Movies Inspired by the Gaming World (Pt.4)

Welcome back to Kupo!1UP guys. This is the forth part of the article so ur going to experience once more my justifiable nastiness  crashing down the moral of all those ambitious directors messing with games!

ATTENTION: IT MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!!

Silent Hill Revelations 3D

Hmmm... This movie is a bit controversial for me.. Lets see, SHR3D is about Heather Mason (Adelaide Clemens) and her father Harry Mason (Sean Bean). Heather is having nightmares calling her to Silent Hill but her father doenst want her to go there at any case. After Harry dissappears, Heather initiates an investigation in Silent Hill, having the help of her mysterious classmate Vincent (Kit Harington). This is in a few words what this sequel is about. I said earlier that this movie is somewhat controversial and this is happening for the reason that it has many pros but many cons as well. The script writer tried to relate the first movie with this one making it a sequel. The most actors are the same as in the first film. And the story has many plot similarities with the game (Silent Hill 3) as well. All those add to the pros of the movie but someone that has seen the previous one can tell that Silent Hill Revelations 3D is a bit poorly directed. Well it has some really cheesy dialogues between Vincent and Heather like the ones u only find in cheap daily TV series. It also has way too many people here and there like in the school, or in the mall and the events take place mostly in the real world something thats not "Silent Hill-ish" at all! Silent Hill is about a disturbed distorted sick fucked up other dimension haunted town and if u ask me the director should focus on that. One more thing that kept me thinking is the visual effect. For some reason the "manequine-spider" monster for example didnt convince me at all. And i think i dont have to mention the plot holes. It gave me the impression that it just kept on jumping from scene to scene like there was no connection between them. I dont know, the only thing i can tell with certainty is that it could be a loooooot better.

Max Payne

In 2001 we all got acquainted with the name Max Payne. Catchy and simple (as a name) yet dramatic and twisted (as a plot), Max Payne kept us in front of our consoles literaly for hours. It had that successful recipe. It was a fast-paced action game with a dark, "noir" if u like plot, and a comic driven narration. Several years later in 2008 it got adapted in the big screen with Mark Wahlberg as Max Payne, Mila Kunis as Mona Sax, Ludacris as Jim Bravura and Beau Bridges as BB Hensley the security chied at the pharmaceutical company where Max Payne's wife worked. The movie wants Max Payne's wife and child murdered and Max Payne in the search of the killer that got away. He finds out the Aesir (the pharmaceutical company) is involved and Max Payne wants, what else?! Revenge. Well, this is another movie adaptation attempt with a well-known cast (not all of them are decent actors though) but that's all! An attempt. While I was watching it I was so anticipating to get those feelings that the game had given me, that pain and frustration in Payne's voice, that surreal narration between the scenes and also some mad driven shooting scenes in Max Payne's slow motion style. But there were none of all these things. It was just a shallow modern detective film that managed to drown even the Wahlberg's acting (in my opinion Bruce Willys would be more suitable to the role). As a result Mark Wahlberg got himself nominated for a razzie award (also for  his role in "The Happening") (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0467197/awards?ref_=tt_awd) and i think i don't even have to say anything about Ludachris and Kunis right?! FOR GOD'S SHAKE!! The direction was decent though, not the massacre we experience watching Uwe Boll's crap, but still that thing alone can't save the film from a certain disaster. In the end I get that shitty feeling that every "game-to-movie" attempt gives me that I wasted one and a half hours of my life watching some shallow nonsense.

Movies Inspired by the Gaming World (Pt.3)

Hello my friends and welcome back for the 3rd part of the "Movies Inspired by the Gaming World" article. If u thought thats i was pretty strict or mean judging the movies in the parts that preceded, u are totally right and im gonna be even meaner in those parts that are about to follow. So pay attention while i rub my hands laughing malevolently!

