Often when I think about the topic of Video Game movies, the theme song from the classic Disney film “Beauty and the Beast” comes to mind
Ever just the same
Ever a surprise
Ever as before
Ever just as sure
As the sun will rise
Tale as old as time
Tune as old as song
Bittersweet and strange
Finding you can change
Learning you were wrong
Certain as the sun
Rising in the east
Tale as old as time
Song as old as rhyme
Beauty and the Beast Video Game movies suck
Ok, I may have taken some liberties with the rhyming aspect of the song, but you get the point. It has become an inevitability, a sure thing, a guarantee… if a video game based movie comes to a theater near you, it will suck. There isn’t a lot of wiggle room here and not much compromise to be found. In the league of making crapy movies, video game movies are currently batting 1000.
And as I once said: : “What is equally predictable, is that no matter how many times that proverb is proved correct, every time a new video game adaptation is announced, the lovers of that particular game pronouce “THIS TIME IT WILL BE DIFFERENT!”, but it never ever ever ever is. The old chorus of “All video game movies suck” continues to be true.”
With all of the excitement of Max Payne coming out soon, I thought we’d take a short stroll down memory lane and remember just why we should never get our hopes up:
 | SUPER MARIO BROTHERS Ahhh… often the first thing is a taste of what is to come. The very first major picture based on a video game… and the stench is still lingering. Even Dennis Hopper, John Leguizamo and Bob Hoskins couldn’t save it |
 | DOUBLE DRAGON With the flood gates opened, Double Dragon was the next live action Video game movie on the scene just beating Street Fighter to theaters by like a month. Only cool thing to say about this flick is that it’s hard to believe Robert Patrick was in it just after his T-2 days |
 | STREET FIGHTER I don’t know whose brilliant idea it was to make this movie in the first place let alone make the lead character in it Guile instead of Ryu or Ken… and THEN to make Jean Claude Van Damme the American solider. I can’t prove it, but I think the term “epic fail” may have been created just for this movie. |
 | MORTAL KOMBAT I don’t which was stranger. Casting Christopher Lambert (who I love) as Rayden or Bridgette Wilson as Soyna Blade. Confession time… I LOVE this movie. But even I can’t deny its complete awfulness. Dear heavens they even made sequels. |
 | MORTAL KOMBAT: ANNIHILATION So let’s take the really bad first movie, scrape together the few decent elements… throw them out the window and make a sequel! Yay! |
 | POKEMON: THE FIRST MOVIE Pokemon is more a card game, but they said they based it on the video game, so we’ll include it here. This whole movie was like some deranged acid trip that you just couldn’t come down from. Nasty terrible movie. |
 | WING COMMANDER This was the first Video Game movie that pissed me off because I actually thought this one had a chance at being decent. Instead we were served with 3 servings of ass awful with a plate of boring on the side. And to think.. Freddie Prinze Jr was a hot commodity. |
 | TOMB RAIDER All my friends called this one “Boob Raider” for obvious reasons. The first “blockbuster” attempt at a video game movie and to this day still probably the one that came closest to actually being ok. It didn’t quite get there, but almost. |
 | FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN At the time the single most stunning and beautiful example of 3D animation ever created. Unfortunately also one of the most incoherent and pathetic movies ever made. It almost felt like they took 18 vodka shots and then just made the movie up as they went along. |
 | RESIDENT EVIL Putting hot chicks in tight and skimpy clothes armed with big guns and blades going around killing zombies sounds like a hard formula to screw up… and yet they found a way. |
 | TOMB RAIDER: THE CRADLE OF LIFE The first one was ALMOST an ok movie. Add Gerard Butler and Djimon Hounsou and you’d think that would push it into decent territory right? Ug. Wrong. The franchise turned south and never recovered. |
 | HOUSE OF THE DEAD All hail Uwe Boll!!! You’d think a movie about showing up on an Island for a party only to find it infested with Zombies would jsut be a fun little easy flick right? HAHAHA!! Guess not. |
 | RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE Studio Head: “Hey we really screwed up the first on and we still made money! Dress her hup in even less clothes this time, put in half the effort, make it even worse and let’s see if we can still make profit”. Turns out he could. |
 | ALONE IN THE DARK Another entry into the Uwe Boll files. But really… did you even have to see the name Uwe Boll to know this was going to be horrible? For heavens sake the name Tara Reid appears on the poster. What more did you need to know? |
 | DOOM Karl Urban and The Rock were solid cast decisions… and boy did the fan boys swear up and down that THIS was the video game movie that would rule and change the tide. Turns out it was one of the worst ever. Do you remember that ridiculous first person shooter view scene? Yikes. |
 | BLOODRAYNE You know, this one had some potential. Not a bad mythology behind the main character, a cast lead by Oscar winner Ben Kingsley, and a drunk Michael Madsen running around set swinging a sword haphazardly. However, it blew and becomes the third Uwe Boll film on this list. |
 | SILENT HILL Horror video game movies seem to be all the rage. This is another one that had some potential and even started off ok, but then quickly spiraled downwards and ended up just completely nonsensical. For a “horror” movie it was dreadfully non-frightening or even eerie. |
