Nerve (2016)

Are you a watcher, or a player? That's the question at the center of the NYC-set millennial thriller 'Nerve.' The Emma Roberts-/Dave Franco-starrer is a commentary on the perils and pitfalls of our budding voyeuristic society as our lives continue to shift from the real to the virtual world.

When an underground online game sprouts up among high school-aged kids that rewards those who dare to accept dares, all kinds of havoc is unleashed on the boroughs of New York. Roberts plays Vee - a graduating high school senior who is caught between a rock and a hard place, as she is looking to escape her simple Staten Island life in hopes of going to school on the west coast. The quiet, shy Vee decides to take a chance on coming out of the shadows, and after crossing paths with the mysterious Franco (Ian), her life is never the same.

Sure, 'Nerve' is creative, but it tries really hard to be edgy. And maybe it is seen to be edgy to its core demographic, but it otherwise comes off as feeling "fake" and "pretentious." There are lots of scenes that feel like they were thought up on the spot, and they look like they were filmed on a smartphone. This effect is intentional, of course, but that doesn't signal that it's good. Yes, there are some daredevil-ish tasks that are attempted here, but they all feel muted. On the positive side, there are some great shots of the city scattered throughout.

'Nerve' attempts to generate awareness of the growing issue of cyberbullying, but it does so in a way that feels cheap and hokey.

Fmovies: With great internet power comes great irresponsibility. This is the premise behind "Nerve", a film whose producers must have wet themselves with excitement that the Pokemon Go craze aligned so nicely with the release of their film. I was delighted that at last this summer there is a film with a modicum of originality I can enthuse about.

'Vee', short for Venus (Emma Roberts, niece of Julia Roberts) is an NYC teen living in the shadow of a family tragedy and the claustrophobic presence of her over-protective mother (Juliette Lewis, "Cape Fear"). Always timidly in the shadow of her best friend – the extrovert Sydney (Emily Meade) – Vee pooh-poohs Sydney's compulsion with the new viral internet game 'Nerve': a social media 'Truth or Dare' ("but without the truth") challenge game where you can either be a "Player" or a "Watcher". In real time, Watchers set Players with challenges they have to complete for ever-escalating financial rewards… but "Bail" or "Fail" and you lose all. And "snitches get stitches".

With their friendship at breaking point, Vee is provoked into playing the game by Sydney and teams with fellow gamer Ian (Dave Franco, younger brother of James Franco) – someone with a history that could bring Vee into great danger. However, Vee's geeky wannabe boyfriend Tommy (Miles Heizer) is on the case….

What is so impressive about this film is that the screenplay by Jessica Sharzer (based on a novel by Jeanne Ryan) is genuinely original and is delivered with style and good humor. Sure, you can draw parallels for any film with many other sources: in here there are traces of Hunger Games/Allegiance; the "Simon Says" portion of Die Hard 3; perhaps a soupçon of "Gladiator" and Schwartznegger's "Running Man" in the mix. But this is a novel approach to a teen flick, bang on the topical money in bringing in the frenetically viral nature of social media and aspects of the 'dark web', cyber security and open source programming.

The film manages to generate significant credibility about the impact that a game like this would have among a teen audience. And there is a telling message in the finale: that it is easy to be a troll without responsibility hiding behind an internet ident, but when the masks come off and the message back becomes personal then your responsibilities as an individual human can come home to roost.

The film is delivered with style and verve as well, with innovative graphics (a great title and end title design) and an 'augmented reality' overlay of the action showing Players and Watchers across the city. Many of the challenges are executed really well, with a few seat-clenchingly tense moments, particularly if you have a poor head for heights.

But with all this potential it unfortunately fails to be a 10* classic, smelling at times of 'B' movie. Which is a great shame. Emma Roberts is fine at what she does, but at times I longed for the dramatic depth of a Shailene Woodley or Chloe Grace Moretz, with the scenes with the under-used but excellent Juliette Lewis rather highlighting this differential.

The otherwise excellent script is – for me – let down by a scene of male-on-female violence which I found both distasteful and unnecessary. And a coding 'geeks shall inherit the earth' moment towards the end is a little too glib for my liking.

