And video game movies reach a new level of suck with AiD

[Promophile]

Here's a good review

http://www.boston.com/movies/display?display=movie&id=5771

and here is the sad part of this review


Production notes tell us that the creator of Atari's H.P. Lovecraft-inspired ''Alone in the Dark" fourth installment (''The New Nightmare") handpicked German director Uwe Boll for the game's film adaptation because Boll recently brought Sega's ''House of the Dead" to the big screen.

Apparently it didn't matter that ''House of the Dead" is roundly considered an unwatchable movie, or that online chat rooms are full of angry postings from horror fans and video gamers who label Boll a hack. This filmmaker has found his talent-defying niche, and more of his video-game adaptations (including ''BloodRayne") are in the works, like it or not.

[Sothy]

I saw the preview and thought "Wow they stole that name from the Alone in the Dark videogame" had no idea it was supposed to be an adaptation.

Surprisingly enough Will Smith isnt in this one.

[SoulBlazer]

I'm sorry to see the movie getting such bad reviews. The previews looked good, I actually LIKE Slater and Reid (and it does'nt hurt that Terra Reid is some nice eye candy, like she was in the American Pie movies! :-P ), and I'm a huge fan of the games.

It just seems that this is more proof that games are VERY HARD to convert to the big screen. I can count on one hand the ones I've liked enough to own (the first of the Tomb Raider and Mortal Kombat movies, Final Fantasy, and the two Resident Evil movies).

I'll reserve one last flicker of home from actuall reviews of people on this site. Has anyone here actually SEEN this movie yet?

[calthaer]

I wouldn't even count those movies in the list; I'm not sure there's a single video game movie that I would want to own. There are also very few movie video games I would want to own.

The exciting part about games is controlling the characters, which you can't do with a movie. Until they start making the characters in VG movies more than skin-deep, they're going to continue to suck and bomb.

P.S. - when did Christian Slater start to suck so bad? He used to be in some decent flicks (name of the rose, robin hood: prince of thieves).

[Promophile]

What, no love for the Mario Bros movie? The one with the tiny headed goomba guys and the dinosaurs and the fungus?

[petewhitley]

I'm sorry to see the movie getting such bad reviews. The previews looked good, I actually LIKE Slater and Reid (and it does'nt hurt that Terra Reid is some nice eye candy, like she was in the American Pie movies! :-P ), and I'm a huge fan of the games.

Tara Reid reminds me of the drunk, slightly overweight girls I would have one-night stands with in college. Needless to say, it brings a shiver to my spine to even look at her.

[thehistorian]

ok.. what can I say with out getting in trouble...

Uh...

Boll's next project is supposed to be BloodRayne....

He also has the rights to Dungeon Siege. I know for a fact that DS is being adapted by different writers than those used on AitD and HotD. I can also say that the DS games backstory was writen by Neal Hallford, better known for "Betrayal at Krondor", "Return to Krondor", "Planet's Edge" and "Might & Magic III: Isles of Terra". But to my knowledge he is not working on the screen play. I wish I good give you more... but at this time I can not.

[Captain Wrong]

Doing the "On Topic Shimmy" on this one.

<boogaloo down>

[crazyjackcsa]

The worst part is we have to keep supporting these bad movies in th ehope that a good one will be made! RE wasn't horrible, I haven't seen the second one. Why not pick a game with a good story and make it more than some dumb action/horror flick. I think someday, like comic book movies, there will be a good one.

[EnemyZero]

bloodrayne is pretty much done, there just looking for a company to take it to the bigscreen...there worried about the rating because theres alot of erotic lesbian vampire scenes...theres an interview with him on ign.com

[Sothy]

there worried about the rating because theres alot of erotic lesbian vampire scenes...

You just sold me a ticket buddy.

[Frankie23]

I think I'm the only person who liked House of the Dead, but even I can't support this new piece of crud. Alone in the Dark should be about a bespectacled man investigting horrible, unspeakable things. It shouldn't involve military squads and look like an Aliens rip-off.

[calthaer]

He also has the rights to Dungeon Siege.

I liked the first hour or two of Dungeon Siege.

After that it became a pure bore. Man, I had such high hopes for that game. It looks good, it even seems good on a surface level...but it just had zero depth. There's only combat, and even that is so formulaic (with nary a bit of strategy) that the game becomes tedium quickly.

I can only imagine the movie would be about as one-dimensional as the game - if not more. I foresee a dramatic comeback of MST3K with this movie as the centerpiece.

[stargate]

I'm sorry to see the movie getting such bad reviews. The previews looked good, I actually LIKE Slater and Reid (and it does'nt hurt that Terra Reid is some nice eye candy, like she was in the American Pie movies! :-P ), and I'm a huge fan of the games.

Tara Reid reminds me of the drunk, slightly overweight girls I would have one-night stands with in college. Needless to say, it brings a shiver to my spine to even look at her.

If you were banging chicks that looked like Tara Reid in college and these memories bring a "shiver" to your spine, there is definitely something wrong with you.

[FantasiaWHT]

I can also say that the DS games backstory was writen by Neal Hallford, better known for "Betrayal at Krondor", "Return to Krondor",

oh... my... god...

I was the biggest Raymond E Feist fan you could imagine (his first book is utterly brilliant. The whole firs trilogy is top notch) until I played these games. They were written so horribly and with such a terrible plot that only barely correctly fit in the Krondor universe.... and then he actually turned the video game into a BOOK! And kept the dialogue VERBATIM! It was without a doubt the worst book I had ever read... everything Feist wrote after that was just insanely poor quality compared to his earlier works.

