Nerve (2016)

Based on the 2012 young adult thriller of the same name by Jessica Sharzer, Nerve stars Emma Roberts as Statin Island high school senior Venus "Vee" Delmonico, a girl with a reputation as being boring and extremely risk averse (and for reasons that the film does get into). After an unintentional  humiliation at the hands of her best friend Sydney (Emily Meade), Vee decides to prove her reputation wrong by participating in an online reality game called "Nerve", which she had learned about from Sydney who is also a participate in the game. Nerve consists of  "Players" who accept dares from "Watchers", receiving money rewards that increase with the danger of the dare completed. Vee's "hacker" best guy friend Tommy (Miles Heizer) tries to talk her out of participating in the questionable game, not least because he nurses a not so secret crush on her. Vee choses to participate anyway and eventually ends up in Manhattan in the company of a mysterious fellow player named Ian (Dave Franco). The dares get increasingly risky and before long Vee finds she has become a virtual "prisoner" of the game, her very life in danger. It then becomes the requisite race against time as Vee's friends try to save her while the game moves toward its final round, where the two top players compete directly, and only one can make it out alive. Though very much a YA story, and with the associated clichés and types that go with that, the premise is still novel enough to be engaging and at times exciting. If I had to describe the film in one word that word would have to be "Millennial", owing to both the subject matter and the young cast. Just this side of too hokey I give it  ***