The Evolution Of Video Game Movies: The Wrap-Up.

It's finally over! This was probably one of the most ambitious projects I've done on the blog--ambitious due to the fact that nobody in their right mind would want to watch every major video game movie each week over the span of a year. It was pretty much the opposite of the 50/50 and 60/60 Lists, which are movies one needs to see. But I did this so, as the Nostalgia Critic would say, you don't have to. I also did it to find the ones you might actually want to check out in the legions of dreck. Because there were some good ones. I watched pretty much everything from every genre of film (including a handful of documentaries) based on every type and style of video game.

These are some stats from what I figured out over the course of this series wherein I watched 50 films (minus 4 films since they were documentaries and don't count):

BASED ON GENRE

Based on Fighters: 12
(Fatal Fury/Street Fighter x3/Double Dragon/Mortal Kombat x3/DOA/King of Fighters/Tekken x2)

Based on Survival Horror: 11
(Resident Evil x7/Alone in the Dark x2/Silent Hill x2)

Based on RPGs (including MMOs): 7
(PokeMon x2/Final Fantasy x2/Dungeon Siege x2/Dragon Age)

Based on Action/Adventure: 7
(Tomb Raider x2/BloodRayne x3/Hitman/Prince of Persia)

Based on Shooters: 5
(House of the Dead/Doom/Postal/Far Cry/Max Payne)

Based on Platformers: 2
(Mario x2)

Other: 2
(Cloak & Dagger/Wing Commander)

Ironically, some of the best and worst films come from the Top 2 categories--though statistically that would have to be the case due to the number of films of each type produced. And while Fighters are the most plentiful, they're also some of the most forgettable (which a few notable exceptions, of course). Though the Action/Adventure genre also produced quite a few duds. And while not entirely bad films, almost all of them aren't necessarily worth remembering. And Uwe Boll really likes his Shooters, as 3 of the 5 are his... and the genre doesn't fare well when the only two left are Doom and Max Payne. So looking at these two genres statistically, any future adaptations of Uncharted and Halo are almost destined for mediocrity unless you can get some really good talent behind the camera.

Going back to RPGs for a second, this was the most intriguing genre to me. This genre more than any other seemed to want to please fans the most but, at the same time, completely miss the point. The PokeMon films didn't know what to do with themselves and would play with themes that didn't match the world it was set in or the age group it was going for. Final Fantasy: Spirits Within is one of the biggest bombs and question marks of all time because it was made by the originators... and had nothing to do with the games. While on the other hand, FF7: Advent Children is amazing, but made only for fans and nobody else, so it really can't prosper in the mainstream. The Dungeon Siege films are crazy fun, but they're Uwe Boll, so they aren't great. Strangely, though, I found them to be two of his best and most entertaining video game movies. And then there was Dragon Age which, from what I read, put everything in the film, yet changed up everything so it didn't make any sense. And in the end, the overall film was rather mediocre. I feel that RPGs could definitely succeed translated into film if the creators figure out who the hell they're marketing to.

Then there's the oddity of the group--platformers. Prior to Halo and the rise of the FPS generation, platformers were considered the most popular games available. These are games like Mario, Mega Man, Metroid, Sonic the Hedgehog, Viewtiful Joe, Crash Bandicoot, Ratchet & Clank, Sly Cooper, Spyro the Dragon, Castlevania, Kirby, Earthworm Jim, Jak and Daxter, and the list goes on and on. Yet the only attempts at adapting these types of games was at the start with Mario? (Note: I think Sonic does have an animated movie, but we won't go there...) Granted, these are typically freakin' bizarre games and concepts, but you can't help but wonder why more companies don't try them, at least in an animated film. Even if you went to the least weird and most popular, Mega Man, Metroid, and Castlevania could all easily work as live-action films. Alas...

I also noticed that 99% of the time, sequels are far, far worse than their predecessors, even if that means the original was so-bad-its-good and the camp that made it entertaining was removed. I often found that sequels were some of the worst films on this list.

So now let's finally wrap this all up. Let's look at some Top and Bottom lists for the year. First up, let's take a gander at those I can't even recall. These are pretty much ranked in order of how much I can't remember a thing about them and how unremarkable they really are.

TOP 5 MOST FORGETTABLE FILMS

5) Wing Commander

All I really remember here is Matthew Lillard crushin' on some woman... who ends up dying. Poor Matthew Lillard.

4) Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life

All I remember here is the terrible, terrible CGI shark at the beginning. And I thought I remembered the climax, but as it turns out... I was thinking of the first film. Yeah.

3) Alone in the Dark 2

Um... some evil thing is chasing some people into a bathroom, where they're all killed and another person sees all of it. I think that's how it opens. And that's about all I got.

2) Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture

The plot had something to do with the armor of the Greek god Ares. Or at least that's what I thought until I just looked it up, and it was actually his Roman counterpart, Mars. Alrighty then.

1) The King of Fighters

I literally remember nothing about this movie. I don't know who starred in it, what the visuals looked like... if it was even live action or animated (I think it was live action). Zero.

TOP 10 MOST ENTERTAINING FILMS (SO BAD IT'S GOOD)

So now let's look at the films that might not have been good, but I found them immensely entertaining anyway. I bet you can't guess what director shows up here more than 3 times.

10) Cloak & Dagger

It was the first film I watched for the project (and my grandpa has a speaking role appearance in it!). The tone of this movie was just so utterly strange. It was a very dark and disturbing movie, but everything was treated so lightly and kid-friendly. This film really is a sight to behold.

9) D.O.A.: Dead or Alive

Boobs. And it knows it.

8) House of the Dead

Uwe Boll's first American film, and it shows. It's not even close to his worst (or most entertaining), but it does so many strange things that it's hard not to have fun with it. From the video game inserts to the really bizarre slow motion and camera spins... this movie is something else.

7) Super Mario Bros.: Peach-Hime Kyushutsu Dai Sakusen

Easily the most bizarre movie on the list. Everybody knows when you really think about it, the Mario games are really weird. But what if you were to embrace that weirdness and try to make it all work in an actual world setting? You'd get this mind-melting film.

6) In the Name of the King: Two Worlds

Oh man did I have fun with this one. Yeah, it's Uwe Boll again. But it's Dolph Lundgren traveling back in time and/or to a parallel universe (it's not really made clear) and just not giving a damn. It's goofy and entertaining, though not nearly as entertaining as some of the following films.

5) BloodRayne

Yup, another Boll film. Nothing in this movie makes sense. The acting is terrible. The costumes are terrible. And I remember just laughing through the whole thing at just how silly things got.

4) Resident Evil: Retribution

You know what? I like the fourth and fifth live-action Resident Evil films, and I don't care what anybody says. That being said, I know they aren't great films. But man is this a fun one. I watched and reviewed this when it was in theater... and it's now out on DVD. This is easily the most entertaining of the franchise since the first.

3) In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale

This film is so damn entertaining I can't even begin to explain. King Burt Reynolds. Prince Matthew Lillard. Farmer Jason Statham. Evil wizard Ray Liotta. Good wizard John Rhys-Davies and his daughter, Leelee Sobieski. Forest Nymph Kristianna Loken. And then Ron Perlman, because he's freakin' Ron Perlman. It's one of the most bizarre casts I've ever seen, and it is so amazingly fun.

2) Street Fighter

Of course!

1) Super Mario Bros.

I know some people don't agree with me here, and it may be a level of nostalgia I have for the film. But I think this movie is a ton of fun. I actually appreciate this film quite a bit, and I think it gets too big of a bad reputation. There are far worse video game movies out there now, and I hate that this constantly makes the top of people's lists just because everyone would expect it to since you're a movie critic and that's what all movie critics have agreed upon. Nope. Not me.

