I said yesterday that the mind-control video game movie known as Gamer (or “Citizen Game” if you believe IMDB), could be either pretty cool or pretty awful. After seeing the trailer (after the jump), I’m leaning toward the latter.

Yes, it has everything the synoposis promised, but the whole “death row inmates do something sadistic to entertain the masses” thing has already been done in Death Race and The Condemned, both of which turned out to be laughably bad projects. I’m not sure why the whole “modern gladiator” concept can’t work, but so far, it hasn’t, and Gamer doesn’t look like it’s going to change that.

Highlights of the trailer include a kid making Gerard Butler do the robot. Lowlights include seeing Ludacris (having a rapper in your movie will almost always make you lose most of your credibility) and Michael C. Hall with an unnecessarily odd accent. As much as I love him as Dexter, this role doesn’t seem to suit him at all. I’ll reserve final judgment until I see more, but after one day of interest, I no longer have much hope for this one.