BloodRayne

There are only a few adaptation attempts worth watching and unfortunately Bloodrayne isnt one of them! Actually is quite a laughable one! Kristanna Loken as the Dhampyr BloodRayne (half-human, half vampire) sets out to find her father Kagan (Ben Kingsley) to get revenge for raping her mother. Along the way she meets and joins with the leaders of the fortress of the vampire hunters, Vladimir (Michael Madsen) and Sebastian (Matthew Davis), who train her to fight Kagan. Meanwhile her human side falls in love with Sebastian etc. Well i remember that the first time i laid my eyes on the Bloodrayne game cover i was convinced that it was a killing combo. a fast tempo arcade action gameplay with a gothic leather dressed hot chick. Such a combo hardly fails especially if its nicely represented. I wish i could say the same about the movie. Uwe Boll once more proves how good he is in taking gems and turning them into stinky shit! Kristanna Loken's costumes were poorly made and they look quite fake and the same goes for almost everyone's clothes. The film set was so lame that only in low budget movies u can find. A weak twisted scenario, lame acting, low budget and Uwe Boll is th secret recipe for an awful movie and this one had all the ingredients.

Doom

Well, now about Doom. Something is wrong at the space research facility on Mars. Researching was ceased communication is failed and the few messages that manage to get through are quite disturbing. Space marines are sent to investigate the incident and they just cant imagine the horrific terror they are to face! With Karl Urban as John Grimm and Dwayne Johnson as Sarge and a bunch of interesting casting as well, Doom succeeds where other game-movies have failed! To be honest when i first rented the movie i wasnt sure about what i was gonna watch. U see there are not many good examples of games that became movies so i was a bit reluctant. But in the end Doom movie surpassed my expectations. And the reason is quite simple! It had all those features that a good game-movie have: 1) loyalty to the prototype source 2) a decent direction 3) very good action and even horror scenes 4) and FPS directed scenes!!! What else is there to ask?! Even though  Dwayne Johnson  was awarded as the worst actor nevertheless in general u wouldnt even notice his acting sipmly because that was not the point of the movie!

Silent Hill

Movie success. Or else Silent Hill!! Yes Silent Hill is one of the few attempts that managed to be one of the scariest movies ever staying true to the game that's based on, having an amazing direction and scenario and a very promising cast! Silent Hill is about a couple whose daughter suffers from sleepwalking. Her mother, Radha Mitchell, takes the decision to visit the town that her daughter dreams about (without telling her husband, Sean Bean). But there they find out that that town, SIlent Hill, is nothing but an ordinary welcoming place. An accident that happened in the netrance of town causes her daughter to dissappear. So Rose, her mother, begins desperately searching for her only to discover the cruelites that once took place there involving in a repulsive manner her daughter! Silent Hill's director did a terrifc job won 8 nomination awards! So, any wannabes directors out there u should take some really serious lessons from masters like Christophe Gans .

Movies Inspired by the Gaming World (Pt.2)

Due to the lack of time last week i didnt add anything new to the blog, but here it comes now the 2nd part of the "Movies Inspired by the Gaming World" article! Im sure that whoever read the 1st one wonders if im gonna refer to some "classic" movies of that "genre" such as Street Fighter or Tomb Raider! Well ur gonna find out just by scrolling down!

Street Fighter

When u hear about Street Fighter several very specific things come to mind! Ryu, Chun-Li, buttons getting smashed to perform combos, spinning kicks and of courses hadukens!!! Those things are so classic as Super Mario himself!

But lets see if the movie was a worthy adaptation. Street Fighter was directed back in 1994 by Steven E. de Souza and in general terms is about Colonel Guile (Jean-Claude Van Damme) fighting against the tyranny of M. Bison (Raul Julia) with a team of martial artists by his side. When it was first released i was so excited about watching it and so young, that i couldnt relate it with the game or realise how badly it was made! Oh, and just for the record .. U DONT PUT KYLIE MINOGUE IN AN ACTION FIGHTING MOVIE unless u have mazochistic tendencies! Every single fan of the game wants to see a Street Fighter movie with Ryu as the main character, Blanca as a green, orange-haired, electrifying beast, or M. Bison as a ripped, huge, badass, mothafocka!!!. But instead of those things we got such a laughable ,almost b-movie, attempt (with terrible cast) distorted in so many ways that when u actually watch it u forget that its a Street Fighter movie. The very things that distinguish a game title among the years and make it a "must" and a classic, have to exist in the movie version as well, if its desired to have the same impact on the audience. So  in other words the movie kinda sucked and i could watch it only as a b-movie or a cult one!