TOP 5 BEST FILMS

These are the five best films I can recommend to you if you're looking for good video game movies. Good ones do exist... but again, there is a reason I could only do a Top 5 instead of a Top 10. But first...

Runners-Up: King of Kong & Ecstasy of Order. This is a tie for these two documentaries. Both of these films are the only two that got my highest rating in the entire project. But as they're documentaries and not actually adaptations of games, I didn't feel it right to include them on the official list. However, these are two great films that I strongly recommend checking out if you haven't. They would make a great double feature, as they both have quite a bit in common with each other. Great stuff.

5) Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children

This is a fantastically made film. It has gorgeous visuals and amazing action sequences. The music, taken almost entirely from the game, is beautiful. Unfortunately, I put it in my #5 spot because the entire film is fan service. If you haven't played Final Fantasy VII, then you're not going to know or care about anything going on in this film... which is sad, because it's really that good. So unless you want to do a little wiki research and then appreciate it for its visuals, you'll probably not care all that much.

4) Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie

An actually good Street Fighter movie that almost nobody talks about. No, it's not a sequel. the II in the title is in reference to the video game, not the film series. This actually came out before the live-action film. The animation is great. The action is done very well. And the story isn't all that bad. If you're hankering for a good Street Fighter film, don't pass up this little gem. (And that Chun-Li shower sequence followed up by the Vega fight is stunning.)

3) Resident Evil

While it has almost nothing to do with the games, it remains to be the best film of the series. It actually takes itself seriously and acts as more of a horror film than a campy action movie as the rest of the series does. There's a nice story, good characters, and fine thrills. Granted, some of the CGI is a little outdated, but the rest of it is solid.

2) Mortal Kombat

Speaking of outdated CGI, this movie is downright painful in that regard. But the rest of it is damn entertaining. This is about as close as you can get to a good adaptation of the games. It's funny, fun, and full of fan service. And the action is really good, as well. Oh yeah, and that theme song is one of the best movie themes ever.

1) Silent Hill

To wrap this up, most of you saw this one coming. And most of you who have seen this film will probably agree. Sure, some of the acting isn't great, especially in the first 15 minutes or so, but by God, the story and the visuals make up for it. This is a really pretty looking film, even down to the crazy, gritty, bloody things. It's so expertly handled in all regards. And the sequel made me appreciate this film even more.

TOP 5 WORST FILMS

Now for the moment you've all been waiting for. After a year and 50 films, seeing practically every major video game movie ever made and in chronological order... what do I feel are the five worst films?

5) Mortal Kombat: Annihilation

This is everything and more on how a sequel should not be done. When I was about to re-watch this film, I thought it was going to be so-bad-its-good quality. I remember kinda digging it for similar reasons when I was younger. But it's not. It's really not. This movie is just painfully bad. Truly, painfully bad. Nothing in this film is done competently. There's a reason most people consider this one of the worst ever made. And this is only my #5, folks.

4) Alone in the Dark

Uwe Boll strikes again. Even though most of his films are entertaining, they all most certainly are not. The acting in this film is atrocious. The voice-over is lazy, telling you everything that's going on as it's happening. The film goes on for 2 minutes at the start with an expository text scroll. The action scenes are done very oddly and poorly, like Boll doesn't know how to transition into a shootout. But as I said in the review, it's not the worst film I've ever seen; however, it's worst crime is that it's so unapologetically boring. And that's the worst thing a film can be, to me.

3) Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

I tell this a lot, but I actually saw this in theater and felt embarrassed while walking out. This is coming from somebody who saw all of the Twilight movies in theater by himself. It was that bad. The story is all over the place and makes no sense. The action is decent, but it never lasts more than like 30 seconds. Kristin Kreuk is nice to look at, too... but that's not even close to enough to save this movie. This film fails for Chris Klein's performance alone. What was he thinking? Bad. Just bad.

2) Silent Hill: Revelation

Easily the biggest disappointment of any sequel I've had in a long time. To go from the first film being what I think is the best video game movie ever made to the sequel being almost the worst ever made. There is almost zero things done right in this film. It's just terrible from start to finish in every regard. If you were a fan of the original film, skip this. It's not worth it... not even to know what happened at the first film's cliffhanger. It'll just piss you off even more.

1) BloodRayne 2

Bad. Just... bad. Terrible acting and characters (except Michael Eklund, who is hilarious in this... the only good thing about the film). Terrible directing. Terrible mood. Terrible lighting. Terrible editing. Terrible story. Terribly boring. This is my second least favorite Boll film next to Seed, and that says a lot if you know my feelings on that movie. This film is just painfully bad. And you know you're in trouble when your main character doesn't show up for 20 minutes into the movie. To me, this is hands down the worst video game movie of all time... thus far.

V.G. Movies #50: Resident Evil: Damnation.

[Welcome back to the Evolution of Video Game Movies series. Every week, I will be moving forward through time, starting with the earliest and ending with the most recent of video game movies. I will be detailing the histories of the games and how the films came about, and both my and fan reaction to the adaptations. Practically all of my background information is either common knowledge or from Wikipedia. So without further ado, let's move on to the final film on the list.]

THE HISTORY

Finally, we come to the final video game movie! And how fitting is it that it's a Resident Evil flick (albeit from the animated film series).  There's really no special history here. I've gone over the Resident Evil games ad nauseam with all the other flicks. There's no real information needed that leads up to this sequel to Resident Evil: Degeneration. It just... happened. And it's no secret that I pretty much hated the first film in this animated "series" (there are only two films thus far, so it's hard to call it a series). I'm not expecting much of out this, but as usual... I'll try to go in with an open mind. Let's do this, shall we?

THE FILM

In the middle of a civil war within the Eastern Slav Republic, Leon (Matthew Mercer) is sent in to confirm rumors that bio-weapons such as Lickers are being used. And not only used, but controlled. As it turns out, the freedom fighters have been given a Plaga parasite which will help them control Lickers (at least until the Plaga takes over the person's body completely). But Leon is taken hostage by a couple freedom fighters named Sasha (Dave Wittenberg) and JD (Val Tasso) and has to work with them as they prepare to overtake the capitol building and overthrow their current president, Svetlana (Wendee Lee). All the while, Ada Wong (Courtenay Taylor) has been hired to get close to the president and find the source of the Plaga herself.

You know what? I was pleasantly surprised with this film. It was far and away much better than Degeneration. First, the CG animation looks pretty good, with the exception of a few characters. And the lip sync with the dialogue is off here and there. But on the whole, the movie looks really nice. The Tyrants at the end in particular look really cool and intimidating. Strangely with the visual style, though, they would do weird little things from time to time. For instance, sometimes they would go into a first-person perspective for a short period. And other little things like that. They weren't bad, they were just odd choices.

The action was very good and much better than Degeneration. While most of it was gunplay, there were a few highlights. First and foremost was a fistfight between Ada Wong and the president. Both the animation and the actual fighting looks really good in this segment. And again, when the Tyrants show up, they're such massive, hulking creatures, and they're animated so well that you feel every heavy step they take. So when one takes so long to take down, you can really believe it, and the suspense is high. And I liked the idea of being able to use Plaga to control Lickers, even if it meant your inevitable doom. And it added some really good action sequences later on.

