Why Hollywood Fails - A Rant

With the release of a new Street Fighter movie in theaters, I’ve been brought out of a really regretable period of silence to comment on game movies. The last time Hollywood saw fit to bring Street Fighter to the screen was back in 1994. I remember seeing that movie as a kid and thinking it was awesome if only because all of the brightly colored characters from the game were recreated. Sure, Van Damme as the all-American soldier Guile was laughable, and frail Raul Julia as Bison was a little sad in the “fat girl trying to get laid” kind of way, but in hindsight, that movie has a campy charm that only comes with time. It bombed at the box office, and for good reason. Where were the flashy moves? Where were the fireballs, the sonic booms, the lightning kicks, Chun-Li’s massive thighs? All gone. Instead, we were given a corny action movie filled to the brim with camp.

Fifteen years later, Hollywood has seen fit to give us another Street Fighter, for no apparent reason other than a new game is being released. This movie has fewer characters, and those few characters are barely recognizable as the characters they’re supposed to be. So why make it? What compels movie studios to make video game-based movies if they’re not even going to try to stick to the source material.

I guess to really talk about this, we need to take a quick trip through history and examine the legacy of these movies. Arguably, the granddaddy of this genre of films is Super Mario Bros., starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo, a Brit and a Latin guy, playing two Italian Brooklyn plumbers saving a lizard girl from Dennis Hopper’s hair. In terms of adapting the source, this first game-movie failed horribly. Gone were the recognizable tropes of the Mario series, such as the bright colors, the kingdom, turtles, goombas, and Bowser. Instead, they made Blade Runner with overalls. This thing was seriously so far from the source that it may as well have been another movie. Sure, there was a guy with a mustache named Mario who wore red clothes and he was enemies with a guy named Koopa, but that’s pretty much where the connection ends. I don’t know about you, but the fact that it looked like Hoskins would’ve killed Yoshi by sitting on him crushed the heart of the childhood version of myself.

The following year saw the release of two more video game movies - the aforementioned Street Fighter, and Double Dragon. What I never understood about that movie is that if Billy and Jimmy Lee were supposed to be twins, why get an Asian guy and the guy from Party of Five? Twins? You can’t even claim fraternal at that point. The movie was trying way too hard to be “bad ass,” which as I mentioned in my review of Comix Zone, is almost expected. Tough kids fighting “the man” while taking crap from no one. Didn’t Double Dragon start with a chick getting punched in the stomach and dragged off? I’m not even sure I remember what the game was about. I just know you and a friend beat the hell out of people. Someone saw that and said “That should be a movie.” And then they made it. And then it sucked.

Mortal Kombat followed and, while it should’ve been a total turd, given the fact that it wasn’t nearly as violent as the game it was based on, it was entertaining. It was basically a ripoff of Enter the Dragon, and while there were some cheesy bits (read: anything where Johnny Cage speaks), there were some fun fight scenes. Not the highlight of cinema, but a decent martial arts movie in its own right. Hollywood, not content with leaving their own pool unpissed in, went ahead and made a sequel. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation took everything the first one did right, which was minimal at best, and camped it up. Every single character from the games made an appearance, just to pad out the movie. Sub-Zero made a return, after having died in the previous movie, looking like David Schwimmer. His purpose? Build an ice bridge, fight Scorpion for a few seconds, and then leave. They even tried to work in the whole Animality crap that was kinda stupid in the games. They went all out, but without love for the source material, just to rake in more money from the franchise. Hollywood? Money grubbing? Say it ain’t so.

Now that the blood was in the water, Hollywood had to put their golden boy in the game, so to speak. Enter Freddie Prinze Jr and Wing Commander, the movie which made me yell in the middle of the theater. I’ll give you context for that. First of all, Wing Commander is boring and the Kilrathi, the alien race that’s supposed to be the villain, are hardly ever revealed, so bored and disappointed at this point. Then you’ve got Freddie “She’s All That” Prinze and Matthew “Scooby Snacks” Lillard trading quips. At one point, Lillard saves Prinze from an airlock that was opened, mugs for the camera and says “What would you do without me?” “HE’D FUCKING DIE! THANKS!” This was the moment I realized bad movies need to be ridiculed to be enjoyed because the people involved in making them clearly don’t care what I think anyway.

I never bothered to watch Tomb Raider because I knew it would be nothing like the game, because if it was, the camera would never be where it would be helpful and Lara Croft would’ve fallen into every pit around because of shoddy controls.

Then Doom….sigh…I just want to point out that one of the key plot points of the movie is that having an extra chromosome makes you superhuman if you’re good and a monster if you’re evil, giving the lead character first person vision (which is fucking stupid because he should already have first person vision, being, you know, alive). I also want to point out that, in real life, having an extra chromosome makes you retarded. Perhaps that explains this movie. For anyone who has an extra chromosome, I apologize for comparing you to Doom. Sincerely.

Then there’s the Uwe Boll saga of crap. I’m not even going to go into it, but for the record, I’ll list them off - House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, Bloodrayne, In the Name of the King, and Postal. They don’t deserve to be talked about more than that because they’re terrible.

Why do these movies fail? Well, let’s start by looking at the genres they represent:
Action/Adventure: Mario, Tomb Raider, Bloodrayne (kinda)
Shooter: Wing Commander, House of the Dead, Postal, Doom, Hitman (not mentioned)
Fighter: Double Dragon, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Dead or Alive (not mentioned)

These genres are not conducive to movies. Know why? Because they require that someone PLAY THEM! Does anyone think it’s fun seeing someone climb a mountain? No? How about climbing one yourself? Even if you don’t think it’s terribly fun, it’s more entertaining to do something than to watch something. Putting Doom in first person (ugh) doesn’t engage the audience anymore, it just stresses to them that they’re not playing the game, the game which is more fun. It’s much less fun watching a bald man sneak by security than it is to figure out how to do it yourself. Games are an interactive medium and are engrossing because of that. Eliminate the interaction and you show how bare bones your property really is.

That’s another reason why game movies fail. If the gameplay is better than the story, the movie will fail. Mario is a game where it doesn’t really matter why you’re making it to the end - you just do. The plot is inconsequential, but the jumping and platforming is fun. The same goes for Hitman - the fun is in the sneaking. The same goes for Street Fighter - the fun is in whopping your friend’s ass with Dan. If the reason a property is hot is less because of the story and more because of the gameplay, the movie is doomed to bomb. A God of War movie could work because the story was awesome. Tetris, on the other hand, would not work. Ever.

I understand why Hollywood makes game movies - hot property with built in audience. It’s about the almighty dollar, but as long as we keep paying to go see garbage, they’re just going to keep rolling it out.

Just saying….

Technorati Tags: Hitman, Mario, mortal kombat, Movies, street fighter, Video games

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