Review draft 1

Game Over

Directors- Sam, Emma, Jonah, Alex
Production Company - Venatus
Starring- Joe Horsfall
Released- 14^th Feb 2013

This February sees an icon of the video gaming age being bought to life in an amusing short film created by Venatus, the creators of other short films such as Paranoia and Pay Day. With this new release Venatus introduce us to a completely different range of their work; they have moved on considerably from films using the thriller genre and are now successfully building up a strong reputation in the comedy genre.  

With impressive special effects the viewer watches as the character of Mario climbs out of a Television set, similar to the classic horror scene in The Ring by Gore Verbinskiwhich in 2002, this reflects Director, Sam Gregory’s love and lifelong interest in horror films. Game Over is a film that successfully challenges fiction and reality. The inspiration for Game Over stems from the original Nintendo games Super Mario Bros this is clear simply from the costume design and characters accents.                  

The costume designer for the film but be congratulated,  they have successfully created a replica of the classic brightly coloured costume for Mario that is seen in the original video games but they have also been able to keep with realism and dress the character of Jonah in a costume that represents young, middle class men accurately.  Joe Horsfall, seen in many other independent films and productions, plays Mario effortlessly and gives the character a new and inventive comedic lease of life. Unfortunately, the act is let down by a cheesy Italian accent but what more could be expected from a brightly coloured animated character?

Game Over follows Mario as he escapes the gaming world in search of a new adventure outside of his mundane life in Mushroom Kingdom. On the way he meets Jonah, the young man playing the game, unaware of the consciences of leaving the room to answer the phone. Mario explores and questions this strange new world he has arrived in but is soon forced to go back to his old life in Mushroom Kingdom as Princess Peach needs rescuing once again. A strong bond between the characters can be seen being formed and with emotional acting from Jonah Atkins (the gamer) the audience is aware of the impact Mario’s visit has made on him.  

The short film genre is a difficult format to work with but Venatus have done well keeping within a reasonable time period making sure the viewer wouldn’t feel as though it was dragging on. The film also includes a varying use of conventions from the comedy genre such as exaggerating situations and slapstick style humour.  Luckily though, these conventions are subtle and not repeated again and again through the film. A scene that stuck out for me was the game play towards the end; it is a long scene but clever editing and lighting shows time change and successfully keeps the audience’s attention.

The film relies on special effects to excite its audience leaving the other scenes second place and feeling somewhat like fillers with basic scripting. Furthermore, Game over is true to its word and gives an amusing new way of seeing the well-known video game character and shows the variety of the Directors work and interests.

Anticipation- 3 Classic characters, fun narrative, what more could you want?
Enjoyment-4 shows off talent brilliantly
in retrospect- 4 an amusing way to view a well-known character