Whilst video games have come very far since Pong, video game movies or movies about video games have not, and Stay Alive is just one more movie that can be added to the list. The story is dumb and the characters that populate it even dumber, and the entire film just moves along so predictably there is zero suspense. The fact that the movie was originally a PG-13 one means there isn't even much gore to please the splatter-hounds.

In a time-honoured tradition, one of the characters in the movie is killed in the prologue, whilst playing a game called Stay Alive. Apparently, he fails to heed the advice of the game title, and dies in the same gruesome fashion as his videogame character. His friends are determined to get to the root of the matter, and of course start playing the game themselves.

Expectedly, most of the peripheral characters will be offed in various creative ways, whilst the main protagonist and his love interest will be spared, only to do stupid things like go exploring on their own instead of staying together in a group. Maybe playing video games really DOES make the brain go mushy. Stay Alive may be just a harmless game, but the final verdict is still to Stay Away.