With tired old jokes and lame writing, gamers get played by clueless filmmakers.

When Film.com's new DVD editor sent out an e-mail asking who wanted to review the new DVD for the 2006 indie comedy Gamers, I fired an e-mail back so fast your head would spin. I'm something of a Dungeons and Dragons dork. I've seen GamerZ, The Gamers and The Gamers: Dorkness Rising. I wrote a portion of a Dungeons & Dragons supplement released last year. And recently, I wrote an early review of the upcoming fourth edition which still gets me a couple e-mails a day. So, the idea of sitting down with another fun play upon my long-running hobby sounded exactly like something I wanted to do.

Unfortunately Gamers isn't that kind of movie.

Essentially, this is yet another mockumentary, this time about five geek gamers who have been playing the game Demons, Nymphs, and Dragons (DND, get it?) since high school and are about to break a gaming record. Unfortunately for them, the writers have set a series of lame story hooks to possibly prevent the record breaking game from going as planned. Will they achieve their dream and gain gaming immortality? Or will they all suddenly realize that gaming is stupid and that they should get real lives? I'll give you a hint. Gamers isn't above sudden, nonsensical realizations:

Hyuk-hyuk! Aren't gamers stupid? Yup! Sure are. They don't get laid either. Huh, huh. That's funny. And I bet they all still live with their parents.

Yawn. Somebody wake me when they've actually spoken to real gamers.

Let's ignore for a minute that it's just a bad movie. Many gamer-related movies are indeed bad, and any film that proudly proclaims William Katt, Kelly LeBrock, John Heard and Beverly D'Angelo on the very top of the box has to be pretty low-budget.

No, Gamers' fatal flaw is that it isn't in love with its own source material. It doesn't like gamers. In fact, it really seems to hate them. From the perspective of the film, gamers are sad, pathetic lowlifes with zero social skills who all still live with their parents. And while that isn't actually true, it is true enough to be mined for comedy. Unfortunately, for the crew behind Gamers, it's been done. A lot. So you have to bring something new. And this never does.

Not that it doesn't try. Gamers has its fair share of gay Ronald McDonald jokes, KKK jokes, swinger parents jokes, horse milking and even a whole bit on a gay Jesus. Oh, and one of the guys is probably gay. I'm sure that was still funny. In 1986. But there isn't a single bit of gamer-related humor to be found in the whole movie. Oh, they sit around a table and throw dice -- and I believe someone involved in the making of the film remembered what it was like to play from his long-past high school glory days. But is there anything approaching clever? Is there anything that feels authentic? Never.

In fact, once I got over how lame the movie was in general -- what with its stunning lack of real pacing, comedic timing or any semblance of a plot -- I began to feel offended. You know, it's one thing when you and your friends joke about your hobbies. But it is something entirely different when someone from the "outside" wants to do it. At that point it shifts from humor to insult. And that's what drags Gamers down. This isn't loving. It's low-budget, mediocre ridicule. It's like that scene in Roxanne when that know-nothing jerk makes the lame nose joke and Steve Martin immediately responds with 20 better ones. This movie is that know-nothing jerk.

There is one shining moment, when William Katt (The Greatest American Hero) gives one of the characters a speech on the awesomeness of Madden Franchise Mode. But it was a fleeting moment that brought a smile to my face, and it was bookended by boredom.

Grade: F

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