Saturday, October 22, 2005

Big-screen 'Doom' is latest bad video game conversion

By Bill Hutchens / Tacoma News Tribune

Comment on this story Send this story to a friend Get Home Delivery

"The book was better."

Hang out at the exit doors of any theater showing a movie based on a best-selling novel and you'll probably hear that phrase uttered at least once.

But when it comes to movies based on video games, you're just as likely to hear curse words as game fans walk away from Hollywood's latest affront to their pastime.

Hollywood doesn't take video games seriously. It shows in more than 12 years of nothing but bad, bad, bad video-game movies.

Gamers might be a finicky bunch, but that doesn't change the fact that moviemakers have turned cherished game properties into trash. Some movie companies throw C-list casts together. Others ignore crucial story elements and try to reinvent popular characters. Still others simply buy the rights to popular games and then refuse input from the games' designers.

Aside from a few fun gags, "Doom," which opens today, follows suit. It's another example of Hollywood ditching all of the best elements of a game and creating a monstrous disappointment.

There are a few rays of hope. In the past few years, dozens of big-budget games have featured famous actors. Music from top artists sometimes debuts in games before it hits the Internet or the airwaves. And many entertainment companies are re-examining the way content is delivered to consumers; some have gone as far as suggesting they'll simultaneously release major motion pictures in theaters and on DVD - or other digital formats.

Combine those practices and we might be able to cut Hollywood dealmakers out of the picture altogether - or at least skim the cream off the top. Maybe the next generation of video games will be directed by Scorsese, Stone and Tarantino.

Here are 10 reasons why game companies should aim for nothing less. (We're sticking to games translated into movies, not movies about gaming such as "The Last Starfighter" and "The Wizard," both released in the 1980s.)

- Super Mario Bros. (1993): This movie should have set the high-water mark. Instead you have Bob Hoskins (Mario) and John Leguizamo (Luigi) up against a spiky-haired Dennis Hopper (King Koopa), who's trying to turn everyone into half-human, half-dinosaur mutants. In retrospect, the tagline, "This ain't no game. It's a live-action thrill ride!" seems like a nervous laugh. At least the Bros. were written as plumbers.

- Double Dragon (1994): Mark Dacascos and Scott Wolf (that "Party of Five" guy) played brothers and martial arts experts Jimmy and Billy Lee. Dacascos is a real-life martial artist. Wolf obviously isn't, and it shows as they fight Robert Patrick's evil Kogo Shuko. Alyssa Milano helps ward off boredom - even though her short blond hair was as bad as Patrick's two-toned Vanilla Ice 'do and her character is nowhere to be found in the games.

- Street Fighter (1994): According to GameSpy.com, "This movie was so bad, it killed Raul Julia." Julia, who played chief bad guy M. Bison, died of a cancer-related stroke in October 1994. "Street Fighter" was his last major motion picture. Most of the characters from the game make appearances in the movie, but the focus is on the wrong ones. Jean-Claude Van Damme and Kylie Minogue play soldiers Guile and Cammy, but Byron Mann and Damian Chapa (I know: Who?) play Ryu and Ken, much more popular characters.

- Mortal Kombat (1995): "Best game movie" doesn't mean much, but this is it. Who starred in it? Without help, you might recall Christopher Lambert as Raiden, but that's about it. However, the flick gives plenty of nods to fans. Some of the sets look like places in the early games, and several characters perform their signature moves. Not that you'd notice, but nearly every actor was replaced in the 1997 sequel, "Mortal Kombat: Annihilation," a real stinker.

- Wing Commander (1999): Two words: Matthew Lillard. That should be enough to keep you away from this bomb about a team of space flying aces. No? Then how about Freddie Prinze Jr.? I always thought female lead Saffron Burrows would have made a good Lara Croft, though, given the same upper-body digital enhancement Angelina Jolie received.

- Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001): Enhancement or not, Jolie is not Croft. The only thing that translates well from game to movie is the Croft mansion. The 2003 sequel, "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life," is worse.

- Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001): Visually stunning but ultimately disappointing and exceptionally preachy -not that games and game movies can't speak to high ideals such as conservation. Look instead for the DVD and PlayStation Portable movie "Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children," due in January.

- Resident Evil (2002): Subterranean zombie gore and a scantily clad Milla Jovovich. That's about all I remember from this forgettable flick. Directors did get the heartless-corporation-causes-biological-nightmare part down, but they completely missed the small-town, scary-mansion, one-person-with-limited-ammo-versus-an-onslaught-of-undead-fiends part. Last year's "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" is slightly better.

- House of the Dead (2003): Somehow a revolutionary arcade / console shooting game became a 20-something boobie-fest in its movie form. The ol' fool-around-and-die rule of Camp Crystal Lake is in full effect on a small zombie-infested rock in the San Juan Islands. Dialogue and acting are as mindless as the monsters that stalk island rave attendees.

Dumb male lead: "Why would you want to be immortal?"

Evil zombie pirate priest: "To live forever!"

Even more laughable are the frequent non-sequitur flashes of video clips from the game.

- Alone in the Dark (2005): At least this one has Tara Reid as a cute bookworm. Christian Slater is the requisite "guy haunted by his past." Director Ewe Boll (who also directed "House of the Dead" and has five other game movies in the pipeline) makes that dark past almost interesting. An ancient Indian civilization unlocked a dimensional gate to the "dark world," and Slater and Stephen Dorff race to stop modern-day archaeologists from repeating that catastrophe. Watch out for the abrupt and ridiculous ending.