Unfortunately, there were some pretty big negatives, as well. First, the character of JD was unbelievably annoying. He was this Russian wannabe-American gangster type. He would talk and act in these weird and over-the-top ways that it was really hard to not want to punch him in the face. And he was supposed to be likable. Second, almost everything that came out of Leon's mouth was painful. It's like they tried to be clever and witty, but it was just terrible. And not even ironically groan-worthy where it's at least cheesy. It's just bad writing. There's this whole bit near the beginning where he compares everything to the Wizard of Oz for some strange reason. And then he tries to give one-liners throughout, but they just don't hit. He only has one good line in the entire film, which is near the end when they're taking down one of the Tyrants. And that's about it.

It's definitely not a perfect film, but I was really entertained by it for the majority. It does go on about 10 minutes too long as it tries to wrap up every single storyline in this film while setting up cliffhangers for the Resident Evil 6 video game. It's like Lord of the Rings with all the endings it goes for. And that on top of a really long third act climax (albeit a fun one), it was just too much. The voice acting was solid, as well, even though JD got on my nerves. In the end, the decent story, nice visuals, and cool action won me over. Who'd have thunk?


I Am McLovin!

V.G. Movies #49: Ecstasy Of Order: The Tetris Masters.

[Welcome back to the Evolution of Video Game Movies series. Every week, I will be moving forward through time, starting with the earliest and ending with the most recent of video game movies. I will be detailing the histories of the games and how the films came about, and both my and fan reaction to the adaptations. Practically all of my background information is either common knowledge or from Wikipedia. So without further ado, let's move on to the next film on the list.]

THE HISTORY

In the world of video games, most people will basically think two countries: U.S. and Japan. So it's pretty interesting that one of the best selling and most popular video games of all time... is Russian. In 1984, Alexey Pajitnov was working for the Soviet Academy of Sciences when he came up with a puzzle video game where every piece consisted of a design of 4 blocks. He mixed together the words tetromino (a geometric shape consisting of four blocks) and tennis (his favorite sport) and, thus... Tetris was born.

Numerous companies bought out the game and sold it for their consoles, though it was really the Nintendo Game Boy that skyrocketed sales of the game (selling over 33 million copies on its system alone). By 1989, half a dozen companies had rights to the game. It won plenty of awards and is still found on "best games of all time" lists all over the world.

Interestingly, whereas many people argue video games "rot the brain," Tetris is actually proven to be good for it. It's been proven that prolonged activity with the game increases cognitive skills and more efficient brain activity throughout the day. Even as little as 30 minutes a day for 3 months can enhance everything from critical thinking skills to reasoning and language.

Over the years, Tetris scores have been collected, particularly by Twin Galaxies (see my King of Kong review for more details on them). And that leads us to the following documentary...

THE FILM

In 1990, Nintendo held the Nintendo World Championships where a boy named Thor Aackerlund (his real name) won first place, had higher scores than anyone else had ever done at that time, and became the face of Nintendo for a short period of time... until he pretty much fell off the map. He declared he reached the impossible Level 30 on more than one occasion--something nobody had ever seen before even once--though there was no video proof of this. Jump ahead through time, and people such as Harry Hong and Jonas Neubauer certainly defeated his records, though nobody ever reached Level 30. So in 2010, Robin Mihara--who came in 3rd against Thor in 1990--sets up the ultimate Tetris Championship in L.A. for the best players in the United States. And he invites the reclusive Thor to begin gaming once again and prove that he has done what he's claimed and that he's still as good as he used to be.

This is pretty much the perfect companion piece to King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. It's somewhat similar in style (though it's not really a good vs. evil battle... there's no good guys or bad guys, really). But we follow a handful of the best players leading up to the tournament and then the actual events of the tournament.

What I found particularly fascinating was how Thor was treated or acknowledged throughout. Ironically, he was treated as this mythical being or god amongst men who could do these extraordinary deeds that nobody else could... except there were plenty of doubters that he could actually do it. He's really set up similarly to a Billy Mitchell, but less of a douche and more of this (overly awkward) divinity that once showed up and then just... disappeared from the public eye. So that by the time he actually shows up in the documentary and you hear his side of the story... it's that much more hard-hitting.

Everybody in the doc was pretty likable. What I might have liked more from it is a clear underdog. Outside of Thor, you don't feel ask if there's really one person to openly root for or champion. They're all good players and have relatively average life stories (again, with the exception of Thor). It's just that Thor doesn't show up for quite a ways into the documentary, so outside of introducing these people to us and building up the legend of Thor, it really needed to focus on a few other things to pad out the documentary.

And it does so pretty well. A fascinating section of the film discusses the game's psychological effects on people. Besides the aforementioned increase in brain efficiency, it briefly discusses what's called "The Tetris Effect." This is something that I myself have actually experienced in the past, when I was a Tetris junkie for a while. It's basically when you start seeing the shapes even when you're not actually playing, so you start playing games in your head and even in your dreams. The discussion of why this happens and the game's neurological effects was pretty interesting in and of itself.

Otherwise, there's not much to talk about here. If you like King of Kong, definitely seek this one out. It really does work well with the former. The film does drag for a little in parts, mainly within the first 30 minutes or so, but on the whole it's really good. The documentary actually made me quite anxious while watching all the Tetris games going on, so it really invests you in what's going on. I was pleasantly surprised by this documentary, and Thor's story really is filled with some twists that you might not see coming.


Royale With Cheese

(P.S. This is the second time I've given this score for this project. The first? Yup...  King of Kong.)

V.G. Movies #48: Dragon Age: Dawn Of The Seeker.

[Welcome back to the Evolution of Video Game Movies series. Every week, I will be moving forward through time, starting with the earliest and ending with the most recent of video game movies. I will be detailing the histories of the games and how the films came about, and both my and fan reaction to the adaptations. Practically all of my background information is either common knowledge or from Wikipedia. So without further ado, let's move on to the next film on the list.]

THE HISTORY

This is the most recent series on this list, and one that I know zero about. The first game came out in just 2009. Entitled Dragon Age: Origins, the first game was released by production company BioWare and Electronic Arts. The game's introduces a character of your creation to the country of Ferelden via a man named Duncan who gets you inducted as a Grey Warden--which is essentially a knight-type character. You eventually team up with others in order to stop an oncoming Blight--an attack of demon-like creatures called darkspawn and their archdemon leader, which is a presence that has taken over the body of a powerful dragon. The game was almost universally praised and won numerous awards.

After numerous expansion packs, a sequel was released in 2011. The sequel follows a man named Hawke who fled from Ferelden during the events of the first game. Over years, Hawke rises in power and fame and is involved in a handful of political-type battles, including a war waged between Templars and mages. This game also got positive reviews, though it wasn't as widely appreciated and loved as the first.

So after these two recent games became so well loved, it was clear a film was going to be made. But instead of going the live-action route, the game companies decided to take a page from Capcom and make a CG film. The film would follow one of the minor characters involved in the second game, Cassandra. So let's see how they fared, shall we?

THE FILM

The film follows a Cassandra, a form of knight called a Seeker. Seekers and their special-ops counterparts, the Templars, are trained to take down Blood Mages--a radical faction of mages that have separated from their Circle Mage brethren. The Blood Mages, with the help of a traitor, have kidnapped another mage who has the ability to control animals. They want to use her to control dragons and wage war. So Cassandra, who hates mages, is forced to team up with a Circle Mage named Galyan to stop the Blood Mages from completing their plan.

Have you ever watched any fantasy or quest film ever? Then you've seen this movie. It's beyond predictable and by-the-numbers. Cassandra is a hot-headed young warrior out to prove herself, and she has a troubling past as her brother was killed by mages. So of course she has to team up with a mage that she hates yet inevitably befriends and might even fall for. And in the end she proves herself worthy and is honored for it. Galyan is the weak yet charming sidekick. There is a high-ranked traitor (who they, thankfully, don't even attempt to make a surprise twist due to its obviousness). There are no surprises in this film, and you've seen everything it has to offer before.

