It seems like every other week, we hear about Hollywood deciding to adapt another gaming property to the silver screen - a sub-genre which has had, let's admit it, more spectacular misses than hits. This is largely the fault of Uwe Boll and the mentally-challenged billionaire chimpanzee that keeps giving him money, but the reality is that there are only three adaptations that I would consider even remotely watchable: Christophe Gans' "Silent Hill", the "Resident Evil" franchise, and the Angelina Jolie vehicle "Tomb Raider". Note that I don't even think these are good films (actually, "Silent Hill" wasn't bad) - but in comparison to "Alone in the Dark" or "Super Mario Bros.", they're practically Oscar-worthy.
On the other hand, there are a number of movies in existence which are based not on real-world titles but on the concept of gaming and gaming culture themselves. By and large, this sub-sub-genre has a higher success rate than its parent genre, in part because it requires a certain amount of actual creative effort to come up with the fictional games that play such a central role in the films' narratives.
That's not to say that every movie on this list is a brilliant work of art (though arguably, a few of them are). Rather, these are films that make use of readily-identifiable gaming tropes and attempt to comment, with varying degrees of success, on the omnipresence of videogames in contemporary society.
Check out the full list behind the cut.
I agree with the author that Ben X is the most relevant movie that deals with gaming culture. An interesting read.
I remember that in the '80s and '90s, there were a lot of movies dealing with virtual reality gaming.
Aside from TRON (with a sequel due out in '10), eXistenZe, and the like, another pretty good one is Arcade.
Made by Full Moon (the same ppl that made Subspecies, Puppet Master and Robot Jox), the film is a rather good B-movie about teens (including Seth Green and Peter "Ralpie from A Christmas Carol" Billingsly) who try a brand-new arcade game at their local video arcade (called Dante's Inferno). Using virtual reality, the game also has a home version.
But it's a horror movie, so there's a twist.
Oh, and the remake of "How to Make a Monster" deals with a video game baddie killing its creators, one of which is played by Clea DuVall.
remember Brainscan with Edward Furlong? That was a pretty good 90's horror flick. Anyone, I'm glad somebody agrees with me about Silent Hill being good.
noiseredux wrote:remember Brainscan with Edward Furlong? That was a pretty good 90's horror flick. Anyone, I'm glad somebody agrees with me about Silent Hill being good.
I enjoyed the movie. It wasn't excellent, but I thought it was decent. However I haven't played the games so I can't comment on story elements they took liberty with.
noiseredux wrote:remember Brainscan with Edward Furlong? That was a pretty good 90's horror flick. Anyone, I'm glad somebody agrees with me about Silent Hill being good.
I enjoyed the movie. It wasn't excellent, but I thought it was decent. However I haven't played the games so I can't comment on story elements they took liberty with.
Oh, I thought Silent Hill sucked. I felt it removed all of the good psychological content and symbolism, and they pretty much completely changed the actual Silent Hill altogether.
This topic isn't about *actual* videogame adaptations.