PaigeFTW: Two great video game movies (not based on games)
This past weekend, Hitman: Agent 47 bombed spectacularly in theaters, to the surprise of absolutely no one. (I saw American Ultra last weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I’d recommend that instead.)
If any genre has difficulty in crossover, it is the game-to-film adaptation. I think this can be chalked up to the fact that what makes a game appealing is inevitably lost in translation: player agency.
The funny thing is, the best “video game movies” are the ones that attempt to replicate and play with similar ideas of control and power — and they’re usually not based on games. Here are my two movie picks for you to try.
- RUN LOLA RUN (1998)
In this German film, Lola needs to help her boyfriend Manni collect 100,000 marks in 20 minutes before he gets offed by the mob. After Lola’s first attempt to procure the cash goes awry, time rewinds and she tries again, changing her actions to get different results. The astute platformer will recognize in Lola the same instinct of recognizing and memorizing patterns of events (right down to timing her jumps down staircases), altering her actions to produce dramatically different results. Another great film that mimics the restart loop, only with a lot more guns: Edge of Tomorrow (aka Live. Die. Repeat.).
- SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD (2010)
When it comes to films that try to pay homage to gaming culture, things tend to devolve into stereotypes and superficiality (the most recent sinner: Pixels). But few movies embrace the medium as lovingly and beautifully as Scott Pilgrim does. Villains explode into piles of coins upon defeat, Zelda music plays when the love interest walks past, and there are even six mini-bosses before the final battle. Sure, it’s based off a comic, but it’s a comic-film that really, really loves games. Wreck-It Ralph achieves a similar effect, though that one is more cameo-fest than true celebration.