But then, on top of that, there are plot and/or logic issues galore. In an effort to make Cassandra a badass, they completely undermine all villains. She has no trouble single-handedly taking down any Blood Mage or monster thrown in her way, even if 50 of them are thrown in her way simultaneously. The mages don't really fight with magic, yet they are somehow able to take out armies of these Templars and Seekers. Where is this struggling war, again? And then Cassandra is able to take down anything, including dragons and other giant, scary creatures. And not only does she take them down, but she does so--always--in about 1-2 swings of the sword. Five dragons? No problem! Let's just jump on their backs one at a time and stab them in the spine and head and move on to the next one without any kind of reaction from the dragons.

But, believe it or not, my biggest issue was with the animation. A lot of people seem to find this the film's only real perk, but I have to disagree. It's really uneven, with monsters and smaller animals looking nice, but everything else being down in this weird cell-shaded format. It makes it look like PS2 or Gamecube-era video game graphics. So not only is the animation not up to par for movie animation, it's not up to par for video game animation. The film ends up looking like an extended cut scene from an old, cell-shaded PS2 game.

All of that being said, the movie isn't terrible. It's just nothing new, and there's absolutely nothing original or spectacular about it. Hell, with only a few alterations here and there, the plot of the film is almost identical to the Dungeons & Dragons live-action film from 2000 (An evil mage wants to take over, so he attempts to gain the ability to control dragons and overthrow the current leader. From there, it's up to a hard-headed hero to team up with a mage (and he dislikes mages) and others to stop him). And that's not really a great comparison to make. (And the villain is equally stupid.) Overall, I didn't hate it, but I can almost assure you that I won't ever find the need to watch it again.


Feed Me, Seymour!

V.G. Movies #47: Second Skin.

[Welcome back to the Evolution of Video Game Movies series. Every week, I will be moving forward through time, starting with the earliest and ending with the most recent of video game movies. I will be detailing the histories of the games and how the films came about, and both my and fan reaction to the adaptations. Practically all of my background information is either common knowledge or from Wikipedia. So without further ado, let's move on to the next film on the list.]

(Special Note: This was originally supposed to be Ace Attorney, but that movie proved impossible to find. So I had to go back a few years and pop in another documentary.)

THE HISTORY

This year I've talked about films based on practically every type of video game: fighters, platformers, first-person shooters, simulators, horror, action/adventure, side-scrollers, volleyball, mission-based, puzzles, and role playing. I've talked about everything from arcade to console and at least one computer-based. But in this year, I have not talked about one of the biggest and most addictive genres currently available (next to first person shooters)--MMORPGs.

The Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game genre is for the most hardcore of hardcore gamers. Why? Because it takes all your time, money, and personal investment to play. Like regular RPGs, you get a character (though oftentimes you get to create that character nearly from scratch) and get to choose his or her destiny and evolution. But unlike regular RPGs, the worlds expand and evolve even when the player isn't playing as the games take place entirely online.

The genre pretty much began before it was even a genre, if that makes sense, with Dungeons & Dragons. This game inspired many types of early online games called MUDs, or Multi-User Dungeons. These were typically text-based adventure/fantasy games where you pretty much played D&D (or something similar) over an internet connection in a chat room-type setting. (They, of course, evolved from there.) MUDs soon became graphical MUDs, which--if you couldn't figure it out--added graphics to the text-based setting.

The first major fully graphical interface, multi-user RPG was Neverwinter Nights in 1991. These games continued evolving until 1997 when a man named Richard Garriott released a game called Ultima Online and coined the term MMORPG, and the genre hit its stride and became popular in 1999 with a game called EverQuest. Many incredibly popular games came out after, both for free and for pay. But none could ever come close (before or after) to the success of the fourth installment to a real-time strategy series called Warcraft. The fourth venture into the world of Azeroth changed its genre to MMORPG and has since become the most popular and best selling of its kind.

Unfortunately, with this came a whole new world of psychological studies. People became legitimately addicted, risking personal lives, health, and job security to continue playing WoW and other games like it. Entirely new ways of interacting began happening, including to the point of online marriages. These are games that can be fun in moderation but have literally destroyed many lives in the process. The following documentary follows the stories of some of these people.

THE FILM

This is normally where I talk about the film's story or characters, but there's nothing really concrete or central to really focus on. The film actually focuses more on the positives and negatives of MMORPGs and gaming addiction rather than looking at the games themselves. There are a couple constant people and stories to follow, which includes a couple who falls in love online, a group of friends who struggle to balance social lives with gaming, a woman whose son was a huge gamer and drove her to start up a self-help group for addicted gamers, and a guy who completely hits rock bottom due to gaming and seeks help.

This documentary's biggest issue is that it has a weak "thesis statement" (to put it in academic terms) and is, therefore, all over the place. It doesn't seem to know what it wants to say. What point is it trying to make? Yes, it has a fair and balanced look at the positives and negatives of online gaming. But at the same time, it throws in all these other things, like Chinese Gold Farms ("illegal" aspects of these games where what are essentially technical support sweat shops in China are run where people can use real life money to buy in-game gold to level up their characters faster). And then there are things like focusing on people who are clearly psychologically imbalanced (or, in some cases, socially incapable) prior to being involved in gaming, so it's not exactly a fair look.

A lot of these people in this movie are incredibly unlikable. Of course, not all of them... but a good chunk. For instance, there's one story where a guy's wife is pregnant with twins. She ends up delivering both but nearly dies during childbirth. This sends a bit of a reality check to the gamer husband (though not for long, as he does eventually become obsessed again). Immediately after this happens, his gamer friend comments that what sucks is his friend is going to stop or slow down on gaming now. Yes, that is the terrible thing that is happening in all of this.

The most memorable story is a guy named Dan who hits rock bottom because of gaming--he loses his business, his relationship, and his home. He considers suicide because his life is in shambles. So he goes online and finds this gaming addiction anonymous place run by an older woman named Liz. She proclaims she even goes so far as to have a safe house for people considering suicide, which Dan eventually goes to. Liz is another personality they interview throughout, and she's pretty strong against online gaming and how it ruins lives. As it turns out, she's a bit of a crazy lady who actually suffered a personal tragedy and decided to blame gaming for the issues. But this 12-step anonymous program she started was worthless; the safe house was nothing more than her own house that she would force Dan to sign a lease for*; and she would go around and demean and insult Dan in front of everybody else. (*Note: Some of this information came from a personal interview from Dan after the film was released.) The program was useless, and it's somewhat implied that this woman's domineering attitude might have been at least been partially responsible for the tragedy she faced.

The film also focuses pretty heavily on romantic relationships formed through MMORPGs, though the film doesn't really come to much of a conclusion on the matter. The primary couple meet playing EverQuest II (one's from Florida and the other is from Texas). As the film portrays them, it's clear both of these people have issues--the guy is a bit of a loner with social problems and the girl is the type who probably identifies with Bella from Twlight... she falls deeply in love easily and is too insecure about herself to drop a failing relationship. There are red flags everywhere, and the two have zero chemistry (at least on screen), but she ends up making him move to Florida to live with her in a new house they got together. As far as I know, they're still together, so more power to 'em.

