By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
Beta Test is an upcoming independent movie scheduled for cinematic release July 22nd and it shows how dangerous augmented reality can be. When champion gamer Max (Larenz Tate, House of Lies) is given a new video game by his employer / benefactor (a company known as Sentinel) to test, very little does he know that he’s controlling another individual to commit crimes in the real-world? Somehow, he must discover how to free Orson Creed (Manu Bennett, CW’s Arrow) from mind control in order to unravel a greater conspiracy. In what the two discover is a bigger game of cat and mouse neither are prepared for.
Both have different stakes. Creed’s wife is kidnapped and unless he complies, she will die. Max has social issues. Ever since his beloved pet died, he’s led a sheltered life. This film has some good depth in the development of its characters. For once, Bennett gets to play a good guy and I liked hearing him wax poetic about how nobody has the right to play god. After all, aren’t we living in The Matrix?
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