Are Video Game Movies Really That Bad?

This week on the Rotten Tomatoes there is a piece that ranks the scores of all video game movies, showing the recently released Rampage as having the best critical score.  The interesting thing here is that Rampage sits at a 51% rating.  That means that all forty-six other films have a score worse than that.  What this illustrates is a verification of the feelings throughout the years since Super Mario Bros. came out in 1993 that video games do not make compelling cinema.

It is my belief that a video game could turn into a solid movie.  We haven't seen it yet, but there is nothing stopping it from happening, other than maybe getting better pens to scribe the screenplay.  An intellectual property doesn't need to have any kind of backstory to turn into a solid film.  The LEGO Movie in 2014 proved that.  Stories for video games, I would argue, are getting better and better.  The industry deals with so much money that the production of triple A games are seeing larger and larger budgets to ensure the games not only sell the initial product, but that they keep a steady player base that will buy additional content or loot boxes post release.

The price tag of a triple A game hovers around $80 on a console, and players expect the best.  In the hands of the player, and a potential nemesis to the game developers, is the internet forum.  When one of those expensive games doesn't deliver in all areas, people will flood the forums, especially if the game is part of a loved franchise.  Because so much money is made for developers (and shareholders, something which seems to be the driving force behind post release monetizing schemes) after the release of a game, and because the budgets for the game are so high, developers cannot have a largely disgruntled community.  It was shown with the release of EA's Battlefront 2 (part of a Star Wars video game franchise dating back to 2004, and with ever a loyal base) that fan reaction can force a studio to change course even before a game comes out.  Fan reaction can spread fast and furious, pre-sales can be refunded, and ill-will be generated.  Because of all of that, parts of the game such as story need to be better than ever before.  This should set up a better foundation for transforming the properties to a appetizing film version.

A video game in recent years that had a really compelling story line to it was Assassin's Creed.  I honestly don't care about stories when I play video games, but I was right into the one that was in front of my from the moment I put the disc into my Xbox 360.  It was really imaginative, and provided amazing settings for game play.  I would have thought that this video game, more than any other, would have the best chance for success in theatres.

The studios seemed to share that sentiment and injected $125 million into the film and cast talents such as Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, and Brendan Gleeson.  That's five Oscar nominations between them, two wins, and while Gleeson had no Oscar noms, he did have three Golden Globe nominations.  That's a serious amount of acting power.  The director was Justin Kurzel, who directed had directed three three feature films, all scoring eighty percent on Rotten Tomatoes or higher (a personal favourite of mine was Snowtown Murders).  The elements were there for a solid movie.

Even with the pedigree that it had, Assassin's Creed could only muster support from 18% from critics and $10 million on its opening weekend.  It was a domestic flop, sitting alongside other big budget North American video game failures such as Warcraft and the $200 budgeted Prince of Persia.  Using popular titles for movies has proven not to be a guarantee for money made, and throwing large sums of money at them may not be the best idea.

While a number of the video game movies seem to be aiming with their sights quite low (such as the six that are directed by Use Boll, all 7% or under on Rotten Tomatoes) there have been a number that are trying for mass market appeal.  Having seen a number of these movies (four of them in theatre, sadly), I can say that it isn't one specific problem that plagues them all.  The closest commonality in their failing would probably be story, but, as I mentioned, the source material is doing better in that realm now.

It's not specifically video games that aren't well done, it is pretty much any adaptation of a game.  Battleship, Dungeons and Dragons, and Clue didn't receive a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  In fact, I think that the only movie based on a game with a fresh rating is Ouija: Origin of Evil.  It is crazy to think that of all of the movies based on types of games, the only critically received film is a sequel to a movie that scored 6% on RT.  I would love to say the reason why that movie succeeded where others didn't is because of the skills of director Mike Flanagan (I am a huge 'Flana-fan'), but other skilled directors have been in there and failed.  I already mentioned Justin Kurzel, and a favourite of mine, Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code) directed  the mostly woeful Warcraft.

For some reason, movies based on games appear to be cursed.  Whether they're sourced out to directors with notoriously poorly received movies (Uwe Boll and Paul W.S. Anderson account for 23% of all video game movies ever made) or handed over to proven talents, video game movies just happen to fail.  It's not some systemic issue happening here.  It's not because there aren't rich and enchanting worlds to tap into or backstories that captivate.  It simply is a case of coincidence.  There will one day be a well received video game movie.  I believe it will happen, and, laugh at me if you will, I could even see in the future a movie based off of a video game being in Oscar contention.  The games are continuously getting better and better, with many already setting their sights on having blockbuster quality content and talent.  They will shake the curse soon enough.

