Video games movies. Man, there have been some downright putrid video game movies. Rotten Tomatoes lists Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within as the best video game movie with a rating of 44%. That should tell you everything you need to know.
There’s numerous reasons as to why video game movies are never good. First and the most obvious is that movies aren’t eight hours long. In video games you build a personal connection with your character, whether it’s a faceless person that you build as your own, or a charter the director of the game put time and thought into. A game such as Heavy Rain, with all of its flaws did make me really care about saving Ethan’s son. That’s something that can work in a movie but it can’t work as effectively. Slowly building up the things that you as a player need to do to save your son. Dealing and facing the consequences is something that’s rarely felt in movies or in video games.
While one of the games that I do feel maybe, just MAYBE make the transition to the big screen is Bioshock. Atlantis is such a stunning place visually, but would they be able to convey the sense of tension and imminent danger when you aren’t controlling anything? Looks like we’ll never find out as the Bioshock movie that was set to be made never saw the light of day. We do have this concept art that just came out for the movie, check out more here.