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

Although i personally never liked Lara Croft as a video game heroine ( just a bunch of enormous, pixelated, out of proportion, badly made boobs n lips for me) i will admit that Tomb Raider game series was and still is one of the most well known, ever. And all that thnx to the sexy Lara Croft of course. The lightly dressed Lara came to a gaming world, exclusively ruled by male examples as main characters, and yet managed to change the facts. In a men's gaming world, Ms. Croft's simple n sexy innovations set new standards in how a game's got to be. After Tomb Raider, many games appear having women as main characters such as BloodRayne, Lula, Syberia, Resident Evil (some of them) etc... That trend still exists till nowadays and its going really good (Bayonetta, Grey Matter etc.). And now having wasted ur time babbling about the nerdy past, lets talk about the movie which was my main goal after all!!!

Well being directed in 2001 and with Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft, Simon West surely draws the attention of every Tomb Raider fan. It was finally the time for those boobs that i already mentioned to be incarnated as Angelina Jolie's. In this case, the movie is just about everything the game is. Showing Anjelina Jolie with tight outfits in every angle possible and making sure to highlight her swollen lips n boobs! And come on im not mean here thats the games are all about as well! Have u ever considered if there is any real action in those games at all? Killing tigers and dodo birds every 25 fucking minutes!?! HELL YEAH!! Well back to the movie again, Angelina Jolie is really the applausable person here. She has all the physical characteristics Lara Croft has, plus all the mental ones. She seems quite brave n smart, n full of emotional expressions. The plot, which is not anything new or impressive, is about a planetary allinment that happens every 5000 years amd a secret cult, Illuminati (have u heard that anywhere else before..? Hmmm...) that  searches for an ancient talisman which gives to the bearer the ability to control time!!! So guess what, they have to find it really soon or they have to wait 5000 more years for the next planetary alignment! And who of all the people might possess that artifact without even knowing it? Lara Croft? NO WAY!!! :O !! Anyway the artifact is stolen from her eventually and she has to get it back. Ok, i think I said too much here, so if u want more plot analysis, just watch the movie. The thing is that none of those characteristics are authentic and have we seen it before numerous times before but we cant have everything right? Although Lara Croft seems almost invulnerable, which kinda cancels the plot's menacing atmosphere, its really well directed and with pretty good sound quality really impressive and vivid. Overall the digital, billionaire, british archaeologist couldnt have a better movie adaptation attempt, and that thnx to the many successful resemblances to the main title!

To Be Continued...

Movies Inspired by the Gaming World (Pt.1)

Since the dawn of the gaming era, many directors attempted to make movie adaptations of video games. The examples are many such as Silent Hill, Mortal Kombat, Final Fantasy, Street Fighter or even BloodRayne (LOL)!! In this post im gonna kill my time refering to the most noteworthy ones! So pay attention!

Mortal Kombat

Well.... who hasnt even once played Mortal Kombat back in the 90's and not anticipated the next wave of blood-spilling combos to fill the screen or the awesomeness of a Fatality's gory atrocity? NONE! And dont say "me" cos ur a liar! The number of the fighting games is really vast but Mortal Kombat sticked out because of the dark atmosphere and the infinite gore!!! This was enough for Paul W.S. Anderson to direct the Mortal Kombat movie. The movie adaptation of the video game (1995) was a really good attempt if u think that it was a bit less than 2 decades before!!! The movie plot is quite similar to the game. Raiden is trying to gather some fighters to defend the EarthRealm against the Outworld. The main characters are Rayden, Johnny Cage, Liu Kang, Sonya, Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Shang Tsung, Kano, Kitana and Goro. The fighting scenes are impressive with a very good combination of martial arts and choreography. Also the cast was really well chosen having  Christopher Lambert  in the main role of Lord Rayden, Robin Shou as Liu Kang and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as the main villain. The soundtrack was also based on the classic one (found even on the gameboy's cartridges!!) with a touch of a techno-house (wtf???) remix! In other words this movie had a really good n successful formula: 1. really good scenario 2. strong cast 3. awesome soundtrack 4. and stunning martial arts that afterwards ud say "Get over here" and get dissappointed cos nothing came out of ur palm!

