Big Game (Cinema Screening)

(spoiler free)

It’s hard to believe that Samuel L. Jackson has never played the President before on the big screen – enter Big Game! From the posters Big Game just looked like a blast, a pure leave your brain at the door fun time at the cinema. So was this as good a time as it looked?

Big Game sports one of the most ridiculous storylines I have ever seen, whilst the action is still hard to believe, it was the plot that really gave me a hard time. There were just so many aspects to this story which were either too far fetched or just a bit silly. I understand that Big Game is meant to be a trashy action movie but for it to work it needs to be somewhat believable. The hunting element to the story was over used, and the over emotional messages and lessons that were being taught throughout never hold the desired emotional weight that they aim for. Instead of this Big Game should have just embraced its fun nature and gone all out with it! The film does start well and it had a fun vibe to it but it quickly began to drag due to the lack of structure. One element that I found particularly amusing was the scenes at the Pentagon, these scenes featured the most laid back Presidents staff I have ever seen. They literally just sit about eating chinese whilst the Presidents life is at risk – this is what I am talking about when I say it needs to be somewhat believable. Despite all these issues in Big Game the film does manage to be entertaining, as silly as it was.

It wasn’t all bad though, Samuel L. Jackson plays a very unlike himself character but he does it well which results in some humour. Ray Stevenson also performs well in his role as part of the Presidents staff and he clearly has fun with this role. Jim Broadbent makes an appearance too, as random as this is he manages to impress with his accent and his involvement. The rest of the cast don’t make much impact. Unfortunately character motives weren’t always clear and they often really didn’t make much sense although without these we wouldn’t have got some of the good action that we did. Some of the scenes in Big Game looked really good, for example when there are shots of Air Force One flying it looks really slick. However, to accompany these good looking scenes there are some suitably more dodgy looking ones too.  Just on Air Force One, the fest few scenes that take place here are probably the highlight of the movie and they really show Big Game’s potential to be a crazy action movie, its a shame that the film couldn’t continue this throughout the running time.

Big Game could have been an all out blast of a time, but instead of that it just becomes a very random action film. The bizarre storyline doesn’t ever really click and combined with the at times ever odder action scenes its all just a bit weird. Despite this Big Game is nearly always entertaining, some amusing performances help with this and admittedly it has its moments. You won’t regret buying a ticket to this one, but I doubt that you will ever want to watch it again.

Rating – 5.5/10