Video Games Movies: the best and the worst

As the video game market continues to mature it’s inevitable that there will be a crossover to Hollywood and we’ll see an abundance of Video Game Movies. Over the last decade or so there have been quite a few video game adaptations to hit the big screen. The biggest problem with making movies based on video games is that historically the audiences have been different and unique.

The video-gamer has an eye for story and character that often is different than the movie audience; plot elements of a video game can be a lot loser and a decent gamer will be more interested in superior action and special effects, weapons, ammo etc rather than superior plot elements, and a logical back story. Many of the greatest games in video gaming history have very poor plots, with weak characters and hardly any underlying emotive tones.

Over the last year or two as video games have become more mature and detailed, the line between movie making and video games has began to disappear and movies based on video games are becoming far better.

Creating a video game movie is not an easy thing as you have to ensure that your video gaming audience is happy that their characters are intact and the plot is a logical extension of the game. However, you also have to make the movie audience happy; these generally will not know the video game and thus will not know many of the in-game jokes and idiosyncrasies; it’s a fine balance that is very hard to achieve.

Transferring video games to movies is thus becoming an art that no many tackle and hardly any have mastered.

While there are no Oscar award winning video game movies there have been a few very good movies to hit the big screen:

Blood Rayne

Rayne is a half vampire half human who joins the Brimstone society, who are trying to rid the world of vampires. Rayne is searching for her father; during her quest she encounters and kills many vampires. The game is a blood-fest action game that has amazing fight sequences, a pretty decent plot and some great characters.

As a video game movie it is one of the better adaptations. It’s one of the only movies to really capture the main character and transfer her to the big screen. It focuses more on the blood-fest and becomes a bit of an action flick, but it does add some emotive elements of the plot; most importantly for me it has the feel and the look of the video game while still being a movie that doesn’t require knowledge of the original game.

I note that most critics panned Uwe Boll's Blood Rayne, but I feel it stayed quite faithful to the video game and as such was a good movie.

Prince of Persia

Prince of Persia is one of my favorite platform games; with great graphics a decent plot and some amazing animations it has set the standard for the genre. As the series progressed the graphics and plots improved and today’s Prince Of Persia games are like mini movies. Ubisoft really did a great job with the video games.

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time starring Jake Gyllenhaal is the top grossing video game movie of all time; it is one of the best adaptations of any video games, and has bought in the daring and fun aspects of the game while providing a very decent action movie with a decent plot. The movie is set in the mystical land of Persia. The Prince of Persia (who happens to be a rogue and talented thief) and a beautiful yet mysterious princess battle dark forces that are intent on capturing an ancient dagger that could be used to release the Sands of Time – it’s magical qualities of being able to reverse time are both a blessing and a curse.

The movie is very good, with a great blend of action, romance and intrigue; it keeps the essence of the video game and manages to please non video gamers at the same time.

Silent Hill

The Silent Hill series of video games were plot driven horror games that focused on characters and plot rather than monster bashing. Out of all the horror driven games I’ve played the Silent Hill series is the only one that is truly scary, and I advice you don’t play it in the dark like my daughter and I did.

The video game movie adaptation is a quite a freaky one, but somehow the mood of the creatures and the emotive feel of the game is captured well and transformed to the big screen. When Rose Da Silva’s daughter has restless dreams about Silent Hill, Rose decides to take her daughter Sharon to the actual place to relieve the nightmares.

However, her introduction to Silent Hill is not an easy one after a high speed chase leads to them crashing the car. When Rose wakes Sharon is nowhere to be found. What develops is a creepy and freaky sequence of events that leads to Rose finding out more about the disturbing past of this desolate and abandoned town. The movie is a great tie-in to the video game, but is also a very good horror movie on its own.

Final Fantasy

I have played Final Fantasy games for many years and have always been fascinating by the intricate plots and character development that were prevalent in all of the games. The series is one of the most influential role playing games series of all time. The combination of free roaming adventure, the clever and often amazing graphics, and the advanced character development system have made the series very compelling and very successful. The combination of human interaction and monster killing make for a very exciting and yet emotive game.

The video game movie adaptation is heavily influenced by Final Fantasy VII. The Spirits Within is based in the year 2065 and humanity is planning an assault against phantom-like aliens who are invading. Dr. Aki Ross, a young scientist, faces a race against time to discover the alien’s secrets that threatens humanity. The race to find a cure for a strange infection (by alien particles) is not only one that will save humanity, but will also save herself.

The movie builds on the way that Final Fantasy tells a story by slowly releasing important plot lines. Intriguing elements such as the two different approaches the main characters want to take (one of peace, or one of war) enhance the interlink between the characters. While some of the dialog is boring, the overall movie is good with superb computerized animations, pretty decent action sequences and an overall good plot. It definitely is one of the better video game to movie adaptations. With a decent cast that includes Donald Sutherland, Alec Baldwin and Ming-na this ended up being a decent effort!

