The Neveldine/Taylor team, of the Crank movies, deliver another sci-fi mash-up, scrambling elements from eXistenZ and The Running Man in a busy, exciting, slide down the cutting edge.
Given that Jason Statham has already played an unjustly-convicted death row gladiator out to beat the system in Death Race, N/T have to use the less instantly charismatic Gerard Butler as a blank icon hero, but Six Feet Under/Dexter star Michael C. Hall finally gets a worthy movie role as an eccentric puppet-master villain.
It’s not as immediately gripping as Crank and has one crucial lapse of imagination – the main game seems like a conventional first-person shooter – but has astonishing moments (Hall miming to Sammy Davis Jr as his choreographed kill-squad batter Butler) and concepts.
