Arcade (1993)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Fantastic!

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

If I saw this movie when it 1st came out in 1993 I can't imagine I would've even liked it back then.Arcade started out interesting enough (I guess you could say) but as it went along it got worse.I usually try & read the description of a movie or a little something before I watch it but this time I didn't.I wish I would've then I wouldn't have expected to like the movie as much as I thought I would.I expected Arcade to be a movie about an arcade (I use to LOVE going to the arcade) but it wasn't, it was about a single game named Arcade.You know if you took all the R-rated stuff out, You'd have an episode of Goosebumps or The Haunting Hour? I wish I could've at least said this movie was good but I can't.When Alex had to go inside the game to beat it & rescue her friends, that had to be some of the worst graphics in a movie I've ever seen.You know those REALLY bad Youtube videos where people make their own special effects or graphics? That's exactly what it was like.Even if you LOVE BAD movies as much as I do, I couldn't recommend watching this movie unless you want to torture yourself.Not only were the graphics bad but it was BORING as well

The lovely Megan Ward's lone star vehicle for Full Moon (she had acted in nice supporting parts in Crash & Burn and Trancers II) has her as a burdened teenager struggling with the loss of a mother to suicide, soon having to deal with a malicious virtual reality arcade named ARCADE, equipped with artificial intelligence. ARCADE can take the souls and bodies of those who lose against it! Preposterous premise is typically B-movie as only a Charles Band production could be. The special effects are very much of the rough variety as opposed to what we see today (Big Hero Six, this is not), of the time right around when The Lawnmower Man would introduce some promising signs of a fabulous future in science fiction. The cast of recognizable faces will be perhaps this film's interest as a curio: Peter Billingsley (A Christmas Story; The Dirt Bike Kid; Death Valley), Seth Green, Bryan Datillo (known as the flawed long-time character, Lucas, on Days of Our Lives), AJ Langer (My So-Called Life; Escape from LA) as friends of Ward, including the creator of ARCADE played by Star Trek The Next Generation's Q, John de Lancie and Don Stark (of That 70s Show) as a brutish bully arcade player who picks on Green. Even Sharon Farrell (It's Alive and lots of television) has a bit part as Ward's mother, efficiently used as a traumatic device by ARCADE to hurt his nemesis during a faux "nightmare awakening" sequence which milks her suicide. Use of neon aesthetic for the arcade itself produces a nice visual but overall director Pyun seems to be going through the motions with little use of his enthusiastic camera stylistics on display. I think Ward is good enough to keep our attention even if the film doesn't seem as interested. The budget just seemed too small to really set this film off. Arcade seems to be a middling effort from Full Moon but it falls in line with the output regarding the use of sci-fi for off-the-wall plots. The ending is a bit of a clunker pulled right out of the ass of the filmmakers but goes with the "virtual reality could be dangerous if toyed around with" theme that echoes throughout. Jonathan Fuller's voice for ARCADE has a full snidely confident relish, deep and antagonistic (listen to how it often refers to Ward as "BITCH!") which fits in line with the purpose of the machine's evil manifesting itself against players wanting to defeat it. ARCADE's taunting Ward as a failure is a strong dramatic device for us to root in favor of her.

The main reason I ever watched "Arcade", was because I was into Full Moon films during my teens (back when they still made charming horror features on small but still comfortable budgets). This one actually is more sci-fi than horror, and more particularly a poor "Tron" wanna-be. I re-watched this baby because I felt like it after seeing the "Bishop of the Battle" segment from "Nightmares" (1983). Basically "Arcade" is a whole heap of nonsense about a bunch of teenagers getting sucked into a computer game. They have to complete several levels. The visual effects are very poor but fun to look at, in a way. And the boss-fight in the end is... uhm, pathetic isn't the right word, because there actually isn't a real battle. More like a confrontation, and that's it. But still, I had some fun with all this. I usually do. Megan Ward is kind of cute, and a pre-Buffy Seth Green is in it too.

Cheesy fun with pretty bad "virtual reality" effects and a very dumb ending. Like some other Albert Pyun films of that period (especially the "Nemesis" sequels"), this is short enough and unpretentious enough to be bearable...and that's all. Megan Ward's rather appealing performance is a notch above the rest. (*1/2)