On the flip side, the documentary also shows how things could work in a very positive light. There are couples interviewed sporadically that met online and work well together (though these sections are more of an ad for online dating than MMO players). There are experts who discuss the psychological aspects of why people play these games, and it totally makes sense. One of my favorite aspects of the movie is one of the shortest--it shows a young man named Andrew Monkelban who is mute and is mostly paralyzed from cerebral palsy. All he could do is move one of his index fingers, which is how he typed and would play these MMOs. As the story goes, the director found him while playing online and got to know him... but he didn't know about Andrew's condition until they met. The director was incredibly uncomfortable during their interview and didn't stick around too long. (This is immediately followed by another brief interview with another handicapped person who shares similar sentiments.) I would have loved to see more on that aspect of this subject. What about these people who need to escape to these online worlds because that's the best way they can live and be free to be who they are on the inside? That's the best way to express themselves.

Instead, what we end up with is a mostly depressing and confused documentary. It would have even worked had they spent the majority of the film on the negative and then, bam, pulled out the positive for the last third to show it's not all lunatics or people with addictive personalities who play MMORPGs. I mean, this is a bit of an overstatement, but this film is like the Requiem for a Dream of online gamers. It's just uncomfortable to sit through most of the time. The negative far outweighs the positive. It's pretty clear that the director saw this as an easy documentary subject to show a negative side to gaming, but the more he got into it, the more he saw that wasn't the case... so he tried to put in some very positive things in there, too, but it was a too little too late kind of thing. All of that being said, it's not a bad film, and it does have some really interesting aspects to it, but I do believe it shows a lot of things a bit unfairly and misrepresents some other things by leaving out some key information.


Stop Saying OK! OK.

V.G. Movies #46: Indie Game: The Movie

[Welcome back to the Evolution of Video Game Movies series. Every week, I will be moving forward through time, starting with the earliest and ending with the most recent of video game movies. I will be detailing the histories of the games and how the films came about, and both my and fan reaction to the adaptations. Practically all of my background information is either common knowledge or from Wikipedia. So without further ado, let's move on to the next film on the list.]

THE HISTORY

This is a tough one to discuss the history of, since the documentary in and of itself follows the history of these indie games. But I guess I can talk about indie games themselves. Basically, an indie game creator doesn't have all the restrictions of a mainstream game creator and can do what they want--they just have a limited (read: almost non-existent) budget to do it.

The idea began on PCs via shareware sites in the early 90s. These can be anything from flash games (the most prominent) to engine building titles. For instance, there were pre-built engines where you basically modified characters, stories, and/or landscapes in things such as RPGMaker or modified looks and fighting movies in Fighter Maker (both of which I've actually dabbled with back in the day).

But as mainstream games became more widespread, indie games suffered a bit due to a difference in both quality and availability. But then came the revolution that was online console gaming (XBox Live, Playstation Network, etc.). Due to this new turn in gaming history, indie games made a resurgence as the developers used these systems and methods to get their games out there. The expansion of social websites also helped grab casual gamers, as well.

However, earning a profit is a very difficult thing, as most profit for console titles will go to the distributors and web-based games usually don't catch enough speed to make much of anything. Most mainstream players still stick to mainstream titles, and indie game makers try to use this method as more of a jumping point than a commercial success.

So some people still succeed quite a bit, while others struggle to even get off the ground. Now for the documentary that shows all sides.

THE FILM

This was a very different kind of film than I was expecting. I suppose I expected something a little closer to King of Kong, though there are some tiny similarities here and there. But to fully talk about this film, I have to talk about it in parts. This film interweaves three games/stories that span three levels of completion and success, so that's how I'll be looking at it.

Braid (The Success Story)

Jonathan Blow came up with the game Braid after a friend looked at Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and pondered why there wasn't a game that could use time altering infinitely and could just rewind like a VCR. To date, Braid is one of the biggest independent game success stories both in sales and positive reviews. The documentary picks up already after the game has become a hit.

And this is the weakest of the stories, mostly because there's no story. For this film, Jonathan acts as more of a thematic focal point to the documentary--indie games are games that aren't meant to be the incredibly polished, big-budget, mainstream games. They're meant to have pieces of the creator's heart and soul. They will be very personal, taking pieces of their very essence and making something that, if it fails, it can crush/destroy the creators.

They show this story off and on for the first half of the movie but then drop it completely (bringing it back only at the very end, right before the credits, to restate the above theme to push it on home). But where this story really fails--besides the fact that it doesn't add much outside of that--is that it doesn't even match the theme itself. Jonathan comes off as kind of a pretentious douche. He's very "woe is me" about his success, complaining that all the people who praise it and love it do so for reasons that aren't connected to the real art and purpose of the game, so they miss the point. And the more success it has, the more annoyed and depressed he gets because these people just don't "get it." To me, this almost misses the point of this film, as he's bringing on this agony and depression himself since the game was almost an instant hit. Not to mention his reasoning for making the game is the least personal, and the path he takes to its release and success is (at least as shown in the film) almost conflict free, especially in comparison to the other two stories.

Super Meat Boy (The Rising Star)

Here we follow two guys: Edmund and Tommy. These guys live in different states, though they work on the game together. Tommy still lives at home with his parents in his childhood room, and Edmund is recently married, and they're on their own. Together they're making this game that promises to be a massive success--possibly even more so than Braid--but they're really pushing time limits and deadlines to get it out and to Microsoft so they can release it in time for a major sale on XBox Live.

This story was the most conflicting for me. On the one hand, Edmund seems to be a very cool, relatable guy who is very human and sincere. On the other hand, you have Tommy. Tommy has an insanely supportive family, although they are in debt. And he seems very grateful to them in wanting to pay off their debt if he makes money off the game. But everything else... he comes off like an ungrateful asshole. He's very similar to Jonathan Blow in that he doesn't want to hear good news or anything like that since he's making this game for himself and doesn't give a damn if people like it or not (but he says this in a very rude, obnoxious way). And he takes it even further. He publicly denounces some major gaming companies and declares all these popular, award-winning games are all crap and anything he does is infinitely better. He's an enigmatic character, because he's very smug, obnoxious, self-centered, foul-mouthed, and incredibly depressed individual... who really cares about his family.

But then you have Edmund. Edmund is very gracious and personal--in fact, he is really what this film is all about. Everything he makes he really puts his heart and soul and entire life into. Everything he's ever felt or loved or been hurt or scared by... he puts these things into his games because it's his passion. Art imitates life and whatnot, and his games are very close and personal to him, so if the game fails, you really believe that he could crumble. And while every person in this documentary is very depressed, he's the only one I actually felt for (though the next guy had some legit reasons, too... he wasn't nearly as personable to me... but I'll get to him shortly). The difference between Edmund and Tommy is exemplified perfectly in a scene where Tommy is flipping out about the game not showing up on the front page, while Edmund is chilling with his wife and trying not to think about it because--what's the point in getting worked up about first day sale numbers? Another scene where Edmund is laughing and enjoying seeing all these positive reviews and videos of people playing the game and loving seeing people enjoying his creation... then Tommy moaning about how none of that matters.

Besides the people, the story itself is not as interesting as the next one, but it's still decent. This one is definitely more focused on the juxtaposition of these two people and how they react to what's going on (and fortunately, the director decided to spend much more time with Edmund than Tommy). So in a way, this was both my favorite and least favorite story of the film, since I really wanted Edmund to succeed, but I wanted Tommy to fail and get punched in the face--though I couldn't have both since they were partners on the same game.