Pompeii

Lately I have been really bad at doing this whole 'movie a day' thing.  A large part of that was working with a short story for a contest that had my mind completely bogged down for the last week.  It is not a great reason, or excuse, but I found it very hard to motivate myself to hop onto much else while the deadline for the contest was quickly approaching.  The piece is now completed, printed, and mailed off, so life can continue for me.

Leading up to the release of Pompeii, the trailers showed a movie that felt like Gladiator meets a volcano disaster movie (insert Dante’s Peak or Volcano) with hints of other films in there as well.  After seeing it I can easily confirm that it is exactly what I had expected, to the point of creating some boredom induced nausea, the kind that wants to erupt much in the same way that a digitally animated Mount Vesuvius wants to spew molten death over poor dialogue and an inanely simple love story.  Luckily for me, I was able to leave the theatre with nothing having erupted personally, but many aftershocks of cynicism and apathy were reverberating through my being.

It is not an awful movie.  Not awful to the point of making the audience mad for having their intelligence insulted (although I imagine there may be some people left feeling that way), and not horrible to the point of being laughably funny (there were a few extremely laughable scenes).  The problem with this film was its complete lack of energy and life, as it merely attempted to simply be a rehashing of stories and characters that we feel like we have seen many times before.  As the movie rolled out, my companion at the theatre decided to play a game where he would count the number of original scenes that he saw.  I believe that quest was bailed on, as I asked him how bored he was about halfway through, and he assured me he was not bored at all as his mind was on other more interesting and important things.  Like the poorly digitized bodies in ashes that bookmark the film (seriously, why could they not have simply built props?) this movie felt dead and buried to the point being a long and drawn out funeral service.

Playing the role of the lead was Kit Harrington, who is best known for his work in the popular series Game of Thrones.  Harrington played a slave who was an awesome gladiator, probably on account of his ability to strenuously flex his abdominal muscles in every scene he was in.  Harrington’s character was featured in a scene at the beginning of the movie which reminded me a lot of Conan the Barbarian where his village was overrun and he witnessed an evil man slay his family.  During the battle, he sees a man kicking ass, and I think we were to believe that witnessing this is what enabled him to fight later on in life.  It may not make great sense while you read it, but I am simply describing the schlock that was placed in front of me.  He then meets a prominent lady, played by Emily Browning, and we know that these two hot people are destined to fall in cliché love before running across the path of a dastardly volcano.

Everything that unfolds in this film is incredibly predictable, and it becomes clear as we are introduced to different characters and see developments happen that we will quickly be able to figure out just where the story is going.  It is not aided by scenes being completely lifted out of movies, such as scenes from Gladiator (it really liked stealing from that film), which eventually ground me down to a point of not really caring for any reason at all and found it hard to focus on viewing it from a critical standpoint.  The dialogue, much like the acting, is about as childish and basic as it gets, and the decisions of the characters begin to baffle onlookers who get tired of the fact that people seem to forget there is a volcano erupting and continually deviate from escaping with their lives to carry out pointless actions that serve the weak plot.

I won’t put much blame for this on the actors, but more so on the poor screenplay that was etched by Janet Scott Batchler, Lee Batchler, and Michael  Robert Johnson, which gave none of the talent anything to really work with.  On top of the flaccid story was the directorial work of Paul W.S. Anderson who enjoys a style over substance approach to his films, but seems to fall short in both categories from time to time.  In the case of Pompeii, this is one of those times.  Visually it was not a great movie, except for some of the long distance shots of the exploding mountain near the end of the film, and there was a great use of lackluster CGI for items that could have easily been props or models and ended up looking a lot better.  As well, he really wanted these characters to be as one dimensional as possible, with Harrington only ever delivering lines and emotions of bravery and never actually acting like a real person.

It is unfortunate, because I could go on and on, writing at long lengths different things about this film but it just would not be appropriate because there are so many other things that are better uses of my time.  I have been putting off this review for a number of days because I have been completely uninspired by the film, a movie that is uninspired itself.  It may have the clanging of swords and the ever-so-spectacular moments of people running away from poor special effects on a blue screen, but it has little more to add than just that.  I was bored watching it, and I am kind of bored sitting here writing about it.

Rating – 1.5 out of 4 stars