Game Over, Man!

by M. Glenn Gore


I'll be the first to admit that I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this one. Why is that, exactly? Because today we're talking about video games, or rather Hollywood's apparent inability to successfully translate video games into films that don't make me want to gouge out my eyes or take a hostage and gouge out their eyes. Either way, some eyes are comin' out!

This topic actually really pisses me off. I mean it. I take it personally. We invented art and music. We cured Polio. We put a guy on the moon which, for shit's sake, is in OUTER SPACE! You can't tell me the human animal is incapable of turning a spectacular video game into an at-least mediocre movie! Yet all evidence - and there's a shit-ton of it, let me tell you - seems to point to the contrary.

Sporting events make great films. Look at Rocky or Pride of the Yankees, or to a lesser extent, The Mighty Ducks. Books often get made into good movies. Blade Runner, anyone? The Shawshank Redemption? TV shows, too. Remember The Fugitive? Star Trek? And, oh yeah, The Untouchables?

Why can't Hollywood get their act together when it comes to video games?

"Ha! Shuck it, vidyo gaymas!"

If I listed every balls-ass awful movie ever shat forth from a perfectly sound game, you'd probably have a reaction akin to someone who accidentally caught a glimpse of Cthulhu. So to make this interesting, I'm going to do this without making a single reference to infamous anti-director and cinematic war criminal Uwe Boll and his corpse of a body of work. That would simply be too easy.

However, if I could give He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named one small suggestion that would serve him well the remainder of his days, it would be: Maybe you'd be better at making video game movies if you didn't hate video games quite so much. And if that doesn't work, might I suggest at least not hating the people who love video games as much as you so obviously do. Food for thought. Moving on.

The question is, why does this happen? Why do writers and directors and production designers just lose their collective shit whenever they're challenged with bringing a game to the screen? At their core, they're still stories. They're still a sequence of events propelled by character motivations. This is what you do, Hollywood. You got this. This should be easy!

But it's not easy, is it? And they don't got this, do they?

"Instead of Italian plumbers, can they be 19-year-old Swedish cheerleaders?"

Let's look at the make-you-lose-your-faith-in-humanity-calibre train wrecks known as the Resident Evil movies. Now, I know what you're thinking: Resident Evil 2 was good. No, it wasn't. None of them were. Not one of the - I guess by now - eleven Resident Evil films is better than below average. The beloved Capcom games were moody, mysterious, and oftentimes legitimately frightening. They forced you to aimlessly wend your way through vast, labyrinthine environments and presented you with righteous characters like Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield and... Alice?

Wait. Who the shit is Alice? That's right. She's nobody! A fetching nobody with a smoky voice and hypnotic come-hither eyes, but a nobody nonetheless!

Now, I'm not an expert on video games or movies or... anything really, but here's a hint, Hollywood: If millions of people love the characters of a video game, when you go to make a movie about that video game, you might want to consider making one of the characters, I don't know, your HERO! By relegating the characters from the games to second and third-tier status, whatever coven of bloodless witches responsible for the many Residents Evil effectively thumbed their nose at the gamers and the franchise and hobbled the film right out of the gate. And they never got their legs back.

It's the equivalent of making a Jaws sequel in which stalwart Police Chief Martin Brody is now played by Sherman Hemsley, and the shark is a 1996 Toyota Camry. Or maybe something like this:

Pictured: Dora the Explorer: The Movie

The point is, we love the games. Why does Hollywood go so far out of their way to put something on screen that is NOTHING LIKE THEM?! And here's another one: If you never had any intention of using the characters, plots or settings (i.e., the frikkin' game), the least you can do is change the title!

If a Canadian on skates doesn't get punched in the mouth, you can't call it hockey!

I am, of course, talking about the suicide pact-inducing Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within movie, which has about as much in common with the Final Fantasy game series as I do with the prima ballerina for the Moscow Ballet. For the three people on Earth who don't know, Final Fantasy is a world-renowned and much lauded role-playing game franchise. As I type this, there are no less than 65 games in the catalog, and they are each of them spectacular, except for XII, which is horseshit.

So when the movie got announced, we all understandably lost our minds in eager anticipation. The possibilities were endless. Would they use the characters from VI or VII? Who was the villain going to be? Kefka or Ultimecia, or both? Would there be Chocobos, and if not, okay. I can live with that. As it turned out, all that wishful thinking and ravenous gnashing of teeth was for naught since the finished product spiraled into an amorphous and convoluted landfill of non-canonical characters, unfamiliar worlds, and a plotline that was unnavigable even by Final Fantasy standards.

It's simply a crime to tread on the good name of a time-tested product just to put arses in the seats. Have a little integrity, for crying out loud! Don't get me wrong, the CGI was gorgeous, but the flick is a damn toilet, and you don't put a chandelier in an outhouse! Do you, Doctor Aki Ross?! No, you don't!

Polygons do not a movie make.

