Nerve

By: John Delia

Targeted at teens, the movie Nerve sets up a very dangerous game that involves taking huge chances and cheating death. The film has adequate acting and able direction, but the storyline does have elements of the impossible. While it’s just a movie to create thrills and suspense, it’s kind of fun to watch, especially the risky scenes involving the dares.

Here’s how the game Nerve works. Much like you can sign up for an app, the game beckons teens to check out their game on their cell phone and other computerized media. The game specializes in danger and offers big bucks for joining the game as a Player and participating against other members for 24 hours. Within that time, the contestants try to get as many watchers of their dares as possible that will contribute to being the number one winner who takes all. Watchers becomes the voyeurs who pay $20 to check in on their favorite player or several players if they want to pony up the cost of each. Payoffs to each of the contestants can be as much as ten thousand dollars, but they lose it all if they do not become the leader at the end of the game. Whew! I hope you understand that. “Think the game Truth or Dare without the Truth part.”

High School yearbook photographer Vee (Emma Roberts) has a crush on J.P. (Brian Marc) who is the star of the football team. She’s been wanting to get noticed by him and her BFF Sydney (Emily Meade) pushes her to talk to him, but having an over protective mother (Juliette Lewis) hasn’t helped her assertiveness and she backs off.

After being embarrassed by Sydney over a miscue one day, Vee draws back into her cocoon even giving the cold shoulder her best friend. The outgoing and popular Sydney wants all the glory from her fellow students and joins the hot teen game called Nerve. Quickly jumping into the lead for the girls side of the game, Sydney starts to get a lot of watchers. When it bothers Vee to see her best friend getting all the notoriety she decides to become a Player with her first dare being kissing a stranger for five seconds.

The game starts to escalate from there with Vee going up against the best including Ian (Dave Franco), the stranger she kissed. Paranormal Activity 3 directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman take on this fast paced film and create a lot of suspense and excitement in the short hour and a half. Loading the film with some very tense moments while creating an adventure that takes their audience on a trip to the dark side, the two at the helm work some very good teen attractive scenes that should make it a box office winner.

But it’s not all champagne and roses as the story gets a little off kilter with wacky scenes and unlikely realism. That said, I do love the department store dare where a $10,000 dress becomes Vee’s outfit for the evening and Ian’s fashion statement isn’t half bad either. Wacky with Ian’s Triumph blazing down a New York City street is an understatement, but green screen and CGI take a lot out of the insanity it’s supposed to bring about. Of course, I did get stunned a couple of times with the insane dares, but the finale just doesn’t give the final punch needed to make it a blockbuster.

Dave Franco and Emma Roberts do have a lot of chemistry together, with both showing up well on the big screen. They turn up the heat both daring and romantically teaming up to win the challenges before them. They both want to be the recipient of all the cash, but their new found attraction to each other gets in the way each dare after dare.

Nerve has been rated PG-13 by the MPAA for thematic material involving dangerous and risky behavior, some sexual content, language, drug content, drinking and nudity-all involving teens. One of the dares will take your breath away from the unexpected way it gets filmed. Be sure to take caution when wanting to bring immature children to the movie as some scenes get a bit steamy and frightening.

FINAL ANALYSIS: A wild adventure for teens to twenties. (C+)