The Blockbuster Game: A Movie Party Game for the Whole Family

Surprised how enjoyable it was to play!

Rating: 10/10A rare blockbuster of a game! Feels like you’re living inside a movie—cinematic, gripping, and full of emotion. If you’re a movie lover, this is a must-have. Don’t even think twice, just get it.

This is such a fun family game! We had such a good time playing this! Even if you don’t know all the movies, I can guarantee someone on your team does. It’s a mix of charades, or a game we call fishbowl!

I enjoy most Big Potato games, and this one is no exception. It's strictly a party game, so that limits its versatility; you'll probably want at least 6 players to play it, and you can go higher if you want. We've played it with 10 and 12, but I probably wouldn't go higher than 12 without some tweaks to the rules.My only complaint is that the tag line for the game says, "A movie game for anyone who has ever seen a movie." This makes it seem like movie knowledge isn't required to play the game, but it's definitely lends an advantage. If you have seen a lot of movies, you're just going to be better at this game. If you don't watch a lot of movies, this game is probably not going to be that fun for you. And it's never fun when you're playing a group game and there's one person who obviously has no idea and isn't having a good time.The basic structure of the game is this:In the first round, two players face off against each other and draw a card. The card has some generic statement, like "movies based on books." Then the two players go back-and-forth, round robin style, naming movies based on books. Player A says, "Misery," and then Player B says, "Cider House Rules," and Player A then says, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." There is a little chess timer thing that each player hits after saying an answer, and if a player is unable to name a movie after 15 seconds, that person loses the first round. This round always goes quicker than you would expect.In round 2, the game shifts to a team game. The player that won round 1 goes first, and he and his team have to guess the name of movies on three cards that he has drawn. The trick is that each movie can only be described in one of three ways: a description, a quote, or by miming. All three ways must be used, so you can describe one movie, quote another, and then act out a third. As you can imagine, having seen a lot of movies is a tremendous advantage here.To make it easier, the rules say that the quote doesn't have to be a real quote, but something that a character in the movie might say. Some are easy. If you draw "Jaws," you can say, "I think we're going to need a bigger boat," and that's a phrase that's entered pop culture so ubiquitously that even people who haven't seen the movie can figure it out. But not all the movies are quite so easy. If you draw "The Great Escape," which is an actual card in the game, I might say for a made-up quote, "Gee, I can't believe how Steve McQueen just got away from us Nazis by jumping that fence with his motorcycle," but if you haven't seen "The Great Escape" -- and let's face it, World War II POW movies aren't something that are typically popular with the fairer sex, even if they do star Steve McQueen -- there is no way that you are ever going to guess that. Or, worse yet, if you are the one who is responsible for giving the clues, and you draw "The Great Escape," but you've never seen the movie, you're really stuck. And so it can become sort of embarrassing, which is no fun.On the other hand, if you have a group of friends who are movie buffs, the game can be a lot of fun. It moves fast and there isn't a lot of down time. There are also some nice chatskis that come with the game, and the overall quality is quite good, at least for the first game. It's especially fun if you're of the age when you remember going to the video store on a Friday or Saturday night to rent a VHS, because it adds the nostalgia factor. So overall, it's pretty good. Not Big Potato's best game -- I think that's Mr. Lister, which everyone always loves -- but still a solid entry.

Thank Amazon

Gave this as part of a gift to my brother and sister-in-law for Christmas. They broke it out over the holiday break when they had company over and said it was a lot of fun. so it was a successful gift.

Bought this game after playing at a friend's house. The instructions were a bit much at first, but once play started, it's easy and really fun.

In my opinion, some of the movies are really obscure.