'Gamer' makes a play for the top spot

By Sarah Sluis

Labor Day weekend is typically a slow one for the movie business: people are enjoying the last bit of summer, and the kids are heading back to school, making the first few weeks of September less profitable, since there's no one to go to weekday matinees. Studios make the weekend even more anemic by releasing movies over the holiday that barely had a chance anyway. 2009 is no exception.

Releasing in 2,251 theatres, All About Steve is a romantic comedy that should have everyone running at the sight of Sandra Bullock's mullet-like haircut. She plays "a writer of crossword puzzles whose motor-mouth drives everyone other than her forgiving parents to near suicide." Apparently, that also includes the audience. Kirk Honeycutt also called the film "seriously wrong," the kind of movie that makes you "guess what the filmmakers thought they were doing."

Gamer (2,502 theatres) is a futuristic, video-game action movie that appears to borrow most of its "futuristic" plot points from other movies. Like Death Race, the car-race-for-freedom movie, it features death row inmates who are allowed to go free if they can win in a game. In this case, gamers control the bodies of the criminals and play war games with them. Gerard Butler plays one such criminal--a prodigy who is close to completing the thirty missions required to be freed from prison. With its appeal to young males, Gamer is most likely to go number one at the box office.

Extract (1,611 theatres) is the best reviewed film of the bunch, according to Rotten Tomatoes, but that still puts the comedy at a measly 57% approval rating. Honeycutt found the film "depressing" and its characters "wildly dysfunctional" to the point of contrivance. Mike Judge had directed a cult hit, Office Space, which he followed up with Idiocracy, a miss, and it seems Extract may fall somewhere in the middle.

Releasing on the sidelines is Carriers (100 screens), a horror movie about a virus that comes just in time for H1N1 season. Star Trek is re-releasing on 93 IMAX screens and 175 select theatres, hoping to draw back Trekkies for a last chance to see the movie on the big screen. The Final Destination, with its 3D screens, could hold its appeal beyond the first weekend that tends to bring in the bulk of a horror movie's audience. On Tuesday, we'll be back from the long weekend to dissect the weekend's winners and losers.