 | DOA: DEAD OR ALIVE This one had people talking about while it was still in production. The hyper sexy images and clips being released turned the atmosphere of the project into one of soft-core porn instead of an action video game movie. Nothing wrong with tits and ass and hot babes kicking copious amounts of it (except for the tits part), but it would be nice if it didn’t suck. |
 | RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION Trailers are funny things. Even though the first two Resident Evil films sucked, the trailer for this one convinced me there may be a chance it would be ok. Oh those evil deceptive trailers. |
 | HITMAN Another video game movie where the fans of the game swore up and down that THIS movie would be awesome. Certainly cast a good lead and as many others it certainly had potential… but it failed miserably. The one good thing I can say is that it introduced us to a very naked Olga Kurylenko, possibly one of the hottest women alive and the new James Bond girl. |
 | IN THE NAME OF THE KING: A DUNGEON SIEGE TALE It certainly had a decent amount of names in the cast. Jason Statham, Ron Perlman, John Rhys-Davies, Claire Forlani, Ray Liotta, Matthew Lillard (who was actually pretty funny in it), Burt Reynolds (yes, THE Burt Reynolds). You know what, it came close. A few key changes here and there and it might have been a passable fantasy flick. Did a few things right, but too many things wrong. |
WHY DO VIDEO GAME MOVIES SUCK?
Many game fans will often put forth ideas and theories about why all the video game movies up till this point have been poor. The theories usually revolve around the writers or the studios… but when you have a pattern like this (video game movies sucking) you have to look for the common denominator. In this case… they’re all video game movies.
With that simple logic, I propose (as I have many times in the past, but never in its own dedicated post) that there in an inherent weakness with the genre itself that almost condemns these projects to certain death the moment they’re born in a studio office. So why do Video Game movies suck? Well…
#1 - Video Games are made for gameplay, not narrative story telling
When a game developer is putting their game together, their first priority (or at least it should be) is gameplay. How well does this play, how enjoyable, creative and easy is this game to operate and what will the user experience be like. Their first priority is not to tell a 90 minute narrative story. Yes, story plays a part of any good game, but it’s only a side element to the over all game experience. And really, when you break it all down there is about 10 minutes of narrative story in any given game.
People will often mistake a great “premise” with a great “story”. They’re two different things. The premise of Bioshock is fantastic, but the actual amount of narrative in the game is completely minimal.
It’s not like adapting a comic or a novel that already have massive amounts of narrative laid out that can be adapted. Making a video game movie is basically starting from scratch with nothing but an idea for a story rather than a story itself.
#2 - Gamers imaginations fill in the gaps
Because video games are so sparse when it comes to narrative (and there’s nothing wrong with that since they’re designed for gameplay in the first place) each fan of the game has a different notion in their minds about what would fill in the narrative gaps. It’s fine to make a Halo game and say Master Chief has a meeting with some Captain who has vital information… but there is no reference for that meeting, what is said in it, how it impacts the rest of the narrative or anything else for that matter. To the game player that’s not an issue and their own imaginations can fill in those gaps… the problem is what a movie actually DOES flesh those elements out, there is a 99% if won’t match what was in the game player’s imagination. Now I’m talking in generalities here, but the principle is that because the game lacks pre-existing narrative, what the fan’s CONCEPT of what the narrative may look like is probably not what is going to manifest, thus leaving the audience wanting.
#3 - Everyone has a different idea of what “respect the source material” means
This one is a common lamentation I hear from game fans when their favorite games turn out to be horrible movies. “They didn’t respect the source material”. The problem with that assertion is that… what do they mean by “source material”? This goes back again to the first point about lack of real narrative. Since the game doesn’t have it, each person will have a different idea about which elements constitute “source material” to them. So what do they mean? Do they mean the atmosphere of the game? Do they mean the characters present in the game? Do they mean the premise of the game? Again, each person will have a different idea simply because the game itself doesn’t provide it.
So there you have it. Does all the preceding mean that there will never be a good video game movie? Not at all. The law of averages dictates that eventually lighting will strike a monkey in the forest that no one will here fall (or am I mixing metaphors?). At some point one has to come along to break the streak… and then maybe that movie will provide a new paradigm for the entire genre that others can then follow to continued success. But until that day folks… assume the worst of video game movies. Keep your expectations low and caution high. Those that forget the past are doomed to repeat it (in the care of Resident Evil, repeat it twice).