But overall the director

I'm the guy who can appreciate Ben Affleck's Daredevil as mindless entertainment...so with that being said I'm not too hard to impress. I liked this movie's concept...it's fun and engaging. The actors did a good job with it for what it was. It's not an Oscar worthy movie by any means, but if you're bored and you're looking for something to mindlessly entertain you for a few hours this will do the trick. A little far fetched at times with regards to the antagonist(s)...but it's a good source of mindless entertainment. I've read people say it tries to actually get into serious themes...if that's the case I missed the memo cause I didn't really see any serious themes other than the availability of information over the internet...

I'd sort of go the other way with this and say it doesn't really take itself too seriously...which I think is a good thing. I do feel like the ending was a little meh and a little bit of a letdown...but I can't think of a better way to end it off the top of my head so I really shouldn't complain. This was an OK movie with a really good premise for nerds like me.

Nerve fmovies. I found the central concept of Nerve ingenious, and it seems unbelievable that something like that doesn't already exist. However, the screenplay (based on a homonym novel by Jeanne Ryan) loses credibility with an alarming quickness, making the provocative ethic dilemmas of the game become a series of whims designed to generate drama and suspense which rarely feel authentic. Nevertheless, Nerve didn't bore me due to the dynamic direction from Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman and the adequate performances from Emma Roberts and Dave Franco. However, as I previously said, Nerve gets increasingly improbable with every new detail revealed. To start with, the game doesn't seem economically sustainable; its creators give away hundreds of dollars, and they must keep a considerable technological infrastructure to satisfy the clients (I guess so), in exchange for relatively cheap subscriptions. And, well, let's not even deal with the theme of the game legality, its omnipotent "data mining" algorithms and the total absence of cops during the most spectacular "feats" of the players (except when they are necessary to complicate the plot, naturally). But even leaving aside the huge logical holes and technological exaggerations, the main problem lies on the reaction the main characters; instead of being realistic characters trapped into an unusual situation, we have pre-fabricated puppets to fill in the requirements of the screenplay. I guess I shouldn't be surprised; a visit to Amazon confirmed the fact that Nerve is based on a "young adult" novel... in other words, it competes in the same market as The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, Divergent, I Am Number Four, Beautiful Creatures, The Host (2013), The Giver, Warm Bodies, Blood and Chocolate, Jumper and other ones which borrowed fantasy, science fiction or horror concepts in order to add them to simpleton tales with obligatory romantic tangents and wide doses of juvenile drama. Anyway, taking it on its own, I found Nerve moderately entertaining but forgettable, appealing to the digital obsessions of the juvenile audience in order to "connect" on a more emotional level (we already know that life experiences are valid only if they are registered on video or some shape of social network). And we were complaining about Pokemon Go...

I guess, I was too old in age to watch this movie. It might aim at teenagers. To me, a grown-up middle aged man, the movie was boring and predictable. All boys and girls have stereotype characters. Especially boring is the fact that all characters are very conservative thinking, not much youth in them. They all go a bit wild during playing the game "Nerve". But after moral (not ethics) catches them up they fall back in place and will live ordinary boring lives. What remains after leaving the cinema, is the depressing fact that our digital world can only be thought as going mad, that internet brings out mostly the bad side of people, but very seldom the good. In these kind of movies the happy ends finish with the heroes turning off the computers or mobiles. But the kids going out of the cinemas don't.

'Nerve' is one of those films that quietly went under the radar at the cinema, but seem to catch on via word of mouth.

Truth is it's a decent film, inspired by a YA book. It also acts as a vehicle for up and coming talents such as Emma Roberts and Dave Franco, who both give good performances.

Roberts in particular shines in every scene, and it is her character of Vee who goes through the biggest journey throughout.

The plot doesn't hold up to much scrutiny, but it is an action packed film, that proves entertaining.

If you can stomach the fact that it's really just people doing lots of irresponsible things then you'll enjoy the film. Parents thinking of letting their teens watch it should be wary though.