Game Over, Man (2018)

Number Rolled: 78

Movie Name/Year: Game Over, Man (2018)

Tagline: Some heroes are born. Others are maids.

Genre: Action, Comedy

Length: 101 minutes

Rating: TV-MA

Production Companies: Point Grey Pictures, Scott Rudin Productions

Producer: Blake Anderson, Eli Bush, Jen D'Angelo, Adam Devine, Ted Gidlow, Evan Goldberg, Anders Holm, Barbara Kelly, Alex McAtee, Jonathan McCoy, Kyle Newacheck, Seth Rogen, Scott Rudin, James Weaver

Director: Kyle Newacheck

Writer: Anders Holm, Kyle Newacheck, Adam Devine, Blake Anderson

Actors: Adam Devine, Anders Holm, Blake Anderson, Chloe Bridges, Andrew Bachelor, Aya Cash, Daniel Stern, Jamie Demetriou, William B. Davis, Neal McDonough, Rhona Mitra, Sam Richardson, Steve Howey, Mac Brandt, Brad Kelly, Roe Hartrampf, Geno Segers, Steve-O, Donald Faison, Action Bronson, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Chris Pontius, Caroline Rich, Shaggy, Jon Gabrus, Joel McHale, Mark Cuban

Blurb from Netflix: Three buddies with big dreams go from underachieving slackers to badass warriors when their posh hotel is taken over by terrorists.

Selina’s Point of View:

Did Netflix hire Lorena Bobbitt to vet the scripts for their comedy originals? They seem to be getting a little obsessed with severed penises.

Who hurt you Netflix?

Moving on.

There’s a very simple way to describe the movie I just watched: Workaholics (2011-2017) meets Die Hard (1988). In fact, I assume that’s how the plot was pitched to the heads at the company.

Someone was high and started wondering what it would look like if the events of Die Hard took place, but instead of John McClane, the heroes were a bunch of derpy dumbasses. Kyle Newacheck (Ice Cold Heat, Adam Devine’s House Party, Murder Mystery) had just wrapped Workaholics and wondered out loud: “What if those dumbasses were Blake, Adam, and Anders?” And a movie plot was born.

No one can tell me that didn’t happen. Head-canon.

I had some initial trouble getting into the film. I’m not a fan of Workaholics and it got pretty damn cringey at times. Everyone knows by now that I do not do well with cringe. As soon as the action started up, though – which was pretty quick – I became much more invested. The comedy really helped lighten the brutality of things, without fully dulling the edge.

Game Over, Man wasn’t flawless, but it was fun. There were cameos by big actors that really mattered more than most cameos do, and the humor was pretty well on point. There was a lot of expectation subversion going on, as well.

To be honest, I also liked that they didn’t shy away from full-frontal male nudity (severed penis not included – no pun intended). With all the boobs in these kinds of films normally, the ladies get something for once – and not a boob in sight.

I was never really interested in seeing Adam Devine’s (Modern Family, Why Him?, The Lego Batman Movie) penis – or his stunt double’s – but kudos to the creators for giving the audience a little balance for once. The entire movie, actually, was surprisingly progressive.

The secret to enjoying this film is to turn on Netflix after an awful day and just expect to turn your brain off for some parody-like comedy.

Cat’s Point of View:

What the hell, Netflix?

That was something that went through my mind over and over again throughout this entire movie. Seriously.

We have here yet another comedy original that is most certainly as far from ‘family-friendly’ programming as you can get. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – but it’s certainly a reinforcement that the streaming giant tests its freedom from MPAA strictures with enthusiastic abandon.

If anyone thought that the side-view shower shot in Wild Things (1998) was scandalous, I hope you don’t have a heart condition if you’ve decided to watch this film. While I might not be the biggest fan of Adam Devine (Mama's Boy, The Final Girls, Why Him?), let it never be said that he doesn’t throw all of himself into his work. (Pun quite intended.)

But really, I just have had trouble connecting with his characters. He tends to play the same type of asshat that he did in Pitch Perfect (2012) in most everything I’ve seen him in.

I do think that the combo of Devine with his co-stars Anders Holm (Neighbors, The Intern, How to Be Single) and Blake Anderson (Epic, Dope, Show Dogs) really worked in favor of this movie. Of course, they were on the writing team here so I would hope that they did themselves service with their parts.

To be honest, I’m a bit on the fence with this film. There were just so many instances of cringe-factor and moments that had me shouting ‘REALLY??’ at the screen that the funny moments just didn’t quite balance out. I love a good action movie, but I tend to gravitate more towards things like John Wick (2014) and Ninja Assassin (2009) rather than those more in the parody genre. I will say that I did enjoy this movie immensely better than our previously reviewed The Package (2018).

I don’t know that I’d go out of my way to steer anyone clear of watching this film, but I’m not entirely sure that I’d recommend it, either. 

Languages

Speech Available: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish

Subtitles Available: French, English, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 20%

Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 49%

Metascore - 32/100

Metacritic User Score – 5.0/10

IMDB Score – 5.4/10

Trust the Dice: Selina’s Rating – 3.5/5

Trust the Dice: Cat’s Rating – 2.5/5

Movie Trailer: