The Hollywood/Video Game conundrum.

Get ready for a rant.

Video games are popular. Movies are popular. Match made in heaven right? Only no. Time and time again we see the cinematic pursuits of video game properties crash and burn whilst we can but  just watch shake our heads like disappointed Daedalus'. What is it that makes Video Game movies so universally awful? Is it some inherent incompatibility of the mediums? Poor choice of source material? Lack of understanding of the source material? How about just a blatant disregard to the basic tenants of movie making? All of the above and more I'm afraid.

As a self-proclaimed video game aficionado I've taken it upon myself to watch these blunders whenever they pop up and am always surprised by a complete breakdown of coherence that these projects always display. Either the story stops making sense, or the direction, or the dialogue and so on and so forth. Every time we are forced to endure these blunders, us gamers are left wondering "what went wrong", and "why didn't you just...". Of course making movies is never that simple. Many factors go in to making a movie that the average Movie goer will never see or even think about. Factors that get in the way and complicate and obfuscate. So many factors, in fact, that I'll fairly sure that Video game movies will never capture the heart of their material, never be as faithful as we want them to be. But then the question needs to be asked, why does Hollywood insist on making them?

$116 Billion is your answer. In 2018, Reuters published a revenue report which means that now we can officially call Video games the most profitable form of entertainment in the world. Hollywood doesn't just want that money, it needs that money. Oftentimes, big video game companies will justify their more insidious and money grubbing antics by claiming that the rising cost of video games would outpace their revenue if they didn't. This is obviously a very weak lie. In terms of Hollywood, however, this is more accurate. Hollywood has reached the point where it has more money than sense in it's noggin. They are spending hundreds of millions on too many big budget movies for them all to make their money back and so the industry is hemorrhaging money when it doesn't need to. In May of this year the movies: Aladdin, Rocketman, John Wick 3, 'Godzilla: King of Monsters' and Detective Pikachu all came out in the same 4 week stretch. The biggest loser of that high budget showdown was Godzilla with a domestic take home of $100 million. And May was one of the better months for this kind of box office slaughter. Just look at April when Endgame came out. I don't even need to list any other movies because you already know they all failed in the wake of that juggernaut.

So Hollywood had the idea of bringing gamers into theaters. Afterall, they're used to spending so much more on maintaining their own hobby, so why can't Hollywood get a little bit of that pie? Sound logic on paper, but sorely lacking in execution. Out of all the Video Game movies that we have to look forward to in the coming years, the most promising ones are the movies we have seen nothing of yet, because we know that once we do we'll realise just how bad it'll actually be. The Uncharted movie is rumored to have Tom Holland on board. That's an alright choice, I guess. The upcoming Mortal Kombat movie has just confirmed that it'll be R-rated and feature fatalities. What? Am I supposed to applaud you for doing the bare minimum for getting the source material right? Okay, I'm sounding a little jaded but I have cause. Hitman, Tomb Raider, Street fighter, Super Mario Bros, DOOM, Rampage and Prince of Persia have all been gutted when given the 'silver screen treatment', why should I expect any less from these movies. Also, I've seen the Sonic the Hedgehog trailer so I know better than to expect anything watchable from Hollywood.

Things have gotten so bad that many fans are scared to see what becomes of their favourite franchises when the hit the big screen. the Monster Hunter movie has been smart enough to show us mostly nothing but you just have to read the synopsis to get those alarm bells a-ringing. Sure, they managed to faithfully render at least one Monster. Good job, Capcom have been pulling that off for years now. Then there's Sonic. Oh, Sonic. Look how they've butchered my boy! Nothing about that trailer was right. That design. Enough said. That script. Laughable, and not in the good way. The music. I'm not sure whether to blame Jeff Fowler for putting 'Gansta's Paradise' in or Coolio for allowing it.

Seriously, how did things get this bad. How have we reached the point where Video Game movies are consistently the worst possible representation of their respective franchises. Has it always been this way? Well, yes actually. Who remembers 1993's Super Mario Bros? Follow up question: Who wishes that they didn't? I'd imagine that with the games of the early 90's being as rudimentary as they were, material for a Video Game movie must have seemed fairly sparse. Most games were simple in story and execution, not cluttered with characters, plots and overarching themes. So here's an idea, just don't make a movie of it. But that wasn't good enough for 90's Nintendo when they decided that their plumber needed his silver screen debut. What resulted has gone done as a cinematic war crime and for good reason. In fact, you could say Video Games movies have gotten better since Mario, it was that bad.

