong with that, Mason.

And at the end, everybody just walks away and Jerry Butler's like, hey, turn off the nano brain machines. And they're just like, all right, whatever. I guess. It's just on this iPad. I could just do it here. I guess I haven't, but I will now. Yeah, I'm the guy who has been employed to follow Michael C. Hall around with the button that turns off the nanobots. He just never wanted to use it.

I mean, I got $300,000 a year for it, but whatever. I think it's really interesting. And no billionaires are watching this because they're too busy doing crooks yet. But like, it's an interesting legacy of any billionaire. And I think this is true of not only the Michael C. Hall character, but real life. It's just going to be dying alone and nobody cares. That's how you're going to end. Your family won't care.

Maybe you have a son that cares because he wants to inherit some of the money. But after you go, it's the Alicons. But after you go, it doesn't matter. And I think it's important that they know that. But also, I don't think they care, right? No, absolutely not. It's just about getting as much as you can and then go it out. In a few years, I think they're all going to be dying alone in bunkers.

Breathing recycled air and eating lobster out of a can. Yeah, sure. And they can't emerge because there's a ring of former Amazon employees around their bunker with sniper rifles. It's kind of, you know, Rick bleep them. Something to think about. Isn't it, though? Yeah. Anyway, this is time for Trivia.

Triviers. Thank you. Is that anything? That's good. All right. In the scene with... But no. But no?

No. Carry on. In the scene with Simon, Logan Lerman, is being interrogated. he's wearing a t-shirt with crank imprinted on it. Oh. Like the movie's crank and crank too, high voltage. And the concept of cranking. Yeah.

It's a two-hand job. I've heard. That's the word that's going around, man. The directors of this wanted to film it in 3D, but that was scrapped due to budget limitations, but it was, of course, later converted and released on Blu-ray in 3-D. Yuck. Well, it was the 3D TV era, so that makes sense, doesn't it?

Yeah. So this was also originally... I'm just picturing a man. who's just bought all the TV trends. So he's got one of those, and he's got a 3D TV stacked on top of one of his giant CRT TVs that you can't remove from your house. Oh, yeah, yeah, and then a curved TV on top of that.

Yeah, it's right. If you bought one of those big giant CRT TVs, you have to demolish your house together out. Absolutely, you do. This is also originally titled Game, and then it was... Game. Game. Game.

Game. And then it was titled Citizen Game. Love that. That's fun. That's better. In test screenings. And then it ended up being game. gamer. So there you go. Anyways, the box office for this

on a budget of $50 million. No, that makes sense. I just think it should look better. I mean, look at Dredd. If you said 100, I would have been like, that's insane. They clearly put a lot of effort into the action set pieces and making it like frenetic and, and I guess, kind of video game-esque. And confusing.

And confusing. Yeah, but exactly. And I know it's like, well, it's supposed to be like the theater of war. It's very confusing. And there's a lot of explosions going off. And everybody's running left to right and right to left or whatever. No. wrong.

Clarity. Incorprehensible. Yeah. Everybody should be running from left to right at all times. The whole movie should have been that. Great.

It made $42 million of the box office. Oh, no. That's a big miss. It is. It is. It is. It is. But you know, it happens.

Sometimes movies, even though they're ahead of their time because they came out before the Xbox Connect. That's right. People aren't ready for it and that's okay. What about a nice version?

Where Log and Lerman's the best in the world at washing windows with the Connect. Okay. That could be fun, I guess. It's a two-hand. job. Can be.

It can. That's what I'm saying. Anyways, do you know these videos come about at early at Bigestablish.com? I did know that. And do you know, here's a hint towards next week.

Oh, what is it? It's the movie Serenity, not the one you're thinking of. I don't think I'm saying this, whatever this is. You might be... You've got a little smirk on your face. You've got a little smirk on your face

that you just this is some sort of trap or trick for me and I'm going to hate whatever this is. So it's not the Firefly finale movie. It's something else. You're going to be watching that movie. you're going to be like, why is it on this list? Oh, so it's a puzzler.

And then you've got to know. Okay. All right? At what point? No, actually, don't tell me at what point. I don't need to tell you. The movie itself will speak for itself. Will the poster spoiler for me?

No, absolutely not. Interesting. Nothing about this. This sounds like a nightmare. I might enjoy this, but that cheek a little smirk of yours. Honestly, I haven't seen it. I only know the premise. Oh.

So, early videos, though, they're not the only thing at big sandwich. We also do video game. Let's plays. We do bonus podcasts. We do movie commentaries. crank, Johnny Nnemonic. Did you say video game let's plays? Yes.

Because we're a couple of gamers. Gamer. Gamer. But not crook gamers. No, not crook gamers. We're nice. Yeah, it's a two-man job. Absolutely it is.

Sometimes it is, man. We also have a podcast called The Weekly Planet where we talk movies and comics and TV shows that comes out every Monday if you are interested. Thank you so much to Ben and Lawrence for the edit. Thank you, Ben and Lawrence. We're having a great time, aren't we? All right.

I didn't like this one. It's awful. Oh, I'm sorry, not every movie is made for you. Sometimes this is everyone... Who is this for then? Who is this for then? It wasn't for gamers. I bet they hated this.

Someone in the comments is going to be like, it's a good movie actually. Somebody and we're going to get two people in the comments. One person is going to be like, actually underrated for a variety of reasons. And somebody's going to be like, this is my comfort movie. This is my comfort movie and I watch it every night before I go to bed. Stop that. That's crazy. We're calling the cops on you.

Thanks, everyone. Grab that jammy guys. We'll see it next week. And we're calling the cops on you. We're calling the cops on all of you.