***SPOILER ALERT***

Nowadays people are unconsciously hooked into a what we call the “attention web”, it’s where companies fight over you to own every possible time you have. Well, this movie kinda reminds of this phenomena that we are in now. 

This modern age film about a game called “Nerve” that basically asks you to play as a player or a watcher. As soon as you sign in, you get a username like any other game. However this game is not so ordinary as it hacks your files and takes control of your life without knowing it. They hack your credit cards, emails and even erase your identity if you don’t follow the game rules.

Now the watchers or viewers gets to play with the players by suggesting the dares they have to do or which players to match up with another player. It’s a really good concept for an adventure/thriller movie. Especially when the dares are quite extreme, like hanging from a crane or lying down a railway while the train passes over you. Not to mention driving a motorcycle blindfolded.

This may seem like a shallow themed movie, however I think it teaches us a really important lesson here. That, as watchers of the game, who were mostly brave when they are behind the screens watching people do all this crazy stunts and dares.  And that they don’t realise how scary and dangerous some of the stunts were and actually cause someone’s life. As well as the importance of real friendships over the number of followers you have on our social media accounts.

Overall, I think it’s a pretty cool movie. I enjoyed it and actually felt like I was doing some of the dares they were doing. Effective thriller!

In NZ Cinemas today September 1, 2016.