I'll go on record to say that, despite their general awfulness, I do harbor something of a soft spot for 1994's Streetfighter and 1995's Mortal Kombat. Yes, they were both comprised of equal parts cheese and ham, but they are at least enjoyable to watch at least once in your life. Streetfighter bought us Jean-Claude Van Damme playing an American marine with a strong Belgium accent; and Raul Julia bringing gravitas and class to some truly crappy lines. Mortal Kombat, on the other hand, boasted a cast of hammy actors coupled with martial arts and a fundamental misunderstanding of the phrase 'Flawless victory'. Out of every video game movie that has released, I think these two had perhaps the most solid premise to build from. Not that they did much with that opportunity, but the final product at least had a right to exist.

Now lets move on to something that has no right to exist. A real pet-peeve of mine. The two Hitman movies. Two! Twice some idiot in a board room was presented with a game fundamentally ill suited to be a movie and went "Why not?". I'll tell you why not: Hitman and Hitman: Agent 47, is why not. Hitman is a game where you play a genetically engineered clone lacking in remorse who specialises in 'causing accidents' to kill his targets. It's not an action game. It's not a spy game. It's essentially a next-level puzzle solver with dozens of variables for the player to consider. The allure of Hitman comes from the freedom of approach, or rather, the illusion of freedom of approach. The player is still given the confines of the area and situation that they have to operate within, but they are made to feel as though all the world is their weapon to work with. The Hitman movies are action movie trash. They have none of the charm, unique game play, or spectacular design of the games they claim to be based on. They are an embarrassment to the Hitman name.

Hitman wasn't the only Eidos game to get a movie on based on it. Square Enix must have been really hard up in the 2000's because we've got 3 Tomb Raider films now. And none of them are good. I know that the Angelina Jolie movies garnered some praise (Or at least the first one did) upon first release. But this was the 2000's. Everyone's taste was wacky in the 2000's. We allowed 'Catwoman' to happen in the 2000's. Nothing anyone from the 2000's has ever said can be trusted. Alicia Vikander's Tomb Raider isn't the worst thing in the world, either, but it just isn't good. I watched it last year and I still can't remember what magical MacGuffin Lara was meant to be after. All I remember is thinking "Well that was a waste of time" once the credits rolled up.

That is the prevailing takeaway from all of these films. They are all just a huge wastes of time and money, and why wouldn't they be? Video Games are designed for the purpose of being entertaining. Yes, occasionally they can challenge you intellectually, but at the end of the day they have to be fun enough to keep you on that controller or behind that keyboard. Films, on the other hand, need something more than base entertainment. They need to have a purpose or a function, else they risk feeling meandering and pointless. I'm not saying that there is no space for a cross over somewhere in that venn diagram but no one has managed to pull it off yet.

Will the upcoming Metal Gear Solid movie be any good? It should be, given that the game was built around feeling like a movie. But then, why even make a movie? If the game already feels cinematic, what is there left to adapt? I suppose they can cut it down to fit theatre length, rip out some of the fourth wall jokes, and steamroll over the hours of lore that helped establish the Metal Gear world. There's your movie. Soulless and decrepit. Slap that in the cinema than act surprised when the audience rejects it and go back to the games. Now, I'm no Soothsayer, but in 5 years or so we'll see just how spot on I am.

Whenever I go off on one like this I feel obliged to remind everyone that I'm not doing it out of hate. I'm doing it out of passion. I don't hate movies. I don't love movies, either. But I do love games. And I hate it when games are made into a laughing stock by movie makers who find themselves heading projects that they don't understand and therefore cannot translate for a wider audience. Everyone suffers as a result. The studio suffers, the fans suffer, the franchise suffers and the reputation of Video games as a whole suffer. It all just seems so much headache for terrible returns. Hollywood is already doing a fine job of shooting itself in the foot in recent years, why does the gaming industry have to put it's neck on the line too? Let's just leave the demon to it's demons; and keep video games as video games.