Hooked on the Game (2009) poster
2009 · action · sci-fi · sports

Hooked on the Game

Directed by Pavel Sanaev1h 37m2009
ElsewhereIMDb5.72k
  • sombre
  • kinetic
  • intense
  • cold
Movie DNA

Sombre, breathless, measured action / sci-fi, inventive in texture. Ambivalent, mid-stakes, cold, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

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After a stunning victory at a cyber sport tournament, the winning gamers are awarded CDs with a brand new game. After playing this game, each of them is affected with some force, turning their gaming abilities into real ones. They each become the best fighters, shooters and racers in real life. However, this does not go unnoticed. Through blackmail, cheating and bribes, authorities offer the gamers a "job". But as soon as the lies are revealed it becomes clear that they are not heroes saving their country but nothing more than paid assassins. Moreover, the producer of the game is keeping many more of the same CDs, so many more "heroes" like themselves could also be produced. Now the gamers have to find the CDs and either destroy them or create an army of gamers and rule over all. The team becomes divided into two, each pitted against the other

Our read · Hooked on the Game (2009) reads as a sombre, breathless, inventive action · sci-fi · sports entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, cold in temperature, ambivalent in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

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The shape of Hooked on the Game

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want Russian action about gamers whose skills become deadly real powers.

ends bittersweetyou’ll be fine aftergrabs you earlygrips by minute 5attention 3/5breezes bysubtitles: full
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upgraphic violencenudity

Skip it tonightYou want thoughtful sci-fi or dislike violent video game power fantasy.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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