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Video Games Adaptations Part 3 – From 2000 onwards
The video game to film adaptation saga continues and in 2001 the big one landed, Tomb Raider the movie. This was a big step forward and even though the movie was absolutely dire, I’m sure it made a whole lot of cash.
2001 also saw the release of the animated Final Fantasy movie – the Spirits within which looked pretty and garnered a lot of interest for it use of cgi graphics which were at the time pretty amazing.
2002 saw the release of Resident Evil which was a more competent movie than I expected it would be, with a good supporting cast and some fiendish traps, however this series was already in meltdown and would end with the travesty that was resident evil Extinction in 2007
2003 brought us the Tomb Raider Sequel – the Cradle of Life and the zombie flick, House of the Dead movie. The problem with making a movie based on the game House of the Dead is that well, the characters in that game had no story anyway. No one really cared, it was just a throwaway game franchise and to make a movie from it is blatantly just trying to double up on potential audiences, the zombie horror crowd and the House of the Dead fans, but you will find that these are a very similar audience anyway.
2004 saw the release of the Resident Evil – Apocalypse, which went a bit odd compared to the first movie, let’s not discuss it more than that, just saying that it kind of lost its way.
2005 was a big, big year, we saw the release of lots of Video game adaptations with Air, Alone in the Dark, Blood Rayne, Final Fantasy – Advent Children and the cream of the 2005 crop, Doom. In my opinion Doom showed how to do it right, it was dark gritty, had a homage to the game and had a decent selection of actors that were right for the genre and audience. While it was never going to win an Oscar it was watchable and up till now, it was hard to even say that about a previous adaptation.
2006 saw the perfectly pitched Dead or Alive, which managed to take itself non to serious while providing comedy and action and some strong female characters. The same year also saw the adaptation of Silent Hill which is a very popular game that unfortunately didn’t translate so well into a movie. It was dark, spooky, and well shot with a whole load of style, however it was the story itself which was rather convulted and hard to swallow.
2007 brought us the final movie (apparently) in the Resident Evil series, with the third movie taking the moniker of Extinction. This movie however just showed that the series had definitely run out of steam after the first film and they were pretty much just treading water and failing rather badly. This year also brought us the much touted adaptation of Hitman. After a long period in the consciousness of video game fans Hitman ultimately failed to deliver the goods, while still being an okay popcorn movie.Finally in 2008 we have had In the Name of the King – A Dungeon Siege tale, which while being packed with some quality stars, it is sorely lacking in anything that makes it watchable at all.
So looking forward to the next crop of movies, things are getting better, but admittedly not by very much. In the next article we will be doing just that, looking forward to the adaptations that are yet to come, and there are plenty!