‘Noobz’ finds Jason Mewes, Blake Freeman competing for gamer gold

The target audience of the new comedy Noobz will likely be delighted with Blake Freeman’s antics. The film, starring Jason Mewes, Freeman and Matt Shively, has tons of inside gamer humor and features an easy-to-digest plot that should pique the interest of all those people whose thumbs hurt from marathons of serious play.

For the average moviegoer, Noobz is a trying experience. The humor never catches on. The acting is decent, but the story becomes tiresome after a few minutes. This one is best reserved for the gamers (of which there are millions, so Freeman’s film should be just fine).

We follow Cody (Freeman), a man who is having quite the Office Space kind of day. He loses his real estate job and the woman he loves within a few hours of each other. The only thing he loves to do in life is play computer games with his friends. There’s Andy (Mewes) and Oliver (Shively), his best buds that spit out one-liners with ease.

Together, with a character known as Hollywood (Moises Arias), they form a quartet of gaming excellence and decide to test their luck at the Cyberbowl Video Game Championship. The characters take a road trip to California, hoping they take gold and win the big prize money. Finding new love interests along the way is an extra perk.

You probably know where this is headed. Round-by-round eliminations. A gaming nemesis. A Rocky-like swelling of music.

The jokes are too obvious and never that funny. Mewes is the best of the assembled actors, bringing some genuine comedic chops to his performance. He’s able to lend these lines of dialogue some much-needed authenticity. Shively also has a comedian’s timing, although his character is underwritten and the subject of some stale jokes.

Noobz is not meant to be Academy Award fare, and anyone expecting subtlety will be sorely disappointed. For those people who know the lingo and can appreciate the hard-fought quest for the ultimate gaming prize, there’s some joy behind these 100 minutes. One cannot fault a group of actors coming together and deciding to make a movie about a phenomenon they love. This does seem like a labor of love.

P.S. Look out for the hilarious cameo from Casper Van Dien, an actor who apparently doesn’t mind poking fun at himself every once in awhile.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Noobz

• 2013

• Directed by Blake Freeman

• Written by Freeman and Marvin Willson

• Starrring Freeman, Jason Mewes, Matt Shively and Casper Van Dien

• Running time: 97 minutes

• Rated R for language including some crude sexual references

• Rating: