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Whilst perusing the net looking for the latest movie news, I happened to find a link to the upcoming House of the Dead movie (http://www.house-of-the-dead.com/). Yup, for anyone who didn’t already know, Sega’s plot-light action-heavy light gun game has been turned into an action/horror movie, and it looks…well…hmm...I’ll reserve judgement for the time being.
So there I am, I go to the website, see good potential when I arrive in the form of pictures and icons akin to old style zombies from Italian zombie movies of yesteryear, but then, I read the plot synopsis and watch the trailer…it doesn’t look terrible, but time will tell.
In basic terms, completely ignoring the games settings and cynically pulling in fans of the game by calling it ‘The House of the Dead’, a group of young college kids go to a Halloween rave on a remote island. They arrive late and find the island deserted but find a slavering hoard of zombies ready to chow down on their pretty young flesh. Cue lots of dumb action and even an overused seen-it-before Matrix bullet time effect together with an atmosphere-killing rawk soundtrack.
It looks gory and action packed, with plenty of slobbering brain munchers, but, and it is a big but, Jurgen Prochnow, renowned for being in rubbish films, is in it playing a boat captain named Victor Kirk (captain Kirk). It’s potentially more teen horror rubbish, but *hopefully* it’ll be the decent zombie film fans have been waiting for…
The current flock of video game based movies are just not faithful enough to the original source material, or are based on dumb games that have no decent plot or characters (why so many movies based on beat ‘em ups?) It makes financial sense for games companies to flog their franchises, though, as a movie version of their game might attract more money, followers and attention to their games, and it’s also nice for fans to see their favourite games turned into big-screen films. Well, it would be nice if they weren’t all rubbish. Plus, game-based films also have a built in fanbase already, so movie bosses think they’re guaranteed fans of the film if they buy a successful game franchise.
So could The House of the Dead actually be quite a good movie based on a video game? Well if it is then it’ll be a first that’s for sure. The list of video game based movies reads like a who’s who of terrible movies.
So far we have:
The good(ish):
Final Fantasy: jaw dropping CG animated movie let down by a barmy plot, it proved too complicated for the average Joe and became the biggest movie flop of all time, costing a dozen king’s ransoms (about $137m) to make and only grossed about twenty quid. I quite liked it, and it had the voice of the ever-cool James Woods in it, but it didn’t receive great reviews.
Resident Evil: pretty good zombie movie but not faithful enough to the game, it had some good horror moments but that silly bullet-time jump was out of place. Again, though I thought it was OK, it didn’t receive great reviews.
Plus we have quite a few video game based anime movies such as Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, Tekken, Toshinden and of course, the many Pokemon movies (being an anime fan, I quite liked the Pokemon movies…I’ll get me coat.) Whilst those few mentioned may not be the best anime movies about, they’re better and more faithful to the games than the equivalent Hollywood attempts. I’d love to see anime movie versions of Resident Evil, Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid.
The bad:
Mortal Kombat: Yet another movie based on a beat ‘em up, it’s mindless dumb rubbish based on a mindless overly violent game with the strangely accented Christopher Lambert as Raiden.
Double Dragon: I’ve never seen it and I never want to see it. Its very existence is an insult to us all.
Tomb Raider: Another blatant cash-in riding on the wave of Lara Croft mania (which never really existed in the first place), plus we have a sequel coming soon. I can hardly contain my excitement.
The downright ugly:
Super Mario Bros: Bob Hoskins as Mario and Dennis Hopper as Koopa *shakes head*. It’s nothing like the games whatsoever; it’s a disgusting abhorrent cash-in that reeks of badness. Why oh why was it ever given the green light? A lapse in concentration by Nintendo methinks.
Street Fighter: *shudder* Jean-Claude Van Damme as a beret wearing Guile, Kylie Minogue trying to act, a whole host of other SFII characters looking nothing like their video game counterparts, plus Ken and Ryu as a couple of goofy surfer dude types. The film even spawned Street Fighter The Movie, the game of the film of the game!
Wing Commander: Freddy Prinze Junior is in it, ‘nuff said, plus we have the ubiquitous Jurgen Prochnow making an appearance.
The Wizard: not based on a game I know, but pretty much a game based movie. We have Fred ‘the boy from The Wonder Years’ Savage going to a video game championship. The result is a poor film that’s basically one long advert for Nintendo, which I guess is OK in my book.
The future: with video games now a massive mainstream industry, with games having life-like visuals, cinematic atmosphere, camerawork and music, games undoubtedly resemble films more and more and yet conversely, films are beginning to look increasingly like video games. It will probably be only a matter of time before movie executives in need of refreshing plot ideas rely more and more on games to get their new movies. Games like Halo, Metal Gear Solid, Eternal Darkness, Splinter Cell, Silent Hill, Timesplitters etc would be ideal candidates. Whilst those few mentioned are yet to be tainted with poor film incarnations, there are a few more games being/rumoured to be made into movies:
Crazy Taxi: another plot-light action-heavy game, and it’s being turned into a movie. God help us.
Duke Nukem: the chief alien butt kicker of the galaxy has potential as a movie star, hopefully if it ever happens we’ll see an over the top action flick with Arnie as Duke (but I bet the part goes to Vin Diesel).
Doom: stuck in development hell for the last 50 years, if it’s ever made could end up being just like Ghosts From Mars? Probably.
Alone in the Dark: According to Digitiser, the rights have been bought to turn this creepy adventure series into a movie. What’s the betting it’s just another teen slasher flick.
Plus there are a few unconfirmed movies to come:
‘Shenmue: The Movie’, starring Ben Affleck as Ryo Hazuki. However, in a Hollywood change, the setting has been changed from 80s Hong Kong and Japan to 21st century New York. Ryo searches for his father’s killer whilst getting a job stacking crates, fights lots of sailors, plays old arcade machines and collects little plastic toys.
Rez: a Tron style movie sees Tom Cruise going into a psychedelic CG cyber wonderland of music and having a crazy adventure.
The Sims: cashing in on the Sims craze, this is the ordinary life of a rich American household who do nothing interesting. One day they catch a burglar and another they have to unblock the toilet. John Woo is to direct.
Tetris: a gang of good-looking teens and a cute puppy get trapped in a computer and must play a giant game of Tetris to save themselves. The typical cold-hearted cynical tough guy teen dies at the end of the movie when he saves the puppy from a falling Tetris block. Freddie Prinze Junior is to star as the hero.
Sonic the Hedgehog: Brad Pitt takes the lead as the spiky blue hedgehog who gets accidentally transported to modern-day San Francisco. When there he meets up with a bullied kid, they get in all kinds of hi-speed hi-jinks and shenanigans together, and in the end the bullied kid earns the respect of his classmates by saving the day with the help of Sonic. Rik Waller stars as Dr. Robotnik.
Wipeout: The Fast & The Furious + Rollerball + Wipeout the game = Wipeout the Movie.
A few years ago I had a tiny bit of excitement in the potential of some video games to movies, namely Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil, as I felt both would work well as they had the right movie-like feel. Resident Evil would have been great had George ‘king of the zombie movie’ Romero directed a creepy/eerie/tension filled zombie movie, in keeping with the games ‘ haunted house’ style ethics. However, we later had a dumb action movie no-brainer that just didn’t live up to my expectations and hopes. Basically, games and their fans have been let down far too often with below par movies that don’t do justice to their gaming equivalents, and I’m now hoping they don’t ever make a MGS movie as it will undoubtedly reek of naffness. Besides, seeing as games are becoming more cinematic these days, we don’t really need them made into movies anyway really.
All this begs the question; will we ever see a decent movie based on a game? Probably not, so if there happen to be any Hollywood producers reading, please, don’t keep churning out this cinematic bum juice and besmirching the good name of video games, either make decent game-based movies or don’t bother making them at all you cash-in money-hungry suits.
The House of the Dead opens sometime in 2003, whether its any good remains to be seen…
So there I am, I go to the website, see good potential when I arrive in the form of pictures and icons akin to old style zombies from Italian zombie movies of yesteryear, but then, I read the plot synopsis and watch the trailer…it doesn’t look terrible, but time will tell.
In basic terms, completely ignoring the games settings and cynically pulling in fans of the game by calling it ‘The House of the Dead’, a group of young college kids go to a Halloween rave on a remote island. They arrive late and find the island deserted but find a slavering hoard of zombies ready to chow down on their pretty young flesh. Cue lots of dumb action and even an overused seen-it-before Matrix bullet time effect together with an atmosphere-killing rawk soundtrack.