Fez (The Little Game That Could)

Fez was first announced back in 2008 to amazing reception. There was an award-winning demo released... and then nothing game of the game. At the start of its creation was Quebec-native (I'm assuming) Phil Fish and a business partner who helped develop the idea and whatnot. But I believe soon after the demo, the partner dropped off the project, leaving Phil to work on everything alone while making him deal with lawsuit issues, as it basically acted as a divorce and Phil needed to get all the rights from his partner who was refusing to finish signing all the paperwork. Meanwhile, his dad gets cancer, his parents get a divorce, and a hundred other really terrible things happen to this guy that slow production. And he's getting terrible, personal attacks from fans of the demo hating him since he hasn't finished the game yet (to which he lists off a handful of games that had thousands of workers that took 5 years, and he's just one guy). But now the PAX Expo is coming up and he wants to have another demo out at this point... if he can avoid a lawsuit and get his ex-partner to sign the forms so he can legally promote it on his own.

This is definitely the best story (and the most like King of Kong in that it tells a solid underdog narrative). You really want this guy to succeed, despite him having the luck of Job. (Things continue to go wrong throughout.) And despite everything, he comes out of it smiling, whether that's a forced smile or not.

Where this story is a little unbalanced is Phil himself. He's a very frustrated man, and understandably so. But he can be a little extreme and off-putting at times. We spend a good chunk of time, possibly too long, with Phil cussing out his ex-partner is frustrated rage that turns to murder threats. And at one point the interviewer asks what will happen if the game doesn't succeed, to which Phil responds "I will kill myself." And he's not kidding. He is completely serious in that he will take his own life if the results of this long venture are negative. And while I understand why they showed that in tying up with the film's theme, it really makes you uneasy. And between the suicide and murder threats, I really didn't know how to feel about this guy. But I did still really want him to succeed.

Overall

To me, the film was slightly unbalanced. There was also a little bit of redundancy and some stuff that just went on a wee bit too long. In other words, the film could have used a bit tighter editing. Though I did really like the section of the film that went into the history of stuff where it detailed how they made the games and the levels and all that. I was waiting for a while for them to get into that, but it happens right around the halfway point (right before the Braid story pretty much disappears for the rest of the film). But if this were a written paper or book, I'd say it needed one more revision. I still liked it, but it could have used a little more tightening up. And it didn't help that there are really 4 people in this movie (5 if you count Edmund's wife, but I don't) and 2 of them are unlikeable, while a third is questionable (albeit being an underdog and therefore root-for-able). But in the end, it's still a fascinating film, and if you're a fan of this kind of thing, I'd definitely check it out.

I Am McLovin!

V.G. Movies #44: Tekken: Blood Vengeance.

[Welcome back to the Evolution of Video Game Movies series. Every week, I will be moving forward through time, starting with the earliest and ending with the most recent of video game movies. I will be detailing the histories of the games and how the films came about, and both my and fan reaction to the adaptations. Practically all of my background information is either common knowledge or from Wikipedia. So without further ado, let's move on to the next film on the list.]

THE HISTORY

Um... nothing really new that I didn't share with here. Though in regards to the film itself, the game company wanted to make a film version of the game that didn't suck (like the live action one), so they decided to do it with animation. They also stress this has no ties to the live action one, as they want to distance themselves as far from that as they can. But that implies this one is good. So... is it?

THE FILM

There are a handful of game-based films out there that have both a live action and animated attempt at adapting. Sometimes you get something like Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie. Other times you get Resident Evil: Degeneration. So where does this fall? The film follows a teenage schoolgirl named Xiaoyu as an evil corporation forces her to work for them and transfer to a public international school to get close to a young man named Shin. But along the way, she meets another girl named Alisa who also seems to be interested in Shin (and, as it turns out, is a robot who works for another corporation). There's something special about Shin, and it might have something to do with an old family blood feud between Jin, Kazuya, and Heihachi.

I will say that, up until a certain point, I was actually really digging this movie. The story itself was interesting, and the mystery behind what was going on kept me intrigued. And then the characters were fun and the interactions between Xiaoyu and Alisa were entertaining. Where the story lost me was around the third act when it started to be explained. Things got very weird, and I'm assuming you have to be familiar with the games to actually understand what's going on. I honestly lost almost all interest in the film at this point, as I had zero idea what was actually going on anymore. It's not very well explained at all.

On the other hand, the animation is done incredibly well--sometimes to the point where the backgrounds look live action. It wasn't all totally perfect, and some things looked more "finished" than others, but on the whole, it looked really nice. Similarly (on a visual level), the action scenes were really entertaining. There weren't many at the start. In fact, there are only maybe 3-4 by the time the film reaches the climax. But then literally the entire last 30 minutes is a stretch of fight sequences that just keeps going... and going... and going. It's also at this point that even the fighting was getting to be uninteresting. Some of it worked, but at that point, it should have been toned down a bit (or maybe it was a fan service thing). But the other fights prior to that last 30 minutes are tons of fun and looked great both stylistically and animation-wise.

All of that being said, I don't have much else to say about the movie. I think it was good in quality and had actual talent involved. The story and action were really interesting up to a point (which is, at the very least, the majority of the film). And, as I've said, the animation was done very well. This is just a weird film to review, because I think it might work better for fans of the game than outsiders (similar in a way to Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children). There's nothing that upset me about the movie or that I strongly disliked, but I can't really get fully behind it, either. So... it is what it is.


I Am McLovin!

V.G. Movies #42: SILENT HILL: REVELATION.

[Welcome back to the Evolution of Video Game Movies series. Every week, I will be moving forward through time, starting with the earliest and ending with the most recent of video game movies. I will be detailing the histories of the games and how the films came about, and both my and fan reaction to the adaptations. Practically all of my background information is either common knowledge or from Wikipedia. So without further ado, let's move on to the next film on the list.]

THE HISTORY

After the "success" of the first film (it is considered to be one of the best video game adaptations thus far), a sequel was almost immediately green-lit. However, director Christoph Gans stated that he wanted to work on other projects and left the sequel. That's when Michael J. Bassett stepped up. However, we were going to get a return of Roger Avary as a writer... until he was arrested for vehicular manslaughter. Bassett also took over as writer. And it has taken 6 years to get this sequel that quite a few people, myself included, have been waiting for.

The film is based on Silent Hill 3. The story follows the hero of the first game, Harry Mason, and his daughter, Heather. But someone named Claudia in Silent Hill has sent a detective named Douglas Cartland to find her and ends up killing Harry. Heather then travels to Silent Hill to exact revenge on Claudia. She also eventually discovers she's the grown version of Alessa/Cheryl from the first game. But the story here doesn't really matter, as from what I've read and heard, the film basically takes names and a few plot points and disregards everything else.

So after all these years of waiting and anticipation... what'd I think?

THE FILM

For those who don't know, I really dig the first film. I was ticked off at the original of the first film, as well, and have been highly anticipating a sequel ever since. So when I heard this was finally happening, I couldn't have been more stoked. It was one of my most anticipated films of the year. I would finally see what happened next after that terrible ending of the first film, and then hopefully get another good film to follow up. Was is everything I hoped for?

Heather Mason (Adelaide Clemens) has moved all around the country with her dad, Harry (Sean Bean) since an incident when she was a child that she has no memory of. But weird things start happening in her new town, going right along with some terrible nightmares about a place called Silent Hill. Then her dad ends up being kidnapped and taken there. So Heather teams up with another new student named Vincent (Kit Harington) to go to Silent Hill to rescue her dad... but there's more to what's going on then she knows.

I don't often say things like this in reviews, but I'm pretty sure this one deserves it: Holy Fuckballs, this movie blew. Like, I've seen a ton of bad movies. I basically make a habit of seeing terrible movies. I have this entire Video Game Movies series (that I decided to willingly do), for crying out loud. The first film is one of--if not the--best video game movie. This one is, while not the worst, pretty damn terrible. This was like a notch above old school Uwe Boll, but without the camp.

