I like to think that we can be honest with each other here. And if we're being honest, it's gotta be said that most movies based on video games aren't worth the time or the money they cost. You can blame the writing, or the dubious transition between interactive and non-interactive storytelling, but that's too obvious. The real reasons that video game movies rarely work are actually much less obvious -- that is, less obvious to the non-gamer. That's why you have me to point them out for you.

1. Video game graphics don't translate
Imagine you're playing Gears of War 2. Thousands of computer-generated baddies rush through a computer-generated landscape as you computer-generate a chainsaw into their faces. Since everything that occurs on screen exists within the same game engine, it's easy to visually accept what you see without getting pulled out of the experience. In movies, however, the special effects need to look as realistic as real life. When we see Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis combating hallucinogenic valkyries in Max Payne, we can't help but notice how the computer-generated beasts just don't look like they belong. The CGI doesn't sync with the reality of the world the actors are trying to convey, and your disbelief never has a chance to suspend.

Continue reading "The Five Real Reasons Why Video Game Movies Usually Stink" »

Video game movies don't always follow mainstream trends. Where quality Hollywood flicks typically lead to inferior sequels, video game movies tend to be so underwhelming that by comparison even direct-to-DVD sequels can seem better. It's oddly satisfying, in fact, to see franchises get redeemed by directors you've never heard of using vastly smaller budgets than their theatrical counterparts. Examples, you say? I'm getting to that.

1. Tomb Raider: the Cradle of Life (2003)
At the time of its release, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was one of the most financially successful video game movies of all time. Box office tickets didn't end up translating to popular appeal, however, and effectively no one turned out to watch the exorbitantly expensive sequel (the second of a planned trilogy). Which is a shame, because it's at least moderately better than the condescending, borderline sexist first flick. Where the original was a plodding, tonally awkward mishmash of existing action cliches (and for some reason, a fight with a giant robot), the sequel is a well-paced and enjoyable adventure flick in the vein of Indiana Jones.

Continue reading "Five Video Game Movie Sequels That Surpass Their Originals" »

Video game movies are tricky: You don't just have to produce something that regular audiences can enjoy; you've gotta satisfy the hordes of ravenous gamers who adore the source material, and understand it even better than you. Most of the time, you fail. And that's where fan movies come in. Created on low budgets, they offer a glimpse into the intense dedication and love gamers have for their favorite franchises. More than that, they show the mainstream what gamers want to see. Here's a list of the five best gamer fan flicks that outshine their mainstream equivalents -- proof alone that Uwe Boll has no right to call himself a professional.

1. Fan Flick: Metal Gear Solid: Philanthropy (2009)
Hollywood Analogue: Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
Like the Angelina Jolie flick, Metal Gear Solid: Philanthropy plays fast and loose with its source material, ditching everything from the MGS mythology except for the hero, Solid Snake, and the fact that he fights giant, bipedal robot tanks. There's something to be said for a half-hearted dedication to one's source: Though both flicks are mixed bags of occasionally thrilling action sequences bookended by irrelevant narrative, they are not tired retreads of the same old stories. But at the end of the day (and even though it's a close call), it's more fun to watch a bunch of Italian dudes blowing up robots than it is to watch Angelina Jolie aimlessly pal around with Jon Voight and Daniel Craig.

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Every genre has a few actors that help define it. Action flicks have Bruce Willis; dramas have Meryl Streep. But who, I ask, do video game movies hold as their most beloved thespians? Failing that, which actors have simply appeared in a boatload of the damned things? I've compiled a list of the most prolific video game movie actors, the results of which will almost certainly surprise you: Two are supermodels, one starred in A Christmas Story, and one is an honest-to-God knight. Who are these mystery men and women? Read on.

Milla Jovovich
Video Game Repertoire: The Resident Evil series
With three Resident Evil movies in the can and another on the way, Milla "multipass" Jovovich has effectively become the queen of video game movies. The RE flicks -- for reasons that continue to stump both critics and fans of the games -- are the highest-grossing video game movies in history. Some argue that the original games are so beloved fans will rush out to see the movies knowing full well that they're not going to be very good. Others would say that nobody in their right mind would pass up an opportunity to see a half-naked Milla Jovovich decapitate zombies to awful rock music. Probably, both are correct.

