Cody is a dick, Andy is the glue, Hollywood’s a sham and Oliver might be gay. Together these Gears of War gamers must stick together in order to try and win $400,000 at the Cyberbowl Championship in Noobz, an earnest but fiercely flat indie comedy about gaming culture.
Jeremy Piven-esque writer/director Blake Freeman, who also plays Cody, piles on tepid, tired gags in the vein of National Lampoon while trying to infuse Noobz with the deeper, wordier male-bonding aspects of Kevin Smith‘s View Askew films. Sometimes it feels like you’re watching an unlikable frat boy romp and the next second it’s Chasing Amy, with each side nullifying the other. Kevin Smith-player Jason Mews, surprisingly, gives us Mews-lite here, acting as possibly the least inept, dysfunctional member of his gaming “clan.” So there are aspects of Noobz I admire, namely the by-your-own-bootstraps filmmaking, but the comedy just isn’t there.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at IGN Video Games
