Andy Chalk at The Escapist waited, as did I, to see the movie "Max Payne," starring Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis, when it came out as a rental. I would credit the other big stars - Beau Bridges, Ludacris, Donal Logue, and Chris O'Donnell - but frankly I think their poor performances (due to bad writing) ought not to be mentioned. Andy and I both have the same general opinion (as many other gamers did) - the movie didn't suck horribly, but it sure wasn't an honest depiction of the game.
Not that it was the unspeakable abortion some people had made it out to be. Probably the most succinct and accurate summation came from a friend who, after learning I'd rented it, said to me, "You know it's a crappy movie, right?" And he was bang on the money: It was indeed crappy. Not awful, not horrible, not hilariously bad. Just "crappy," that generic sort of mediocrity that's the hallmark of all but a handful of movies released these days.
"Disjointed" is the word that kept popping into my mind as I watched. It was less a movie than a pastiche of brief but stylish video clips chock full of slow-motion gunfire, moody lighting and intense close-ups but utterly devoid of anything more substantial. Imagine a movie trailer cut together for maximum impact that somehow stretched on for an hour and a half: The characters are ill-defined, their motivations are unfathomable and dialog veers from cryptic to nonsensical with all the trying-too-hard gravitas of a first-year film school project. The most interesting part of the whole experience is the fact that I went into it prepared to excoriate Mila Kunis for destroying the role of Mona Sax and came away amazed that she hadn't fared much worse than anyone else involved in the thing.
As Andy goes on to point out, for a movie director to screw up this film is pretty amazing, since the game was basically played out as a great action movie. It was all right there - grieving loner detective, vengeful sister, film noir atmosphere, lots of gunplay and people diving through the air. All you had to do was follow the game's script! It would have been a great film. Unfortunately, it was not to be. The question then, is why is it so difficult for movie studios to make a good film out of a game? Other than "Tomb Raider," I can't think of a one. Maybe the first "Mortal Kombat" movie. "Wing Commander" was a horrendous movie. Even "Doom" was crippled, despite the Rock's presence. I think the comment from level250geek has it right:
You know why video game movies suck? The same reason comic book movies sucked until very recently: they are being made either by shameless profit-mongers trying to cash in on peoples' passions and fond memories or overpaid art-snobs who think themselves above the medium (more the former than the latter).
Until we have a generation of filmmakers that understand and appreciate how video games tell stories and how to extract drama and character development from the source material, we'll never see a good video game movie. It took grown-up comics geeks becoming filmmakers for us to be saved from the comic book adaptations of old (yes, even the first Superman, which I feel you couldn't help but make cheesy and corny because...well...it's Superman); it's going to take a while for video gamers to reach the same pinnacle.
The other unanswered question from me is, why has it been nearly impossible for a game company to make a good game based on an action movie? Has there ever been a good "Star Trek" game? There was a game based on "Farscape" that you don't hear about, because it sucked ass. The "Riddick" game was half-decent, but not great.
Speaking of films, there was this great analysis of movie sequels - in particular, how movie trilogies have fared. I think it's pretty much on target, except that I think he was a little too harsh on Alien 3 and X-Men 3, and not hard enough on Die Hard 3 and Indiana Jones 3.
I hear the Fallout movie is due in August and they got Cormac McCarthy to do the screenplay.
Boy follows his father out in the post apocalyptic nuclear wasteland, radiers, father perishes, cannibalism, er.... super mutants maybe.
Posted by: Kilo | 27 February 2009 at 07:46 AM
"The question then, is why is it so difficult for movie studios to make a good film out of a game? Other than "Tomb Raider," I can't think of a one."
There's your answer. The writing.
Tomb Raider was a game based on an incredibly popular movie franchise. Stands to reason there'd be enough material to get a decent movie going the other way.
Ain't that hard to sell Indiana Jones with Angelina Jolie in that costume. All you needed was the premise.
Meanwhile, most games don't bother with any sort of storytelling that makes them transferrable to film. Even then, you probably wouldn't want to transfer them.
Sure, Doom sucked arse, but would 2 hours of repetedly wasting poorly animated creatures be any better ?
I don't know what that was you had up here the other day, but Half Life might have a shot. It's so big and the company behind the game is so rich that they might be able to impose enough cred on it.
In fact, if games are supposed to rival the entire movie industry in terms of revenue, why aren't they producing their own movies ?
ie: Why isn't Halo corporation putting it' Halo team on developing the Halo movie ?
Posted by: Kilo | 27 February 2009 at 07:58 AM
i (perhaps shamefully) enjoyed the dungeon siege film ... especially the kings bodyguard being ninjas ... ahem ... as for star trek games, what about elite force / elite force 2 - thought they were ok, the second one more so especially the borg bits :-)
Posted by: elizzar | 27 February 2009 at 08:03 AM
You know, I had forgotten about "Elite Force." I remember when it came out, and either I was too suspicious that it was going to lay an egg or I just passed on it. Good point. But outweighed by the many, many other bad ST games. Although I do fondly remember the 1971 text Star Trek game.
Posted by: J. | 27 February 2009 at 08:15 AM
The other unanswered question from me is, why has it been nearly impossible for a game company to make a good game based on an action movie?
I think a lot of that comes down to timing. The games have to come out around the time the movie is released, so they are often released with bugs and other major problems. There's also the problem of trying to develop the game while the movie is shooting - the source material (even the script) can, and often does, change, making it more difficult for gamers.
In the end though, it comes down to money. Video games for movies are, I think, are viewed more as part of the merchandising effort, which is all about flooding stores with lots of cheap movie-related stuff.
Posted by: Andy | 27 February 2009 at 02:04 PM
Elite Force was a good Star Trek game, but Star Trek: A Final Unity will always be one of my all time favourite games. It came out around 94 or so, ran in DOS or MAC, and involved mainly point and click adventure with the cast of the next generation and some very passable full 3D space combat. Awesome game, if you can find it I recommend it.
Posted by: Chris Connolly | 27 February 2009 at 04:33 PM
Man, screw Elite Force. Find a copy of Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Final Unity. It's ancient--MSDOS-based, I ran it on a 486i back in the day--but it's outstanding. There hasn't been a Star Trek game of the same calibre since then, but by the same token, there hasn't really been a good Star Trek series/movie since the Next Generation, either.
Posted by: Sam | 02 March 2009 at 03:58 PM
Who knew there was a Far Cry movie ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHIzCQMTQos
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0400426/
Posted by: Kilo | 09 March 2009 at 09:44 AM
Some movies are meant to stay in the big screen and some games are meant to stay in the consoles as well. I've read tons of news stating that World of Warcraft will hit the big screen but honestly I feared it. If the graphics and storyline are not as good as the game itself is, it's gonna tarnish the reputation of the director/film producer.
Posted by: wowgold | 30 June 2009 at 03:45 PM