Ben Kingsley
Video Game Repertoire: BloodRayne, Prince of Persia
Were he anyone else, Ben Kingsley's meager two video game flicks would disqualify him from placement on the list. But we're talking about the guy who played Gandhi; a living, breathing, knight. And yet, somehow, Sir Ben plays the villain in the worst movie about lesbian vampires ever, and worse yet he's slated to play a similarly evil role in the Prince of Persia movie. Look -- I enjoy a fair number of video game movies, some even unironically. But never would I think that Kingsley didn't have better things to do than hang out with Uwe Boll and play generic video game baddies.

Continue reading "The Six Most Prolific Video Game Movie Actors" »

Quickly: Name the most critically acclaimed video game movie of all time. If you thought of a movie based on an existing game like Hitman or Mortal Kombat, then you're you're wrong. The real winner is actually a documentary about two middle-aged dudes playing Donkey Kong. Video game docs open the door to the weird, wonderful and ridiculous world of gamers, and (unlike many fictional video game adaptations) usually end up striking a chord with critics and gamers alike. Here are the five best -- finally, a list of video game movies I can actually recommend you watch.

5. Frag (2007)
Take the backroom dealings and corruption of Wall Street, then combine it with the fun of watching dudes play CounterStrike and you've got Frag, a warts-and-all examination of today's pro gamers; guys with handles like "LoSt_CaUzE" and "Fatal1ty" who make serious cash just by being good at pounding controllers. But professional gaming isn't all glitz and glamor: The doc delves into the internal politics, corruption, drugs and emotional toll the "job" entails. Granted, the movie occasionally dives into the unintentionally laughable -- a fair few of the pro gamers are just plain unlikeable -- but Frag is still a remarkably interesting, relevant look at the culture of people who are paid to play.

Continue reading "The Top Five Documentaries About Video Games" »

Today we'll be looking at the concept of "synergy" -- you know, that word corporate bigwigs adore and regular folk despise? -- and how it applies to Hollywood's relationship with the video game industry. You see, it may have taken Hollywood a few decades to respect the raw, monetary power of video games as a medium, but studios are now making up for lost time with a litany of tie-ins and licensed games. After all, why just capitalize on one medium when you can have two for twice the price? Let's take a look at the interesting history of video game synergy, and see where it's headed in the future.

The Movie: Surf Ninjas (1993)
The Synergy: Sega Game Gear's Surf Ninjas
In one of the most charmingly shameless synergies, the producers behind Surf Ninjas decided not only to create a Sega Game Gear game based on their flick, but to give the game almost as much screen time in their movie as the actual heroes. You see, the game in the movie isn't just another hand-held diversion -- it's a magical ninja-fighting program that tells the heroes what to do and gives them advanced warning when they're about to be attacked. The message to younger viewers is clear: If you buy the Surf Ninjas video game, you'll be able to fight ninjas and a robotic Leslie Nielsen, too! That neither the game nor the movie lived up to such hype should surprise no one.

Continue reading "How Do You Make Avatar an Even Bigger Hit? Synergize it With Video Games!" »

In this column we've learned a lot about the tremendous impact video games have had on Hollywood, but what about the gamers themselves? You see, we gamers know what we're actually like, but filmmakers are still a little unclear about how to portray our ilk. When they sit down at their typewriters, we usually come off as either more charming and interesting than we are in reality, or we're condescendingly insulted. Need proof? Here are the most egregious offenders in science fiction.

The Movie: Stay Alive (2006)
The Gamers: Incredibly hot and stupid
With a cast made up of startlingly good-looking actors like Sophia Bush, Milo Ventimiglia, and Samaire Armstrong, much of this sub-par movie feels like a feature-length Nintendo Wii commercial -- admittedly, one that's full of decapitations and slit throats. The characters in Stay Alive are indicative of everything gamers simultaneously loathe and envy; we Cheetos-eating, over-or-underweight lot wish to be the type of people who could swap spittle with Sophia Bush, but we also never want to be the kind of brainless morons who get killed because we weren't smart enough to stop playing a video game that decapitates its players. Decisions, decisions.

Continue reading "Don't Play Me Like That! The Worst Depictions of Gamers in SciFi" »

The other day I watched Resident Evil: Degeneration -- Japan's CG adaptation of the venerable game franchise -- and I realized that video game movies produced by Westerners tend to be more bombastic, more loose with the source material and, ultimately, less beloved than the ones produced by Eastern countries. "An interesting thought," you might say, "but you can't really compare the two filmmaking styles unless you find both Japanese and American adaptations of the same video game."

"Ho," I say, "I've found several that fit just such a category." Read on.

