So the Max Payne movie is out now, and it sucks. Hard. I don’t think I’ve actually paid money to see such a bad film at the cinema before. While it seemed like the style of the game would lend itself well to the medium of film, one doesn’t have to look too hard to find the elements which made the project go off course. So this week, The Warp Pipe is going to break down the elements which make these movies crap, and pinpoint why these projects almost always go wrong.

The Game/Movie Problem

This week’s column contains spoilers for recently released films and games.

Some games just don’t suit movies

The fact that almost every movie released that is based on a video game will suck is gospel to most gamers. Not only are the movies bad, but they are also notoriously poor earners – only Lara Croft: Tomb Raider has broken the $US100 million blockbuster mark (the first Pokemon movie did too, but that had a popular cartoon series attached). Not a single video game based movie has broken 50% freshness on movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes; they range from 44% for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within to a princely 0% for Double Dragon. Now that we’ve established that the movies are critical and box office poison, let’s look at a few factors that make video game movies crap.

John Carmack once said that "Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important." Now the quote doesn’t exactly ring true in the modern day – there are some games out there with fantastic stories. Yet out of the games that have made the trip over onto celluloid, only Silent Hill and Max Payne could be considered to have good stories. Does anyone know what the hell is going on in the Dead or Alive series? Did anyone play Tomb Raider for the story? Can anyone even remember what happened in Dungeon Siege? That doesn’t necessarily mean that a good video game story will translate into a good two hour movie, so naturally, a couple of things will change to make it fit, or in some cases, they’ll just make a bunch of stuff up. How are you meant to translate Super Mario Bros., a game with a plot that can be explained in three words, into a full length feature?

Avoid the Max Payne film at all costs

Hollywood can go a little too far with the changes, and pretty much destroy any credibility the adaptation would have. Let’s take Max Payne for example; Max resigned into working on cold cases after the death of his wife and kid, rather than working undercover for the DEA in the game. His wife worked for the Aesir Corporation, rather than as a DA investigating them. BB has the same role in the events in the movie, but works for Aesir, rather than the DEA. These are changes you can live with. However, there are major changes and omissions that completely change the tone of the film. The Mafia, Russian Mafia, Alfred Woden and Don Punchinello have all been completely omitted. Many of Nicole Horne’s actions are instead performed by BB. Jack Lupino is an ex-military test subject for Valkyr, rather than the mob’s main distributor. The most annoying change of all is the distinct lack of action. You can forgive them for not using bullet time much – it’s been done to death, but there are maybe three scenes in the film where Max shoots a gun, and he’s high on Valkyr when he does it. My memory is a little foggy, but I seem to recall Max being acquitted of a couple hundred counts of murder at the start of the second game. Shoot ‘em Up is a better Max Payne film than Max Payne. Sometimes they add elements that just don’t belong; Pyramid Head appears in Silent Hill, which is based on the story of the first game, yet he is a character from the second game, a representative of James Sunderland’s role as “the executioner”.

Then, other times, Hollywood completely loses the plot and produces something almost completely unrelated to the source material, like Resident Evil. The only thing Resident Evil had in common with the game was the name of the Umbrella Corporation and zombies. At least it had the laser scene. Double Dragon couldn’t have any less to do with the game – a simple rescue plot somehow transformed into a quest to protect a dragon amulet in a post apocalyptic future. Damsel in distress Marion somehow transformed into a leader of a gang, assisted by game boss Abobo, who looks like a monster constructed entirely of fecal matter.

There always seems to be some tonal shift in these films, to appease the alleged needs of the wider audience. Doom keeps the Mars setting, and even has a fantastic set design which very accurately captures the look of Doom 3, but the monsters are the result of genetic experimentation, rather than demons from hell and zombified soldiers. Hell is central to the whole point of Doom. Final Fantasy departed from its steampunky sci-fi roots into ultra futuristic nonsense.

Dr. Boll is a champ

Producers will often tone down the content of their video game adaptations in order to receive a PG-13 rating, in the belief that the R rating will lock out most of the movie’s potential audience. There are a few R rated films (Resident Evil, Doom and Hitman), most of the films are neutered in the name of accessibility. Mortal Kombat, a game which garnered its popularity from its fatality moves, has almost no blood and only one notable on-screen death. Max Payne was non-stop gun toting action – Max wouldn’t even take out twenty guys in the film. These films are all targeted at the 18-34 demographic – the ones with the disposable income who bought and played these games, but they’re cut down for the teenage audience, most of who have no money, and wouldn’t be old enough to have played Max Payne when it was originally released.

The crews working on these films aren’t exactly brilliant directors and writers. Paul W.S. Anderson is one of the worst offenders, with the quality of his movies sinking with each passing release. I don’t think I can say anything about Uwe Boll’s films that hasn’t been said, but I do find the man genuinely interesting. John Moore, the director of Max Payne, previously worked on the awful remake of The Omen and Behind Enemy Lines, one of the worst military action films I’ve seen. One could even say that video game movies are cursed; directors and writers with some semblance of talent, like Steven De Souza, Christophe Gans and Roger Avary have all been guilty of producing crap movies. Low budgets could be a factor – the average Hollywood budget is about $50-60 million, but most game movies are done for half that. It’s not like these films don’t have a bit of star power to drive them. Mark Wahlberg’s performance in The Departed made him seem perfect for the role of Max Payne. Dungeon Siege had an all star cast – one has to wonder why they’d sign on to do a Uwe Boll flick after the response to his previous movies.

The situation doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better – the Justin Marks (aka 80s nostalgia guy) written Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is up next, and let’s not forget the number of properties Uwe Boll has the rights to (Far Cry was just released in Germany). There’s a hope for Disney’s adaptation of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time – it’s been in development for years, has a decent cast, it’s written by the original creator Jordan Mechner, Mike Newell is a decent director, and Jerry Bruckheimer is producing, so it should at least be a half decent popcorn flick.


The future is grim

Video game movies are going to continue to be made until they no longer prove to be lucrative to the studios. So long as we all stop watching them, they’ll stop making them.