Sin #58: No Joystick Allowed

Videogames have come a long way since the early days of Pong and Pac-Man where people usually went to arcades, dropped endless quarters and obsessed about reaching the highest score (this obsession has nothing to do with age, just look at the rivalry between Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell to become the top scorer in Donkey Kong as seen in the amazing documentary “The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters”). As videogames became more sophisticated so did their storylines, and with the introduction of iconic characters like Mario, Sonic, Megaman and Link, the movie industry quickly took notice and began to find ways to adapt their stories to the screen.

The result however was astonishingly bad and after a series of fiascos, videogame garnered a pretty negative reputation. I admit that when I went to these movies I had somewhat decent expectations; after all I was a fan (I played a lot of videogames in my childhood, especially fighting games). But the filmmakers had no earnest respect for the material and were really more interested in cashing in a quick buck at the expense of our juvenile desires. A clear example can be seen with “Street Fighter”, which is based on the popular fighting game (that has had dozens of sequels and spin-offs); the movie is an atrocious adaptation that doesn’t even manage to pay homage to the original characters, it turns the whole enterprise into another one of those dreadful Jean Claude Van Damme action movies.

“Mortal Kombat”, based on another popular franchise, at least had a cheesy but more faithful transition to the screen. Even though it isn’t really a good movie, it’s a fun time waster (not the biggest appraisal, I know). The sequel though sucks out all the fun, it’s terrible.

Last weekend I saw “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” which is based on the videogame by the same name. Since it’s directed by Mike Newell (who made, arguably, the best Harry Potter movie) it was expected that it would break the videogame curse and become the first decent adaptation. Unfortunately the film sometimes forgets to play less like a cutscene from the game and more like a movie. It should be more playful by taking cue from Alfred Molina’s hilarious and tongue-in-cheek performance but still its way more fun that the awful “Clash of the Titans” remake. The problem, as with the “Silent Hill” movie (an atmospheric and haunting experience that manages to be truly scary), is that it tries to satisfy the fans by sticking to close to its original source without pulling off an accessible movie for audiences unfamiliar with the game.

On Roger Ebert’s website there was a bit of a controversy a while back after he claimed that videogames could never become art. Enraged fans debated for weeks that games had become sophisticated enough that they could stand against any movie and that games like “Metal Gear Solid”, “Final Fantasy” or “God of War” had merits enough on their own to be considered works of art. Ebert demurred and confessed he had never properly played any game and was afraid to become addicted to them. I understand both parties’ point of view but Ebert should have made some research before making such a bold statement.

Whether videogames are art is irrelevant when one has the task of adapting them to the screen. We still have to linger over the possibility of a truly successful adaptation. In the meantime grab a joystick, play the games and ignore their movies.