How long before the good one rises?
Although the video game based films have yet to produce a
rallying champion of true quality and artistic worth, there’s been an
unfortunate evolution in the quality of these movies in question.
Although they still have yet to produce a good feature, the
best and worst thing about video game movies of the last 7 or 8 years is that
they have managed to be generally more faithful to their source materials than
those preceding it. Under any other circumstance, that would be a good thing,
if these “faithful representations” were decent.
As bad as the works of Uwe Boll were, they always had the
excuse of a man that clearly paid no attention to the material he was working
with. As awful as the works of Andrzej Bartkowiak were, they were half-assed
efforts based on concepts that weren’t particularly demanding of adaptation to
begin with.
When a “Street Fighter” film interpreted as a cop drama goes
south, little of value was lost. However, when something like “Ratchet and
Clank” and “Warcraft” flop after resources and exhausting levels of oversight dedicated
to it to making the productions source accurate, it doesn’t make the medium
look good to the outsiders that clearly comprise of the Hollywood executive
pool that’s willing to green light these projects, nor is it endearing to the
audiences that create demand for these products that said executives choose to
commission.
The result is the medium’s presentation to cinema being
represented by products that may potentially appease undiscerning fans of the source
material without reaching a new audience, while outsiders look at the films
praised as “more faithful” with displeasure or distaste, turning them off of
not only the movie in question but the property that they may have potentially
been otherwise turned on to.
It is not my goal to invalidate what
game play offers as a unique and enhancing experience but the great ideas and
narrative potential of numerous properties transcend the medium that they were
created for and it’s a shame to see efforts to outreach those properties to new
fans while offering unique new entries for existing ones undermined by the
factors that have not only perpetuated this new problem but have prevented the
very existence of a good video game movie since the very idea of doing so was
ever conceived.
Those two factors in question that have withheld video game
properties from producing a quality film are simple components to every worthwhile
movie; talent and care.
Perhaps it may seem to be an oversimplification but the
reality is that little of both seem to have gone into any currently existing
video game film on every step of the movie making process. Getting writers and
directors with experience, passion and understanding of the material has only
barely begun to become the norm but even then, the vision of a quality artist
is still at risk when studio politics come into play.
You may recall that in my review of “Warcraft” a few months
ago, that Duncan Jones’ approach to the material along with several awkward
editing tactics to enforce time constraints suggested that the movie would have
needed a substantially lengthier cut to do its ambitions justice. This observation
is revealed to have been surprisingly accurate, as Jones has admitted to
cutting well over 40 minutes of fully produced footage from the theatrical cut
of the film at the insistence of Universal executives.
While I can’t render judgment on whether that cut of the
film would have been truly superior or justifiable for its daunting runtime of
nearly 3 hours, it would have been nice if the company that made 3 films that
crossed the billion dollar mark last year showed a little solidarity to the company that
had a hand in making the 2 higher grossing of those said films with a marketing
campaign that didn’t scream “Let’s bury this one in favor of movies with pop-culture
references and explosions.”
For god’s sake, you had David Bowie’s kid directing
a big budget special effect feature based on a franchise that produced the most
popular MMO of all time that he has dedicated to his recently passed away
legendary father and you couldn’t sell this beyond soda can labels?
This may be one of the few times that all of the artistic
resources were in alignment for a decent film that people actually could have
liked and at the slightest sign of effort and ambition, the distributors turned
tail and ran, relying on the properties’ international appeal to break even on
a production that was already underway before their acquisition of Legendary,
and blow off what they had little interest in that could have made a bigger
splash with a mere iota of applied creativity.
These studio politics are the ultimate sabotage of video game
movies and have been since day one.
“Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” might have actually
worked if it weren’t a Disney commissioned feature paid for and produced by the
same people chasing the swashbuckling white rabbit of the critically flailing “Pirates
of the Caribbean” franchise. Perhaps, “Hitman” could be something truly
creative if put in the hands of somebody with an actual vision. Instead, they
gave it to Skip Woods, the same guy that thinks Wolverine can be killed by bullets
made from an unmalleable metal when cooled like a goddamn werewolf. Twice.
With the rise of the medium’s popularity within the
mainstream and more up and coming filmmakers and writers not only having
experience with video games but even outright writing for them, their success
in the land of film is definitely nearing.
The sensible artists of the industry are finally beginning
to take notice and treat them with the respect that they’re due and the with rise of
industry models like Marvel Studios, commissioning consultants and talent from
both industries to work towards a best of both worlds final product, the
possibilities for the future have become brighter than ever before.
I think of the future of video game films, with a smile on
my face for the first time in my life. I only wish that I could say that the `rise
of the great video game movie was due this year as it seemed so likely to be.
Unfortunately, with a track record consisting of a cartoon
based on a physics puzzle app nobody asked for, a string of cutscenes watered
down from a remake with a watered down narrative, an ambitious but muddled
blockbuster hacked to the bone on the order of studio executives, and a generic
dumping ground trailer that makes me realize just how stupid the concept of “Assassin’s
Creed” is once it’s said out loud, it seems I’ll be waiting at least a tad bit
longer.
No comments:
Post a Comment