Starts out with a good idea... but then wrecks it, in favour of the traditional 'quest for redemption' journey...

Rating: 6/10 (6 January 2014)

I was enjoying the almost Bergman-esque angle of a bunch of video game characters and their search for self-worth, and a strong identity... but alas, then it tossed away those themes to focus on a more straightforward path that was largely preoccupied with achieving goals...
Don't introduce interesting subplots, if you aren't then willing to follow those threads, all because you have to get back to your far less interesting (to me, anyway... ) conventional 'main plot'...
Don't get my hopes up if you're just going to whet my appetite, but then leave me with very little that is satisfying.
Plenty of films have a disposable plot, or narrative where the vast majority of it is just a selection of major characters goofing around ("Clerks" might be considered one, "Be Kind Rewind" might be thought of as another... ) Sure, the execution may vary, and not all of them may work ("Be Kind Rewind" doesn't, really... ) but you'll never know unless you try to build a story around that setup. The issue here for me is that the most interesting line of thought in the movie was given the least exploration and screen time. I would far rather watch an interesting 20 minute short based around popular video game characters, than an anticlimactic full-length movie about original characters who are much less captivating (again, to me... )
I would have been happy to go along with the original storyline, if only I had not been shown something better, which was then abandoned to follow a formula that is common to 95% of movies that are already out there.