I honestly didn't expect much out of this movie. I saw very few advertisements for Pulse, it had no real actors of any note in the leads (the lesser of two Francos and one of TVs Scream Queens), and it looked squarely aimed at people who use SnapChat. Plus, the summer is not known for surprising indie hits. But, I was bored and the movie seemed short, so I went to the late showing on a Thursday, thinking I would be alone in the theater.
I was genuinely surprised, though, by the end. Granted, the movie was not amazing, but it was surprisingly enjoyable, and Dave Franco and Emma Roberts were pretty good in it. Still, the premise was clever: people could win money playing a crowd-sourced version of Truth or Dare which was often heavy on the dares. Vee (Roberts) was bored with her life and decided to become a "Player" in Nerve rather than a "Watcher," the first of many ham-fisted metaphors for living life. At first, the dares developed along a fairly believable difficulty curve, until Vee was asked to guide Ian (Franco) on his stolen motorcycle through the streets of New York as he was blindfolded. From there, it rapidly became more unbelievable as the writers showed little understanding about how the internet works and mankind devolved into a sort of Lord of the Rings meets Gladiator mentality. The end message was disappointingly cliched, and I am surprised the "End" title didn't come with a question mark.
Still, for 40 minutes, it was an interesting movie and had a neat concept. It was worth a watch if you have a soft spot for teen movies or science fiction with a poor understanding of the internet.
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