I'm currently half way through watching an old flick called DOOM, an early actioner for The Rock. Attracted by its label as a creature feature it's based on a computer game, which I've never played [I've never played any]. I'll finish it off another night.
The fixation in the film of descending into levels, walking along corridors and clearing rooms, to then descend further and repeat it all again is clearly based on the game I assume. I know there are other films like this, Alien V Predator springs to mind were Lance Henriksen's team keep descending into a ziggurat.
Who were these films aimed at back then? The very kids who played games like DOOM? Did it work? Do/did gamers like films?
Has this trend continued? Computer-game based movies? What say you readers?
Sadly the trend does continue but they are "better" in quality of script than Doom for the most part.
ReplyDeleteAs a gamer, most of the films just made me cringe as Hollywood often does not understand/respect the source material and grinds out some cash grabbing garbage.
Rampage (with The Rock) was based on the arcade game by the same name. We've had a couple of Sonic movies based off the Sonic the Hedgehog games. Battleship made Doom look like a masterpiece. Mario Bros had a movie. There's the Mortal Kombat tv series and movies. Street Fighter had a live action movie that was campy as hell. There are several Blood Rayne movies. Tomb Raider movies.
Thanks for your insights Lance. Not being a gamer I can't comment like you. I enjoyed Rampage purely for the monsters, I didn't know it was a game when I saw it! Mortal Kombat is a film I first saw this summer largely because I got excited about maybe finding some of the figures, along with Street Fighter. Car Boot Sales here carry a lot of Lanard CORPS and the odd Hasbro GI Joe, but Mortal and Street are scarce. I haven't seen any. Never heard of Blood Rayne.
DeleteBlood Rayne movies are hilariously bad, I think the director admitted they were made as some sort of eleborate tax scam. I suppose the most successful video game movies are the Resident Evil ones, I have no idea how faithful they are to the games, but I'd watch anything with Milla Jovovich in it...!
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