Video Game Movies

One of the best things I find about games is their ability to suck in the player and engage them in a fictional setting like no other. Interactive fiction is an incredible new addition to that most ancient of magical of human art of story telling. So why is it time and time again the fantastic opportunities presented with the incredibly rich and imaginative settings of computer game universes are squandered. It has to be agreed that the majority of video game movies suck balls. Every time the licenses are handed over to people who produce cheesy, childish movies that have no place in any gamers movie library over the age of 14. Convoluted plots, ridiculous attempts to portray gameplay in live action (Doom), awful casting (Doom), cringy dialog (oh, I know, Doom) and an tendency to miss capturing the es sense of the game.

Get your tongue out of my arsehole Koopa..

Clearly much of the green lights behind most of these films is driven by the want to capitalise on a games success. Movies such as Mario Brothers, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat try hard to cling to concepts conceived to be played on an 8 Bit machine. The poorly conceived plots struggle to make any sense and seemed to be more concerned with including all of the games characters, unconcerned with how flat and ill conceived they were (Mortal Kombat Annihilation is the worst offender). I would not have been surprised to have seen a tofu character in the Resident Evil films. So far, the majority of movies based on beat 'em up games like street fighter were clearly a shameless attempt to cash in on the success of the games. The most despicable example of this is following the 1994 release of Street Fighter came the unimaginatively titled; 'Street Fighter The Move The Game'. Seriously. Capcom went too far on this one. It is an awful shame the great Raul Julia's final time on screen was this shambolic effort.

Oh Look, its Mario Mario...You asshole

I feel I must also elaborate some more on the Mario Brothers movie. Apart from being based on a game where realism and believable characters were the last thing on Shigeru Miyamoto's mind, the fact that such a film could even be made boggles the mind. I mean how could they even attempt such a thing? One of the most infamous moments is where we finally find out what Mario & Luigi's second names are.. Mario. Yes that's right, so Mario Mario and Luigi Mario.. for fuck sake that is below contempt. Trying to have a serious plot about such a game missed the whole point of the original and why it was so awesome. Both Bob Hoskins and the late Dennis Hopper agreed it was the worst project they had ever worked on and I have no sympathy for either of them.

Yeah thanks Uwe..

Another menace to the video game world is the German director Uwe Boll. This person is responsible for the some of the worst films of all time, including Alone in the Dark, Blood Rayne and House of the Dead. ALone in the Dark and House of the Dead are notoriously bad films. Terrible editing, uninspired acting are the hall marks of his films. It seems that he really doesnt think much of gamers as he continually tries to force feed us his uninspired crap. Alone in the Dark is an epic fail. The film begins with a 5 minute text intro where the writing is hard to read and story difficult to follow. From this point on you know this is going to be painful. Tara Reid was cast as a scientist character in Alone in the Dark. How do we know she is a scientist? Her smart dialog, convincing portrayal of as an intellectual maybe? No, because shes wearing glasses of course. Other moments include people who were killed then getting up too early before the camera had moved passed them and the scene making it into the final edit of the movie.. Concentrate Uwe.. He is also well know for challenging his critics to boxing matches and beating the living man shit out of them. While this may be an admirable trait, his efforts have destroyed public confidence in video game movies. Its hard to find people who would even consider video game films seriously and frankly I have nothing to say to them as it is mostly true.

Look out puny critic

However there are very rare example of good films. Unfortunately, they are usually either very short, obscure and never fully or properly realised. One of my favourite games is Dead Space. This atmospheric survival horror has great plot and interesting setting. A little known but rather good animated film is Deadspace: Downfall. The film is a prequel to the game and describes the intial infection aboard the Ishimura. Its dark violent and atmospheric. However, as an animated film, it is unlikely to be seen by most people and so a rather good video game adaptation is likely to disappear into obscurity. The absolutely excellent short film, 'Escape from City 17' set during the events of Half Life 2: Episode One, is how I feel most video game films should be done. Admittedly it would be impossible to make a film as serious and realisitic as this about the likes of Mario, but that's the whole point. That mess should never have been made in the first place. Another teaser is the short trailer of a remake of Mortal Kombat released by Kevin Tancharoen. While this could again fall on its face, it was nice to see an effort that took the subject matter a bit more seriously, with the added bonus of 7of 9 as Sonia Blade!

Deadspace saves the day once again

Thankfully, there are many games that have escaped the attention of the profit hungry execs. Mass Effect, Bioshock, Assassins Creed are a few of the good games that have so far survived with their dignity intact. However it is only a matter of time before their growing success is noticed by the cash hungry executives who need that new yacht and another storey on their house. We can only pray that if such projects are ever pursued, the producers will show the level of respect and reverence they deserve.