Super Mario Bros. (1993) vs. Super Mario Bros: Great Mission to Rescue Peach! (1986)
Though now admirable in a whimsical, quasi-ironic sort of way, the U.S.-produced Super Mario Bros. movie was nothing short of reviled when it hit theaters. The press hated it, fans of the game hated it -- heck, even the actors hated it. Blame the bare-bones plot -- "Bowser kidnapped the princess, get her back" -- that couldn't sustain itself, or the characters, whose cartoonish charm was immediately lost in the switch to live-action. Blame Bob Hoskins, who, fantastic as he was, just couldn't balance out the presence of John Leguizamo. Just don't blame the source material.

The 1986 Japanese anime Super Mario Bros: Great Mission to Rescue Peach! manages to be more watchable, more charming, and far less wince-inducing than the American adaptation. Though you'd be hard-pressed to qualify Great Mission as anything but shallow children's entertainment, it's still a heck of a lot more endearing than the American version. The characters are actually cute, rather than terrifying, and the reach of the intensely minimalist story never exceeds its grasp, or the audience's attention span. True, the entire plot is spelled out in its title, but the flick is a full half-hour shorter than the American version -- even if you don't end up liking either, you'll suffer much less with the Japanese version.

Plus, you can watch the anime for free on YouTube.

Continue reading "A Super Mario World Apart - Comparing American and Japanese Video Game Movies" »

For every licensed video game produced as a cheap cash-in for a summer movie (G.I. Joe, Transformers 2), there are those few that perfectly marry the sensibilities of their source material with the fun of interactivity. We've discussed this before. What we haven't discussed, however, are those movies that are overdue for a virtual adaptation -- cult classics so good, so cool, so wacky that they perfectly lend themselves to the medium. Herewith, my top contenders:

Master of the Flying Guillotine (1975)
Rumored to be Quentin Tarantino's favorite martial arts flick of all time, Master of the Flying Guillotine would work perfectly as a modern tournament fighting game along the lines of Street Fighter or Tekken. Every single character -- from the One-Armed Boxer to the Muay Thai fighter to the blind Master of the Flying Guillotine himself -- is imbued with such personality and such a drastically different fighting style that the thought of pitting them against one another in a virtual arena is all too perfect. Not to mention that roughly half the movie consists of a dozen consecutive fights between all these characters at a shady martial arts tournament -- I mean, the movie's structured like a video game already!

Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Yes, zombie video games are getting more than a little overdone, but true zombie fanatics still yearn for a game that replicates the tense, strategic feeling of barricading yourself in an enclosed environment and just trying to deal. We've had our 28 Days Later game in the form of the intense shoot-'em-up Left 4 Dead, and our Shaun of the Dead thanks to the comic gorefest that was Dead Rising. But we're still holding out for that one game that can teach us the essential theme behind all of George Romero's movies: When society breaks down and other people are all you have left, zombies are the least of your problems.

Continue reading "Big Trouble in Little China: The Video Game? Cult Classics in Need of Interactive Treatment" »

Ah, science fiction. Is there any other genre so well-equipped to tickle that optimistic, techno-nerd part of our brains? We see a cool, CGI-rendered piece of fictional future tech, and instantly we dream of a day when that same power might one day be in our hands (or minds, or tentacled appendages). That's where video games come in: No other industry of the last decade has been so uniquely devoted to turning science fiction into science fact. Years ago, you may have watched movies like Tron or Minority Report and thought them the stuff of pure fantasy. But believe it or not, Nintendo and Microsoft are already on the case.

Tron (1982)
OK, so Tron's actual technology -- namely, a big-ass laser that can transport objects through space -- doesn't exist yet. Still, the basic thrills behind the movie's action scenes can be replicated right in the comfort of your own home with a Nintendo Wii.

Take the scene where Bruce Boxleitner vaporizes an enemy using a Big Glowing Frisbee of Death (BGFD, for short). Gamers dreaming of their own BGFD can look to the Wii's MotionPlus (an optional add-on to the standard system), which almost perfectly replicates human hand gestures -- like, say, swinging a sword, or shining a flashlight, or throwing a frisbee. While the frisbee minigames found in Wii Sports Resort aren't terribly exciting, they prove that given enough time and dedication, someone, somewhere, will some day allow us to engage in tactile BGFD fights across the Internet. And on that day, Bruce Boxleitner will cry tears of joy.

Continue reading "Think Gamer Is Far-Fetched? Video Game Technology Is Knocking on SciFi's Door" »