It looks gory and action packed, with plenty of slobbering brain munchers, but, and it is a big but, Jurgen Prochnow, renowned for being in rubbish films, is in it playing a boat captain named Victor Kirk (captain Kirk). It’s potentially more teen horror rubbish, but *hopefully* it’ll be the decent zombie film fans have been waiting for…
The current flock of video game based movies are just not faithful enough to the original source material, or are based on dumb games that have no decent plot or characters (why so many movies based on beat ‘em ups?) It makes financial sense for games companies to flog their franchises, though, as a movie version of their game might attract more money, followers and attention to their games, and it’s also nice for fans to see their favourite games turned into big-screen films. Well, it would be nice if they weren’t all rubbish. Plus, game-based films also have a built in fanbase already, so movie bosses think they’re guaranteed fans of the film if they buy a successful game franchise.
So could The House of the Dead actually be quite a good movie based on a video game? Well if it is then it’ll be a first that’s for sure. The list of video game based movies reads like a who’s who of terrible movies.
So far we have:
The good(ish):
Final Fantasy: jaw dropping CG animated movie let down by a barmy plot, it proved too complicated for the average Joe and became the biggest movie flop of all time, costing a dozen king’s ransoms (about $137m) to make and only grossed about twenty quid. I quite liked it, and it had the voice of the ever-cool James Woods in it, but it didn’t receive great reviews.
Resident Evil: pretty good zombie movie but not faithful enough to the game, it had some good horror moments but that silly bullet-time jump was out of place. Again, though I thought it was OK, it didn’t receive great reviews.
Plus we have quite a few video game based anime movies such as Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, Tekken, Toshinden and of course, the many Pokemon movies (being an anime fan, I quite liked the Pokemon movies…I’ll get me coat.) Whilst those few mentioned may not be the best anime movies about, they’re better and more faithful to the games than the equivalent Hollywood attempts. I’d love to see anime movie versions of Resident Evil, Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid.
The bad:
Mortal Kombat: Yet another movie based on a beat ‘em up, it’s mindless dumb rubbish based on a mindless overly violent game with the strangely accented Christopher Lambert as Raiden.
Double Dragon: I’ve never seen it and I never want to see it. Its very existence is an insult to us all.
Tomb Raider: Another blatant cash-in riding on the wave of Lara Croft mania (which never really existed in the first place), plus we have a sequel coming soon. I can hardly contain my excitement.
The downright ugly:
Super Mario Bros: Bob Hoskins as Mario and Dennis Hopper as Koopa *shakes head*. It’s nothing like the games whatsoever; it’s a disgusting abhorrent cash-in that reeks of badness. Why oh why was it ever given the green light? A lapse in concentration by Nintendo methinks.
Street Fighter: *shudder* Jean-Claude Van Damme as a beret wearing Guile, Kylie Minogue trying to act, a whole host of other SFII characters looking nothing like their video game counterparts, plus Ken and Ryu as a couple of goofy surfer dude types. The film even spawned Street Fighter The Movie, the game of the film of the game!
Wing Commander: Freddy Prinze Junior is in it, ‘nuff said, plus we have the ubiquitous Jurgen Prochnow making an appearance.
The Wizard: not based on a game I know, but pretty much a game based movie. We have Fred ‘the boy from The Wonder Years’ Savage going to a video game championship. The result is a poor film that’s basically one long advert for Nintendo, which I guess is OK in my book.
The future: with video games now a massive mainstream industry, with games having life-like visuals, cinematic atmosphere, camerawork and music, games undoubtedly resemble films more and more and yet conversely, films are beginning to look increasingly like video games. It will probably be only a matter of time before movie executives in need of refreshing plot ideas rely more and more on games to get their new movies. Games like Halo, Metal Gear Solid, Eternal Darkness, Splinter Cell, Silent Hill, Timesplitters etc would be ideal candidates. Whilst those few mentioned are yet to be tainted with poor film incarnations, there are a few more games being/rumoured to be made into movies:
Crazy Taxi: another plot-light action-heavy game, and it’s being turned into a movie. God help us.
Duke Nukem: the chief alien butt kicker of the galaxy has potential as a movie star, hopefully if it ever happens we’ll see an over the top action flick with Arnie as Duke (but I bet the part goes to Vin Diesel).
Doom: stuck in development hell for the last 50 years, if it’s ever made could end up being just like Ghosts From Mars? Probably.
Alone in the Dark: According to Digitiser, the rights have been bought to turn this creepy adventure series into a movie. What’s the betting it’s just another teen slasher flick.
Plus there are a few unconfirmed movies to come:
‘Shenmue: The Movie’, starring Ben Affleck as Ryo Hazuki. However, in a Hollywood change, the setting has been changed from 80s Hong Kong and Japan to 21st century New York. Ryo searches for his father’s killer whilst getting a job stacking crates, fights lots of sailors, plays old arcade machines and collects little plastic toys.
Rez: a Tron style movie sees Tom Cruise going into a psychedelic CG cyber wonderland of music and having a crazy adventure.
The Sims: cashing in on the Sims craze, this is the ordinary life of a rich American household who do nothing interesting. One day they catch a burglar and another they have to unblock the toilet. John Woo is to direct.
Tetris: a gang of good-looking teens and a cute puppy get trapped in a computer and must play a giant game of Tetris to save themselves. The typical cold-hearted cynical tough guy teen dies at the end of the movie when he saves the puppy from a falling Tetris block. Freddie Prinze Junior is to star as the hero.
Sonic the Hedgehog: Brad Pitt takes the lead as the spiky blue hedgehog who gets accidentally transported to modern-day San Francisco. When there he meets up with a bullied kid, they get in all kinds of hi-speed hi-jinks and shenanigans together, and in the end the bullied kid earns the respect of his classmates by saving the day with the help of Sonic. Rik Waller stars as Dr. Robotnik.
Wipeout: The Fast & The Furious + Rollerball + Wipeout the game = Wipeout the Movie.
A few years ago I had a tiny bit of excitement in the potential of some video games to movies, namely Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil, as I felt both would work well as they had the right movie-like feel. Resident Evil would have been great had George ‘king of the zombie movie’ Romero directed a creepy/eerie/tension filled zombie movie, in keeping with the games ‘ haunted house’ style ethics. However, we later had a dumb action movie no-brainer that just didn’t live up to my expectations and hopes. Basically, games and their fans have been let down far too often with below par movies that don’t do justice to their gaming equivalents, and I’m now hoping they don’t ever make a MGS movie as it will undoubtedly reek of naffness. Besides, seeing as games are becoming more cinematic these days, we don’t really need them made into movies anyway really.
All this begs the question; will we ever see a decent movie based on a game? Probably not, so if there happen to be any Hollywood producers reading, please, don’t keep churning out this cinematic bum juice and besmirching the good name of video games, either make decent game-based movies or don’t bother making them at all you cash-in money-hungry suits.
The House of the Dead opens sometime in 2003, whether its any good remains to be seen…
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Good post! The Shenmue film won a lot of awards in Japan but its quite a hard film to find. As for the Resident Evil film I was very impressed. I rented it on DVD 2 weeks a go and to say my expectations weren't high I thought it was a highly entertaining saturday night movie that can't be contested as a non entertaining film. The film is entertaining and the game is excellent but apart from that there haven't been any good Films to Games and vica versa.
The Max Payne film is romoured to be shooting at the moment and if it is anything like the film we are in for a treat. That reminds me, my copy of Resident Evil (GameCube) has been dispatched so I should either recieve it tomorrow or Friday :) I can't wait to play this game, I have completed everyone in the series so far (including the gun game on PSONE Biohazard Gun Survivor on import) and I am anticpating the GameCube version as much as I did with Splinter Cell, Halo and Project Gotham Racing :)
The Max Payne film is romoured to be shooting at the moment and if it is anything like the film we are in for a treat. That reminds me, my copy of Resident Evil (GameCube) has been dispatched so I should either recieve it tomorrow or Friday :) I can't wait to play this game, I have completed everyone in the series so far (including the gun game on PSONE Biohazard Gun Survivor on import) and I am anticpating the GameCube version as much as I did with Splinter Cell, Halo and Project Gotham Racing :)
Actually i contest the label that Tomb Raider and Mortal Kombat were bad.
To be honest i enjoyed both films, which while not oscar nominees were still pretty dam entertaining. I felt that Tomb Raider had a decent plot (for once) and the casting of Angelina Jolie was a really good start. There were some nice action set pieces, like the robot at the start of the film. But Lets face it, Tomb Raiders main success was due to Laras figure. And the film didnt disappoint.
Mortal kombat was actually really quite faithful to the character stories from the games. Coupled with some really cool action scenes this was quite an adrenalin pumped film, that moved along at a nice pace.
Street fighter? Now thats a different matter.
To be honest i enjoyed both films, which while not oscar nominees were still pretty dam entertaining. I felt that Tomb Raider had a decent plot (for once) and the casting of Angelina Jolie was a really good start. There were some nice action set pieces, like the robot at the start of the film. But Lets face it, Tomb Raiders main success was due to Laras figure. And the film didnt disappoint.
Mortal kombat was actually really quite faithful to the character stories from the games. Coupled with some really cool action scenes this was quite an adrenalin pumped film, that moved along at a nice pace.
Street fighter? Now thats a different matter.
Damn - I almost thought you were serious about a Shenmue movie for a second there! :)
I believe that all game-to-film conversions very-rarely seem to work-out-well because of the ideas envolved, and how after completing the games you already know what's likely to happen, and who's likely to do what within the forthcoming-film.
I haven't seen any of the recent films like Resident Evil or Tomb Raider, but I remember seeing the Super Mario Bros. film when I was little and thinking to myself... "I already know what's gonna happen here! He's Koopa, he's take the Princess. He's Mario, he's gonna stop him. Oh, and there's Luigi too!"
They tried to make it interesting and "different" by setting the Mario Bros. up in the real world, which obviously didn't work.
I believe they should've done something more Mario-like where it was all set and took-place within the actual Mushroom Kingdom; a fantasy world unlike anywhere on Earth.
I believe that all game-to-film conversions very-rarely seem to work-out-well because of the ideas envolved, and how after completing the games you already know what's likely to happen, and who's likely to do what within the forthcoming-film.
I haven't seen any of the recent films like Resident Evil or Tomb Raider, but I remember seeing the Super Mario Bros. film when I was little and thinking to myself... "I already know what's gonna happen here! He's Koopa, he's take the Princess. He's Mario, he's gonna stop him. Oh, and there's Luigi too!"
They tried to make it interesting and "different" by setting the Mario Bros. up in the real world, which obviously didn't work.
I believe they should've done something more Mario-like where it was all set and took-place within the actual Mushroom Kingdom; a fantasy world unlike anywhere on Earth.
Whilst perusing the net looking for the latest movie news, I happened to find a link to the upcoming House of the Dead movie (http://www.house-of-the-dead.com/). Yup, for anyone who didn’t already know, Sega’s plot-light action-heavy light gun game has been turned into an action/horror movie, and it looks…well…hmm...I’ll reserve judgement for the time being.
So there I am, I go to the website, see good potential when I arrive in the form of pictures and icons akin to old style zombies from Italian zombie movies of yesteryear, but then, I read the plot synopsis and watch the trailer…it doesn’t look terrible, but time will tell.
In basic terms, completely ignoring the games settings and cynically pulling in fans of the game by calling it ‘The House of the Dead’, a group of young college kids go to a Halloween rave on a remote island. They arrive late and find the island deserted but find a slavering hoard of zombies ready to chow down on their pretty young flesh. Cue lots of dumb action and even an overused seen-it-before Matrix bullet time effect together with an atmosphere-killing rawk soundtrack.
It looks gory and action packed, with plenty of slobbering brain munchers, but, and it is a big but, Jurgen Prochnow, renowned for being in rubbish films, is in it playing a boat captain named Victor Kirk (captain Kirk). It’s potentially more teen horror rubbish, but *hopefully* it’ll be the decent zombie film fans have been waiting for…
The current flock of video game based movies are just not faithful enough to the original source material, or are based on dumb games that have no decent plot or characters (why so many movies based on beat ‘em ups?) It makes financial sense for games companies to flog their franchises, though, as a movie version of their game might attract more money, followers and attention to their games, and it’s also nice for fans to see their favourite games turned into big-screen films. Well, it would be nice if they weren’t all rubbish. Plus, game-based films also have a built in fanbase already, so movie bosses think they’re guaranteed fans of the film if they buy a successful game franchise.
So could The House of the Dead actually be quite a good movie based on a video game? Well if it is then it’ll be a first that’s for sure. The list of video game based movies reads like a who’s who of terrible movies.
So far we have:
The good(ish):
Final Fantasy: jaw dropping CG animated movie let down by a barmy plot, it proved too complicated for the average Joe and became the biggest movie flop of all time, costing a dozen king’s ransoms (about $137m) to make and only grossed about twenty quid. I quite liked it, and it had the voice of the ever-cool James Woods in it, but it didn’t receive great reviews.
Resident Evil: pretty good zombie movie but not faithful enough to the game, it had some good horror moments but that silly bullet-time jump was out of place. Again, though I thought it was OK, it didn’t receive great reviews.
Plus we have quite a few video game based anime movies such as Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, Tekken, Toshinden and of course, the many Pokemon movies (being an anime fan, I quite liked the Pokemon movies…I’ll get me coat.) Whilst those few mentioned may not be the best anime movies about, they’re better and more faithful to the games than the equivalent Hollywood attempts. I’d love to see anime movie versions of Resident Evil, Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid.
The bad:
Mortal Kombat: Yet another movie based on a beat ‘em up, it’s mindless dumb rubbish based on a mindless overly violent game with the strangely accented Christopher Lambert as Raiden.
Double Dragon: I’ve never seen it and I never want to see it. Its very existence is an insult to us all.
Tomb Raider: Another blatant cash-in riding on the wave of Lara Croft mania (which never really existed in the first place), plus we have a sequel coming soon. I can hardly contain my excitement.
The downright ugly:
Super Mario Bros: Bob Hoskins as Mario and Dennis Hopper as Koopa *shakes head*. It’s nothing like the games whatsoever; it’s a disgusting abhorrent cash-in that reeks of badness. Why oh why was it ever given the green light? A lapse in concentration by Nintendo methinks.
Street Fighter: *shudder* Jean-Claude Van Damme as a beret wearing Guile, Kylie Minogue trying to act, a whole host of other SFII characters looking nothing like their video game counterparts, plus Ken and Ryu as a couple of goofy surfer dude types. The film even spawned Street Fighter The Movie, the game of the film of the game!
Wing Commander: Freddy Prinze Junior is in it, ‘nuff said, plus we have the ubiquitous Jurgen Prochnow making an appearance.
The Wizard: not based on a game I know, but pretty much a game based movie. We have Fred ‘the boy from The Wonder Years’ Savage going to a video game championship. The result is a poor film that’s basically one long advert for Nintendo, which I guess is OK in my book.
The future: with video games now a massive mainstream industry, with games having life-like visuals, cinematic atmosphere, camerawork and music, games undoubtedly resemble films more and more and yet conversely, films are beginning to look increasingly like video games. It will probably be only a matter of time before movie executives in need of refreshing plot ideas rely more and more on games to get their new movies. Games like Halo, Metal Gear Solid, Eternal Darkness, Splinter Cell, Silent Hill, Timesplitters etc would be ideal candidates. Whilst those few mentioned are yet to be tainted with poor film incarnations, there are a few more games being/rumoured to be made into movies:
Crazy Taxi: another plot-light action-heavy game, and it’s being turned into a movie. God help us.
Duke Nukem: the chief alien butt kicker of the galaxy has potential as a movie star, hopefully if it ever happens we’ll see an over the top action flick with Arnie as Duke (but I bet the part goes to Vin Diesel).
Doom: stuck in development hell for the last 50 years, if it’s ever made could end up being just like Ghosts From Mars? Probably.
Alone in the Dark: According to Digitiser, the rights have been bought to turn this creepy adventure series into a movie. What’s the betting it’s just another teen slasher flick.
Plus there are a few unconfirmed movies to come:
‘Shenmue: The Movie’, starring Ben Affleck as Ryo Hazuki. However, in a Hollywood change, the setting has been changed from 80s Hong Kong and Japan to 21st century New York. Ryo searches for his father’s killer whilst getting a job stacking crates, fights lots of sailors, plays old arcade machines and collects little plastic toys.
Rez: a Tron style movie sees Tom Cruise going into a psychedelic CG cyber wonderland of music and having a crazy adventure.
The Sims: cashing in on the Sims craze, this is the ordinary life of a rich American household who do nothing interesting. One day they catch a burglar and another they have to unblock the toilet. John Woo is to direct.
Tetris: a gang of good-looking teens and a cute puppy get trapped in a computer and must play a giant game of Tetris to save themselves. The typical cold-hearted cynical tough guy teen dies at the end of the movie when he saves the puppy from a falling Tetris block. Freddie Prinze Junior is to star as the hero.
Sonic the Hedgehog: Brad Pitt takes the lead as the spiky blue hedgehog who gets accidentally transported to modern-day San Francisco. When there he meets up with a bullied kid, they get in all kinds of hi-speed hi-jinks and shenanigans together, and in the end the bullied kid earns the respect of his classmates by saving the day with the help of Sonic. Rik Waller stars as Dr. Robotnik.
Wipeout: The Fast & The Furious + Rollerball + Wipeout the game = Wipeout the Movie.
A few years ago I had a tiny bit of excitement in the potential of some video games to movies, namely Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil, as I felt both would work well as they had the right movie-like feel. Resident Evil would have been great had George ‘king of the zombie movie’ Romero directed a creepy/eerie/tension filled zombie movie, in keeping with the games ‘ haunted house’ style ethics. However, we later had a dumb action movie no-brainer that just didn’t live up to my expectations and hopes. Basically, games and their fans have been let down far too often with below par movies that don’t do justice to their gaming equivalents, and I’m now hoping they don’t ever make a MGS movie as it will undoubtedly reek of naffness. Besides, seeing as games are becoming more cinematic these days, we don’t really need them made into movies anyway really.
All this begs the question; will we ever see a decent movie based on a game? Probably not, so if there happen to be any Hollywood producers reading, please, don’t keep churning out this cinematic bum juice and besmirching the good name of video games, either make decent game-based movies or don’t bother making them at all you cash-in money-hungry suits.
The House of the Dead opens sometime in 2003, whether its any good remains to be seen…
So there I am, I go to the website, see good potential when I arrive in the form of pictures and icons akin to old style zombies from Italian zombie movies of yesteryear, but then, I read the plot synopsis and watch the trailer…it doesn’t look terrible, but time will tell.
In basic terms, completely ignoring the games settings and cynically pulling in fans of the game by calling it ‘The House of the Dead’, a group of young college kids go to a Halloween rave on a remote island. They arrive late and find the island deserted but find a slavering hoard of zombies ready to chow down on their pretty young flesh. Cue lots of dumb action and even an overused seen-it-before Matrix bullet time effect together with an atmosphere-killing rawk soundtrack.
It looks gory and action packed, with plenty of slobbering brain munchers, but, and it is a big but, Jurgen Prochnow, renowned for being in rubbish films, is in it playing a boat captain named Victor Kirk (captain Kirk). It’s potentially more teen horror rubbish, but *hopefully* it’ll be the decent zombie film fans have been waiting for…
The current flock of video game based movies are just not faithful enough to the original source material, or are based on dumb games that have no decent plot or characters (why so many movies based on beat ‘em ups?) It makes financial sense for games companies to flog their franchises, though, as a movie version of their game might attract more money, followers and attention to their games, and it’s also nice for fans to see their favourite games turned into big-screen films. Well, it would be nice if they weren’t all rubbish. Plus, game-based films also have a built in fanbase already, so movie bosses think they’re guaranteed fans of the film if they buy a successful game franchise.
So could The House of the Dead actually be quite a good movie based on a video game? Well if it is then it’ll be a first that’s for sure. The list of video game based movies reads like a who’s who of terrible movies.
So far we have:
The good(ish):
Final Fantasy: jaw dropping CG animated movie let down by a barmy plot, it proved too complicated for the average Joe and became the biggest movie flop of all time, costing a dozen king’s ransoms (about $137m) to make and only grossed about twenty quid. I quite liked it, and it had the voice of the ever-cool James Woods in it, but it didn’t receive great reviews.
Resident Evil: pretty good zombie movie but not faithful enough to the game, it had some good horror moments but that silly bullet-time jump was out of place. Again, though I thought it was OK, it didn’t receive great reviews.
Plus we have quite a few video game based anime movies such as Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, Tekken, Toshinden and of course, the many Pokemon movies (being an anime fan, I quite liked the Pokemon movies…I’ll get me coat.) Whilst those few mentioned may not be the best anime movies about, they’re better and more faithful to the games than the equivalent Hollywood attempts. I’d love to see anime movie versions of Resident Evil, Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid.
The bad:
Mortal Kombat: Yet another movie based on a beat ‘em up, it’s mindless dumb rubbish based on a mindless overly violent game with the strangely accented Christopher Lambert as Raiden.
Double Dragon: I’ve never seen it and I never want to see it. Its very existence is an insult to us all.
Tomb Raider: Another blatant cash-in riding on the wave of Lara Croft mania (which never really existed in the first place), plus we have a sequel coming soon. I can hardly contain my excitement.
The downright ugly:
Super Mario Bros: Bob Hoskins as Mario and Dennis Hopper as Koopa *shakes head*. It’s nothing like the games whatsoever; it’s a disgusting abhorrent cash-in that reeks of badness. Why oh why was it ever given the green light? A lapse in concentration by Nintendo methinks.