Resident Evil

Another video game of the 90's that sent numerous chills down the spines of the gaming community was Resident Evil (unofficially based on George Romero's Night of the Living Dead). When graphic processors started processing 3D environments or 2D pre-rendered environments with 3D characters, game designers set high standards on the gameplay and the athmospere. And that was what Capcom took advantage of to create one of the most classic horrifying titles. Resident Evil gives u the impression that u are watching a movie rather than playing a game cos its really well directed (i.e. the point of view constantly changes to emphasize on important objects or places). And here comes Paul W.S. Anderson again, in an attempt to direct Resident Evil (2002). The movie had some really good parts and some parts that had absolutely nothing to do with the game! One thing is that there is so much advanced technology in the movie that is not found in the game. When i first heard of Resident Evil the movie i was sooooo excited to watch it but got frustrated when I finally did see it... And who the FUCK is Alice anyway!?!?! And what about all those Matrix-like stunts? All those things automatically played down the importance of the movie! Yes the actors were really good, the plot, though brutally butchered to some parts, was good, the direction was impressive BUT THAT WAS NO RESIDENT EVIL!!! Id say it was more like an Alien-Matrix-Evil Where has the lordly mansion gone? With the victorian-like atmosphere wandering in it? Jill, Wesker or Barry? Summing up is a very good movie if u are not going to relate it with the game version. Im not gonna refer to the sequels though cos they were really indefferent to me.

Tekken

If there is a fighting game that has surpassed Mortal Kombat, then this is Tekken. The anime style fighting games are so many (Virtua Fighter, Dead or Alive, Rival School etc.) that i could name titles for hours. One of those is Tekken which managed to be the number one in that genre for more than a decade. The successful formula i think was a combination of addictive gameplay, stunning graphics, real martial arts and combos and characters with interesting background. But as far as the movie version, my words wont be so nice! First of all it was completely unfaithful to the game ( yeah i know i get obssesive with this thing but this is a gaming blog after all) and dont even dare to say that it was an alternative aspect of the game, cos if u are using a successful title to be famous n make money out of it u ve got to be respectful! To me it was more like a badly fan-made movie or a well made cosplay!!! I dont really know what the director, Dwight H. Little, had in mind when he changed so many things and neglected even more! When someone attempts to make a movie based on such a legendary title, he/she MUST stick to some principles (which many directors seem to avoid SO successfully) such as sticking to the main plot and using the main characters as the main characters! The main characters of Tekken are Law (Marshall & Forest), Heihachi, Kazuya, Yoshimitsu, King, Jun, Paul, Lei... Not Dragunov, Christie or Steve (who, btw, doesnt fight at all!!!). When i was really laughing and crying at the same time was when Yoshimitsu appeared! Are we to suppose that THING is a flexible cyber-human samurai??? Definitely not! And surely he didnt deserve such a laughable single-punch defeat. Do i even have to mention the role of Heihachi in the movie? I dont think so. Whoever has played the games and seen the movie knows exactly what i mean. Someone has to tell those wanna-be-directors that simply putting ripped bodies, and sexy leather outfits in a movie doesnt make it successful, just trashy! Therea are also 2 more adaptation attamepts. One is Tekken: The Motion Picture made in 1997. This anime version was really good if u think that it had a nice game-based plot and characters. But why fighting competitions in movies have to take place on far away tropical islands (Tekken The Motion Picture, Mortal Kombat, Dead or Alive ???). The last movie based on Tekken was Tekken: Blood Vengeance (2011). Finally the game series got what they so long deserved! A fast paced movie with stylish and full of martial arts fighting scenes, well made characters' background, and graphics that remind of the games' cut-scenes! What more is there to ask?!