Some video games beg to be made into movies, but some simply shouldn’t hit the big screen. Here are some of the worst video games to movie adaptations:

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.

This is one of the ground-breaking games of recent times that created a brand new genre, and introduced a female character as the main hero. Not only did it appeal to the teenage boy audience, but it also bought in a lot of female players who finally had a character that they could identify with.

Lara Croft is like the female equivalent of Indiana Jones; she is an adventurer seeking ancient artifacts in ancient tombs. The game is a cross between an arcade adventure with solving puzzles very prevalent, and an action adventure where she has to leap and jump over dangerous crevices, avoid boulders and do her best to stay alive. It was a great game to play and for its time had very good graphics.

However, sadly it set the standard for video games movies – that standard was shockingly low! Even though the sexy Angelina Jolie plays Lara Croft, the movie adaptation fails very badly. With a very weak plot, and a prevalence of action rather than character development, the movie becomes a live-action shadow of the video game and essentially becomes a very poor feminist version of Indiana Jones.

This was a shame as the entire Lara Croft video game collections had a diverse and intriguing plot that should have made it to the movie adaptation. Even the inclusion of Chris Barrie from Red Dwarf as the butler couldn't save this movie.

Resident Evil

Resident Evil was not a complex video game. It was one of the first Zombie oriented games that had limited plot and involved the main character in general mayhem as she runs around killing zombies that are intent on her and humanities destruction. There is a plot in the game, but it is secondary and it’s the fun of mutilating zombies that made this video game fun and helped spawn a whole Zombie killing genre.

However, whoever was in charge of the video games to movies department really didn’t understand the difference between a great video game and a great movie, and this was very evident when the movie was released in 2001. The movie audience simply isn’t interested in watching a sexy lady run around killing zombies – they want action, but they also want an intriguing and decent plot. If you look at the more recent I am Legend, you can see how the video game adaptation of Resident Evil should have been done. While there is a plot, which simply involves MIlla Jovovich trying to stem the flow of Zombies from a science facility that has accidently released a virus that creates zombies, we end up getting nothing more than a B-movie Resident Evil that relies more on gory action than any plot of character development.

Dungeon Siege

Dungeon Siege was a very good Diablo clone that involved the player in a hack and slash adventure game that relied more on action than on plot – like many of these games there is a plot, but it really ends up being secondary to the full throttle action that is frantic and dynamic – it’s one of those games that isn’t particularly unique, but it has that addictive element that somehow inspires the player to play ‘just one more level’ – I’ve had many sleepless nights doing this.

I was therefore excited when I heard that there was going to be a dungeon siege movie. The excitement grew when I saw the superb cast that they had gathered with the likes of Jason Statham, Ray Liotta and Burt Reynolds.

In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale written by Doug Taylor tells the tale of an evil army of Krugs that are slowly moving through the lands and creating general havoc. They make the mistake of kidnapping the wife of a farmer (who just happens to be Jason Statham) and suddenly the world is catapulted into war!

The movie becomes a very predictable fantasy movie that holds up well with movies like “Krull”; the problem is that this is an old tired 80s movie, and Name of the King really isn’t that much better. The movie looks great, the enemies looked great but the uninspiring script and the lack of cohesion simply didn’t work, and the stellar cast ended up being a very uninspired and perhaps bored stellar cast. This video game movie really should not have been made.

Max Payne

Max Payne is an award winning third-person shooter. As Max Payne, you essentially follow the hallucinations and nightmares of Max as he solves puzzles, jumps platforms and gets involved in some great gun fights – the unique of these fights that slowed down the action became the trade mark for the game. It was an intriguing game that had a half decent plot.

As a video game movie it sucked! Max Payne the video game was a dark glimpse into the life of Max Payne and I was hoping for the feel of Blade Runner, as the Max Payne movie took on the challenge of creating a very dark and disturbed character. With Mark Walhberg I really thought we were in for a treat, but what happened was that the movie tried to replicate the whole feel of the game, and essentially did too much. As we follow Max Pane an ex NYPD cop investigating some cold-case murders, we are presented with links to his past that try and explain his inner turmoil and the end effect is a confusing disjointed action flick that doesn’t really deliver on its promise.

Doom

I grew up playing Doom; it was an innovative ground breaking game that provided immense fun, excellent 3D graphics for the time and plenty of action. The plot was very simplistic, but the game had an addictive element that simply made you want more. It has become one of the most ground-breaking games of all time and has inspired dozens of clones as well as many sequels. The movie was a sinister blood filled quest to destroy demons that are threatening humanity, and that is all you need to know about the plot.

I simply is one video game that should not have been made into a movie. The movie was very poor and I would say is the worst video game movie of all time. The plot was terrible, the acting wooden and the action didn’t offer us anything new. While ‘the Rock’ provided some muscle, the idea of a squad of soldiers being sent in to clean up mutant monsters had already been beaten to death. To be honest I won’t even raise this movie to the level of B-Movie – that would be an insult to B-Movies!