Street Fighter: *shudder* Jean-Claude Van Damme as a beret wearing Guile, Kylie Minogue trying to act, a whole host of other SFII characters looking nothing like their video game counterparts, plus Ken and Ryu as a couple of goofy surfer dude types. The film even spawned Street Fighter The Movie, the game of the film of the game!
Wing Commander: Freddy Prinze Junior is in it, ‘nuff said, plus we have the ubiquitous Jurgen Prochnow making an appearance.
The Wizard: not based on a game I know, but pretty much a game based movie. We have Fred ‘the boy from The Wonder Years’ Savage going to a video game championship. The result is a poor film that’s basically one long advert for Nintendo, which I guess is OK in my book.
The future: with video games now a massive mainstream industry, with games having life-like visuals, cinematic atmosphere, camerawork and music, games undoubtedly resemble films more and more and yet conversely, films are beginning to look increasingly like video games. It will probably be only a matter of time before movie executives in need of refreshing plot ideas rely more and more on games to get their new movies. Games like Halo, Metal Gear Solid, Eternal Darkness, Splinter Cell, Silent Hill, Timesplitters etc would be ideal candidates. Whilst those few mentioned are yet to be tainted with poor film incarnations, there are a few more games being/rumoured to be made into movies:
Crazy Taxi: another plot-light action-heavy game, and it’s being turned into a movie. God help us.
Duke Nukem: the chief alien butt kicker of the galaxy has potential as a movie star, hopefully if it ever happens we’ll see an over the top action flick with Arnie as Duke (but I bet the part goes to Vin Diesel).
Doom: stuck in development hell for the last 50 years, if it’s ever made could end up being just like Ghosts From Mars? Probably.
Alone in the Dark: According to Digitiser, the rights have been bought to turn this creepy adventure series into a movie. What’s the betting it’s just another teen slasher flick.
Plus there are a few unconfirmed movies to come:
‘Shenmue: The Movie’, starring Ben Affleck as Ryo Hazuki. However, in a Hollywood change, the setting has been changed from 80s Hong Kong and Japan to 21st century New York. Ryo searches for his father’s killer whilst getting a job stacking crates, fights lots of sailors, plays old arcade machines and collects little plastic toys.
Rez: a Tron style movie sees Tom Cruise going into a psychedelic CG cyber wonderland of music and having a crazy adventure.
The Sims: cashing in on the Sims craze, this is the ordinary life of a rich American household who do nothing interesting. One day they catch a burglar and another they have to unblock the toilet. John Woo is to direct.
Tetris: a gang of good-looking teens and a cute puppy get trapped in a computer and must play a giant game of Tetris to save themselves. The typical cold-hearted cynical tough guy teen dies at the end of the movie when he saves the puppy from a falling Tetris block. Freddie Prinze Junior is to star as the hero.
Sonic the Hedgehog: Brad Pitt takes the lead as the spiky blue hedgehog who gets accidentally transported to modern-day San Francisco. When there he meets up with a bullied kid, they get in all kinds of hi-speed hi-jinks and shenanigans together, and in the end the bullied kid earns the respect of his classmates by saving the day with the help of Sonic. Rik Waller stars as Dr. Robotnik.
Wipeout: The Fast & The Furious + Rollerball + Wipeout the game = Wipeout the Movie.
A few years ago I had a tiny bit of excitement in the potential of some video games to movies, namely Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil, as I felt both would work well as they had the right movie-like feel. Resident Evil would have been great had George ‘king of the zombie movie’ Romero directed a creepy/eerie/tension filled zombie movie, in keeping with the games ‘ haunted house’ style ethics. However, we later had a dumb action movie no-brainer that just didn’t live up to my expectations and hopes. Basically, games and their fans have been let down far too often with below par movies that don’t do justice to their gaming equivalents, and I’m now hoping they don’t ever make a MGS movie as it will undoubtedly reek of naffness. Besides, seeing as games are becoming more cinematic these days, we don’t really need them made into movies anyway really.
All this begs the question; will we ever see a decent movie based on a game? Probably not, so if there happen to be any Hollywood producers reading, please, don’t keep churning out this cinematic bum juice and besmirching the good name of video games, either make decent game-based movies or don’t bother making them at all you cash-in money-hungry suits.
The House of the Dead opens sometime in 2003, whether its any good remains to be seen…
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