Movies Based on Video Games

Bob Hoskins as Mario in one of the worst video game to movie adaptations ever made.

I was recently part of a conversation where someone asked if anyone had seen the movie Silent Hill. I responded that I had and that I did not care for it. Two people groaned and said that they thought the movie was great. I went into film critic mode and pointed out the nonsensical plot. Both people dismissed my critique and said that it was just like the video game, it was based on, and that they both loved it whenever the siren went off because you just knew something was going to happen, as in the game.

I have never played Silent Hill and in fact, have actually played very few video games. So what? The quality and enjoyment of a movie should not be based on whether or not I am familiar with the source material. Did I have to read Gone With the Wind to have enjoyed the movie? Did I have to have seen the Broadway production of Chicago before I saw the movie? Did I have to watch the television show The Fugitive for the movie to make sense? Of course not! A good movie stands alone. I once received a correspondence from someone who objected to my review for 2004's Flight of the Phoenix. They wrote that I could not judge it properly because I had never seen the original Jimmy Stewart version. Again, a good movie stands alone. To enjoy a movie one should not have to do any homework first.

Hollywood has long sought different sources for movies. Video games are one of the most recent. I have sons who play video games and therefore I have some experience with them. Most of the games that they play, other than sports ones, have similar plots. Usually they involve a character or characters going through a city, or landscape or some such containable area, killing monsters or aliens or whatever else roams that world. They collect items, rescue people and as soon as they finish their goal they move onto another harder level or assignment. Most of their games are free roaming and have quite a bit of detail, but all of the games, that I have seen, follow that plot pretty closely.

Making games into movies is probably easy and hard at the same time. Easy, because the basic plots and settings are already created. The difficult part would be trying to expand the plot and make the characters more real. If you change the plot or characters too much the fans of the game will object. If you do not add dimension to the characters and intrigue to the plot, you end up with critics writing such comments as,“Surely, no one could have produced a movie this ridiculous, this boring, this convoluted, this tensionless, with such cardboard characters, clichéd plot devices, and confusing camera angles without actively trying to.” Scott wrote of the movie Alone in the Dark, which is based on a video game. I wrote about Silent Hill, "Even when the characters try to explain something, it just makes it all the more convoluted."

Those kinds of comments are hardly unique to a film based on a video game. On this website, we have reviewed several movies based on video games. Not all have been completely negative, or as Patrick wrote, “If you create a hybrid of Wonder Woman and Xena: Warrior Princess, then place her in a world that is part James Bond and part Indiana Jones - although extreme versions of both - you get Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.” Video games are all about action and player interaction. Scott wrote about Resident Evil: Apocalypse, "it wisely focuses primarily on the action, and keeps the story moving along at a quick pace."

Angelina Jolie played Lara Croft in a couple of successful movies.

The question then remains, what is so hard about making a great movie out of a video game, according to Scott, it is, “Something about the episodic level structure of a game refuses to lend itself well to a traditional three-act movie. While it's enjoyable in a game to battle hordes of undead monsters in unrealistic proportions, in a movie you need character development and motivations.”

While my sons continue to buy and play video games, some based on movies, (My youngest son can’t wait to get the video game based on Superman Returns.) they also, sometimes, ask me to sit and watch them play. As I wrote in one of my reviews, "Watching Doom is about as fun as sitting in your living room watching someone else play the video game." Hollywood has yet to make a movie based on a video game, that is any more fun than watching someone else play a video game.