First and foremost, the script is so painfully bad. The dialogue often had me thinking "PEOPLE DON'T TALK LIKE THAT!" Seriously. The dialogue was so stilted and clunky and unrealistic. And the story itself was a disaster. It tried to take mainly from Silent Hill 3, but I doubt (no matter what they say) that anybody involved has ever played any of the games. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if the writers or director had even seen the first film. Why? Because it ignores half the damn thing--but I'll get into that in a minute. Anyway, the story makes no damn sense. Everything that's happening is so illogical, and I'm pretty sure even the writers didn't know what was going on in the story. But the reason I said they didn't pay attention to anything in this series (games or film) is because it doesn't follow how a Silent Hill story works. It's supposed to be slow reveal where all the little mysteries and the monsters eventually build up to reveal some major secret about the characters and some fantastic backstory that really gets psychological on you. They're supposed to be this horror-noir, basically. But here, they take the biggest mystery of the game they're basing this on--that Heather is actually Sharon (or Cheryl in the games)--and announce that to you in the opening minutes of the film. Then it just throws in monsters for no reason. Even the first film had a reason for different monsters to exist in that particular nightmare. Here? They're just there because they wanted them to be there. No connection to the story at all.

Now I'm gonna get into some spoiler territory for both this film and the previous film. I'll let you know when I'm done with spoilers. So here we go. (SPOILERS) The entire point of the ending of the first film is that Sharon's mother, Rose, helps Alessa get her revenge by getting her into the church to kill everyone. She does so, and then Sharon and Alessa merge together and become one. The first film then ends by Sharon and her mom leaving the actual Silent Hill town, but still stuck in the "other realm." It's clear that Alessa has possessed Sharon. So here's Silent Hill: Revelation: Somehow, Rose figured out a way to get Sharon out of the "other realm," but got stuck there herself. Rose tells her husband, Christopher (Sean Bean), that people will try to come after Sharon so they have to keep on the run. That's why they move around so much and keep changing their names. So now Christopher is Harry and Sharon is Heather. But here's the kicker... they completely ignore the fact that Alessa got her revenge and then possessed Sharon. They somehow separated again and she wants revenge again on some other people, one of which being the baddie in the last film's sister (played here by Carrie-Ann Moss). And then the way they get Sharon out of the realm is such a piss-poor explanation-without-being-an-actual-explanation that I'm not sure if it makes the original's ending seem worse or is now better in comparison to what this film delivers. It was just a disaster of a connection. (END SPOILERS)

Now let's move on in to the acting. Not only was this easily some of the worst dialogue I've heard in a Hollywood production in a long time, but it was made even worse by the God-awful acting in the film. And I know at least Sean Bean has acting skills, and I've heard some of these other people do, too. But not in this movie. Not by a long shot. Our leads are basically two Brits and an Aussie, and none of them can hold their American accent. Not even Sean Bean! I swear, everybody slips out of their accents at least a couple times throughout the film (Hell, you can hear Adelaide do it in the trailer!). But every last person, including Radha Mitchell in a brief cameo near the start, gives such a clunky performance. I can't say it quite reaches Chris Klein-in-Legend-of-Chun-Li levels of badness, but it's still super clunky. There's a scene in the first act where Sean Bean is talking to Radha Mitchell in a mirror (yeah), and they keep calling each other "my love" in the most awkward way. It's so painful to watch and/or listen to. I think that was the first time I thought about walking out. (I will say, though, that Malcolm McDowell's brief appearance was great, because at least there he could ham it up and make it entertaining.)

And here's another thing. The first film relied on a building of tension and atmosphere. There was an air of mystery to everything, and it slowly build up the creepy and WTF factor. And it was a gorgeous looking film. To top it off, almost everything in that movie was done practically (with a couple notable exceptions). But the majority of the monsters were just guys in suits, and it looked fantastic. Here, they rely on a ton of really shitty CGI, especially in the case of the mannequin spider/scorpion thingy (also shown in the trailers). Not only did that scene not have anything to do with anything, it looked flat-out horrible. That was just some really bad CGI. And there's no atmosphere in this film. I never felt creeped out. I never felt any tension. And nothing looked as good or as stylish as the first film. There was nothing like the "Colin" scene in the first film.

There is some action in the film, and there actually are a couple good moments. Unfortunately, I'd already seen one of them a thousand times from the trailers and one of the big released scenes. The "Nurses" scene with Vincent is one of the best parts of the movie, and I'd already seen basically the entire thing before the film was even released. There was also maybe one scene near the end that I kinda liked, too, but that was about it. At least there was a final fight scene. If the movie ended with the most Epic-Hug-Battle ever, I'd have been even more pissed (that moment in and of itself was just ridiculous).

Overall, the film was just awful. And even worse, it was disappointing. Painfully disappointing, at that. I'd been anticipating this film for 6 years, and I get this piece of garbage. There's no atmosphere. No scares (outside the 'jump' variety The dialogue is terrible. The acting is terrible. Nothing makes any sense. It doesn't even look good. And, worst of all, it seemingly just ignores 98% of the first movie. Even if you've been anticipating this like I have, don't bother. It's not worth your time.


The Zed Word

(P.S. That being said, this was probably some of the best damn 3D I've ever seen. Holy crap, that was amazing.)

V.G. Movies #41: BloodRayne: The Third Reich.

[Welcome back to the Evolution of Video Game Movies series. Every week, I will be moving forward through time, starting with the earliest and ending with the most recent of video game movies. I will be detailing the histories of the games and how the films came about, and both my and fan reaction to the adaptations. Practically all of my background information is either common knowledge or from Wikipedia. So without further ado, let's move on to the next film on the list.]

THE HISTORY

Whereas the previous two movies had nothing to do with the games, this film actually takes an idea and/or setting from a game. It sets BloodRayne up against Nazis. But, being a Boll film, that doesn't matter in the slightest.

THE FILM

Plot that makes no sense. Continuity of story or characters doesn't work from film-to-film (or even scene-to-scene). Some of the same actors are brought back to play new characters in a different era... making no sense. But there is a pointless lesbian sex scene. And a pointless hetero sex scene. And a bunch of other pointless scenes. And everything is done incompetently. However, Clint Howard--one of the two primary villains--was cheesily awesome and hilarious. But, in other words, it sucks. What'd you expect?





The Zed Word

V.G. Movies #40: Resident Evil: Retribution.

[Welcome back to the Evolution of Video Game Movies series. Every week, I will be moving forward through time, starting with the earliest and ending with the most recent of video game movies. I will be detailing the histories of the games and how the films came about, and both my and fan reaction to the adaptations. Practically all of my background information is either common knowledge or from Wikipedia. So without further ado, let's move on to the next film on the list.]

THE HISTORY

Last week I talked about Chris Redfield, Las Plagas, and Albert Wesker. In the following movie, one of these things gets a larger role. One of them gets a cameo. And the other is ignored completely. If you guessed Las Plagas (larger), Wesker (cameo), and Chris (ignored), you'd be right! Except, of course, Las Plagas in this film is not what it is in the last film or the games, though what it was in the last film is still in this film, but as something else, which makes no sense. But hey, that's RE!

This week I'd like to talk about a few different characters, in particular Leon S Kennedy, Barry Burton, and Ada Wong. Actually, I won't waste your time with Leon, as I've talked about him in previous articles, at least off hand. He's become the face of the series, basically, and is the fan favorite character. He was also the primary character in the game Resident Evil 4. (I talked about this last time.)