Now, obviously, I can't leave here without calling out Street Fighter, but that's primarily because I love that game more than I love my own family. Seriously, if it was between my sister and a copy of Street Fighter Alpha, I would honestly have to ask if it was Alpha 2 or 3. It's possible I may have a problem.

As a personal slight to me, Hollywood summoned TWO equally bile-producing Street Fighter movies, one can only assume by slaughtering a virgin beneath a gibbous moon. The first stars Bloodsport's own Jean-Claude Van Damme, who is Belgian by the by. And for reasons even more vexing, he plays Guile, who is as American as steroid use in Major League Baseball.

This also happened.

Street Fighter, you may have guessed, is an arcade classic about a bunch of people fighting in the street. There are 42 games currently, at least 39 of them bearing some variation of the title Street Fighter II. The games have no plot that I can discern, which is fine 'cause this isn't an RPG. This isn't Fable. I didn't come here to get a job as a local blacksmith or begin a meaningful relationship with the town cobbler. No. Fuck that guy! I have but two loves: streets... and fighting in them.

So how did this movie go so wrong that I contemplated taking my own life with the headrest of the seat in front of me? By doing the opposite of what you might expect. The film tries to crowbar a story in where one clearly just doesn't belong. This was simply a case of the powers-that-be making more work for themselves than they needed to. It's why Bruce Lee's Game of Death works so remarkably well. That's a movie about Bruce Lee fighting his way up a tower, facing a different badass with a unique and deadly martial arts style on every floor, ultimately culminating in a showdown with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who was 17 feet tall at the time it was filmed, and it was exactly as awesome as it sounds!

My point is don't over-think this stuff, people. Most of the time, it just isn't necessary.

And as long as we're bitching about fighting games, I should take a moment to address Mortal Kombat. Believe it or not, Mortal Kombat is the best video game movie ever made, which is kinda like saying I'd rather have testicular cancer than ascending bowel cancer, because when you're going to lose either way, you don't look for consolation in the varying degrees.

Starring Christopher Lambert of Highlander and Robin Shou of... Mortal Kombat, this 1995 feast for fanboys gave us, for better or worse, almost precisely what we hoped it would. It used characters from the games, and we could actually recognize them; they utilized their signature attacks, oftentimes to hilarious and bewildering effect; it followed the game's storyline, more or less, and it featured two honest-to-God fight scenes which were pretty damn good.

Here's one of them now:

It also spawned a heinous sequel called Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, which only managed to annihilate my belief in God, so I'm not gonna harp on that. In fact, pretend I never brought it up.

Doom, Wing Commander, Double Dragon, Silent Hill, Tomb Raider and its insipid sequel, Tomb Raider 2: Rock the Cradle of Love or whatever it's called, the list of failures just goes on and on with nary an end in sight. But there's no reason to rail against these because they all pale in comparison to the everlasting juggernaut, the infectious, incurable plague, the hammer-wielding Odinson of cinematic enemas: the great and terrible Super Mario Brothers Movie! I know you've seen it.

Don't even act like you weren't there opening day!

To say that this movie single-handedly crushed the dreams of children the world over would be an understatement. Bearing only a passing likeness to the epic yarn of a bemustached, turtle-busting band of brothers who are spirited away to a parallel world where they are caught up in a no-holds-barred do-or-die suicide mission to free Princess Peach and the Mushroom Kingdom from the clutches of the despot Bowser and his vile brood, the movie sadly features little to none of that.

This "thing" stars Bob Hoskins, who is not Italian, Dennis Hopper, who is not a giant turtle, and John Leguizamo, who is an asshole. It throws literally EVERYTHING that makes the game cool out the window, and for what? Some down-to-earth, dark and gritty Nolanesque take on one of the most family-friendly games since Russian Roulette? Why? You're not going to gain a new audience, Hollywood! You're not going to attract viewers who've never heard of it.

Why don't you spend a little less time and money trying to get people who don't give a shit about Mario to come see your movie and make a product for those of us who are guaranteed to show up?

"KIIILLLLL MMEEEEE!"

There is no curse in the tongues of Elves, Dwarves or Men strong enough to properly convey the anger I feel every time a new game-based film comes out and self-destructs before my eyes. These games are a treasure trove of inspired ideas, memorable characters, and bold storytelling unbeholden to conventional rules and expectations. They CAN make exceptional movies, but only if you refuse to run from what it is that makes them exceptional to begin with.

No, Mr. Director, you aren't going to come up with a cooler character than the one in the game, so don't replace him/her with a nobody we're not invested in. You're not going to build a better world than the one in the game, so don't embarrass yourself trying. The gamemakers have already done the heavy lifting for you. Trust them, and trust us when we tell you the game is perfect the way it is.

Embrace the inherent and beautiful madness that is a hallmark of video gaming and run with it. And if you even think about screwing up the Castlevania movie, I swear to Vishnu I'm comin' down there!

And I'm bringing a bunch of gamers with me.

NEXT: Alex Tisdale enters the Ran(t)som Notes fray with an insightful examination of the worst TV shows that people actually love.