Then there's Ada Wong. Ada wasn't formally introduced until the second game. However, she was mentioned in the first. An infected researcher for Umbrella writes a letter to Ada asking her to expose Umbrella. (Couple that with the fact Ada is known for her signature red dress that shows a wee bit of leg... and it becomes clear where the original incarnation of Alice came from.) In the second game, however, where she teams up with Leon pretending to be somebody she's not, but is really a spy looking to get a sample of the T-virus. Her next appearance is in Resident Evil 4, where she teams up with Leon, but is really a spy looking to get a sample of the Plaga virus (gee... you'd think he'd learn). Though this time she's working for Wesker.

Finally, there's Barry, who is in the first game (with a brief appearance in the third where he helps Jill and Carlos escape Raccoon City). But in the first, he was apparently a very likable character in large part due to poor writing, giving him really bad and cheesy dialogue.

And, as per usual, almost all of this will be ignored.

Note: I just reviewed this theatrically a month ago, so I'm just going to repost that same review below. So let's do it.

THE FILM

I say it with almost every review, so why stop now? I see every one of these in theater, regardless of knowing I'm not going to love it. I've never played any of the games all the way through, but I do know about a handful of the characters and the mythos. Not like it matters, since the movies are hardly anything like the games. Every film has made more money than the last while getting worse than the last (though, and I can't believe I'm saying this, with Paul W.S. Anderson back in the director's chair, Afterlife was kind of a step up from Extinction). Anderson returns again for this one, but will this be yet another step up?

The film picks up exactly where Afterlife left off. Alice (Milla Jovovich) has supposedly killed Wesker (Shawn Roberts) and saved Claire Redfield (Ali Larter), K-Mart (Spencer Locke), and Chris Redfield (Wentworth Miller) from the Arcadia ship. But then a mind-controlled Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory) shows up to attack with Umbrella troops. She's blown into the water and wakes up in a Russian Umbrella facility that tests real-life scenarios in fake re-creations of major cities (and some suburbs) with thousands of clones and some zombies and whatnot. But now Wesker is apparently alive, and he and his right-hand lady Ada Wong (Li Bingbing), who have defected from Umbrella, want to get her out of that facility and to safety so she can help them retake the planet before humans become completely extinct. They send in a retraction team including Leon S. Kennedy (Johann Urb), Barry Burton (Kevin Durand), and Luther West (Boris Kodjoe), whom she met in the previous film. But things get a little more complicated when they run into Becky (Aryana Engineer), a young girl who believes Alice is her mother. And due to the whole clone situation, we also get to see Rain (Michelle Rodriguez), One (Colin Salmon), and Carlos (Oded Fehr) again.

I'll be honest, of all the sequels, this film easily has the coolest concept and story. Granted, it's basically a rehash of the first two films (and there are a lot of connections to both of them). The return of One and Rain hark back to the original film, while Jill takes us back to the second. There's also the return of the Red Queen, which brings us back to the first film, and the idea they need to get out of an underground facility. But they're traveling through "cities" and need to escape before a bomb goes off, much like the second film. Despite rehashing old ideas, it worked, because this is easily the best film since the first one. Though there are still plenty of problems with it that stop it from being as good as the first, and put it closer to the quality of the second.

The story, despite being better and more interesting than others in the series, is very rushed. It felt like the film had just started by the time it was over. I suppose it's a good thing I wanted more, though maybe not so much since I wanted more due to it being lacking. Oh yeah, and Claire, Chris, and K-Mart are nowhere to be found in this movie. I think Claire and Chris are mentioned once (K-Mart never), and it's only when Alice asks where they are, to which I don't believe she gets a response. In essence, this and the last film felt like Anderson is slowly trying to naturally retcon the series... and I would think that's the case... if it weren't for how this movie ends, which seems to retcon a previous retcon. But I won't get into that.

A lot of the issues I had here I also had with Afterlife. For instance, this film has some fantastic action sequences, particularly in the first half of the movie. The entire bike chain/gun fight zombie attack sequence was pretty awesome. But there is just way too much slo-mo in this movie. I think if you cut out half the slow motion in this film, we'd lose 30 minutes of the movie. There were a couple scenes it was used well, but on the whole, it felt like 75% of the movie was in slo-mo. There were also some incredibly ridiculous moments where I felt somebody off to the side needed to press an "Easy" Button, because I kept thinking "Well that was easy." There's one particular moment in the climax where Alice is fighting Jill and she does something you knew was going to happen the whole time... but it's done with such ease that the people sitting next to me actually said "why didn't she do that hours ago?" Just way too many cop-out, easy defeats in this film for my liking for what are essentially "boss battles." There were also a ton of really illogical, almost physics-defying situations in some action sequences. And I don't mean like kung-fu kind of things, but like "cars don't work that way" or "bullets don't work that way" or "bodies don't work that way" kind of situations.

Anyway, as I said earlier, I've never really played through the games, but I know enough to know what fans will be pissed about and what fans will let slide. I think, for instance, they might let Barry's portrayal by Kevin Durand slide. It was average enough. And Li Bingbing was freakin' hot in this movie. Ada Wong doesn't do a whole lot, and she has some nice action scenes, but damn was she nice to watch. The biggest blunder here is Leon. Holy Hell was that a disaster of a character adaptation. They got a guy who looks very little like the character, made his hair look freakin' stupid (because that style doesn't fit that actor's face), and then make him one of the least interesting characters in the movie. Leon has pretty much become the face of the games. He's a badass. And here... he was lame background fodder that couldn't even get the look right, much less the personality. I'm also relatively sure they don't know what Las Plagas are (the whole Moscow/Las Plagas attack sequence is probably the worst scene in the film).

The acting is your typical Resident Evil fare. Shawn Roberts' Wesker is campy as hell, and fun for being so. Sienna Guillory can't act her way out of a paper bag (she is awful). I wish Kevin Durand had been given more, because he had potential to be a fun, snarky character. Milla Jovovich is the same as in every other movie. To be honest? This movie belonged to Michelle Rodriguez. She stole almost every scene she was in. And she was basically playing two roles here--a good guy and a bad guy. And the good guy character was so against her type that it was actually refreshing and really funny (and I'm sure purposefully done as such for that reason). She had some good lines and is really entertaining.  I'm glad they brought her back, because she really was the best thing in this movie. Though the little girl, Aryana Engineer (coolest name ever) was actually a pretty good little child actor, especially for this series.

One more thing I want to mention before wrapping this up. The film starts out really solid. We start with a slow motion sequence being played in reverse of the attack on the Arcadia during the opening credits. It's done very well and looks really cool. But then that ends and we cut to what is apparently a pre-requisite for every movie in this series: the Alice Recap. I wonder if Milla is getting tired of giving the same damn speech in every film, just slightly altered to include new events from the previous film? And it goes on for about 5 minutes this time before cutting back to the opening sequence, but playing it forward this time (and shortened, thankfully) before opening up in the suburbia sequence shown in the trailers. So yeah, the first five minutes are really cool. The five or so that follow are very been-there-done-that (literally). And then it goes back to being decent again, at least for a little while.

This is a very, very flawed movie... but I still actually liked it. There is a lot about this movie that doesn't make sense. Plot and logic holes galore. And there's too much slo-mo. But I still really liked the idea behind the story, and some of the action was pretty dang cool. And Michelle Rodriguez was great. If you're a fan of the series, I don't think this one will disappoint too much (unless you're a major Leon S. Kennedy fan). But if you're not a fan of the series, this one won't convert you. Would have liked more, but still pleasantly surprised.


I Am McLovin!

(P.S. The 3D actually wasn't that bad. There were some sequences when it was actually used well. Not the greatest 3D film ever, but better than most these days.)