[Jorpho]

Ah, the best thing about bad movies is the quotes used to describe them. My favorite is still:

"As for the culprits, let's begin with the committee, the gang of four, that pummelled some guiltless keyboard and dreamed it was a script."
--Rick Groen (Globe & Mail movie critic), on "Catwowan"

But veering back on topic, anyone know where Moviefone's old Pong movie spoof went?

[Push Upstairs]

there worried about the rating because theres alot of erotic lesbian vampire scenes

This has now landed on my "DVD's to rent" list.

I won't say "ticket" because i have grown to dislike theaters and people acting like asses, but when this hits DVD...i'm there for those scenes.

[Mattiekrome]

I'm sorry to see the movie getting such bad reviews. The previews looked good, I actually LIKE Slater and Reid (and it does'nt hurt that Terra Reid is some nice eye candy, like she was in the American Pie movies! :-P ), and I'm a huge fan of the games.

Tara Reid reminds me of the drunk, slightly overweight girls I would have one-night stands with in college. Needless to say, it brings a shiver to my spine to even look at her.

If you were banging chicks that looked like Tara Reid in college and these memories bring a "shiver" to your spine, there is definitely something wrong with you.

my thoughts as well LOL

[Sph1nx]

Am I one of the few people that enjoyed house of the dead?
Im not saying it was a good movie by any means.
It was uttely HORRRIBLE. Espically with thos random clips from the game inserted.
But none the less I enjoyed it.
It was what I expcted: a slightly ammusing, horrbly lame movie with people killing/being killed by zombies.

[Sylentwulf]

Slightly off topic, but I'll agree with the first assessment of tara reid.
Yeah, I thought she was downright unbelievably hot in american pie.

Now she's a hilton girl wannabe, and looks like a crack whore prostitute who doesn't even mind if she's paid for what she's giving out.

[pragmatic insanester]

alright, time for some rundowns on the video game movies to come and those i have seen.

super mario bros: there was a bunch of cheesy acting and i agree that most of the people going to see this would be distraught. however, some of the oddities that came from game to movie translation i enjoyed (ie: goombas, the fungus kind of made sense, and of course yoshi).

double dragon: aside from the fact i would like to own a car that runs on garbage, its not worth seeing unless you want to see how inept and marred abobo becomes.

tomb raider 1 & 2: a few decent action scenes, but as someone who lost interest in the series early on, i can't add to the movie score. it was an average set of movies, period.

house of the dead: i liked the intro with the beta-stype game graphics. the rest should have been grounds for a lawsuit by sega.

mortal kombat: i enjoyed this when i was younger and despite a few segments i can know interpret as campy, it holds up against critism.

mortal kombat 2: haha, even the makers of the third film (being developed currently) admit this will be erased from the history of mk. aside from the kind of interesting cyborg costumes, this was a piece of crap.

resident evil: i enjoyed, although i wish they didn't kill as many people off with the cube-esque laser grid.

street fighter: i barely remember the details of this butchered product.

resident evil 2: the zombies get overshadowed by nemesis in the movie. its not bad if you can overlook a few cliche parts and the graveyard scene (which goes against everything of the virus terminology). i'll see re3 in theatres.

alone in the dark: ask me in 2 years when its a buck to rent.

silent hill: i know next to nothing about the projected 2006 film, however, i have taken into consideration of buying out an entire room at a theatre on opening day to prevent anything awry of my chartered orgasm experience.

[vespertillio]

Ok, I have not seen House of the Dead or Alone in the Dark. (And I doubt I ever will LOL ) However, is anyone else totally pissed off the Kneau Reeves was chosen to portray John Constantine? :angry: I have this gut feeliing that they have taken my 2nd favorite comic book character and have decided to drop a big piece of doggie dookie on the fans. Sorry, rant over. Carry on. :(

[Gapporin]

street fighter: i barely remember the details of this butchered product.

Oh, c'mon! Street Fighter: The Movie was great! Sure, it was kinda campy, but it had Raul Julia as M.Bison!

And don't forget Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game. So, it's a game based off of a movie that's based off of a game. Hmm.

"You have come to fight a man, but instead, you have found a god?"

[Gamereviewgod]

http://www.uweboll.com/

Best... website... ever.

[rbudrick]

I posted my review in this thread, but I'll copy and paste just so everyone knows to never see this movie:

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5349


I very unfortunately saw this movie this weekend. It was a horrible, lame, stupid excuse for a movie. The plot was completely incoherent, and it was impossible for me to suspend my disbelief for ANY part of the movie. It was very poorly written, with a mostly unexplained, broken plot (transition from scene to scene made very little sense). The action scenes were rediculously stupid with a bunch of flashing lights and gunfire. The script ityself was HORRIBLE, and was filled with cliched situations and lines. The music mostly did not fit any of the scenes. It's like they just took some stock music they had on hand and just threw it in there rather than have somebody write music specifically for this movie.

This movie screams "budget!" and I've seen highschool students do better. The movie was a fucking joke. Even a bunch of 12-year-olds behind me we bitching about how fucking lame this movie is. I can't believe Slater would stoop this low. This shit was low even for Tara Reid...and that's pretty fucking bad.

-Rob

I posted something else in this thread, but less significant:

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=52011&highlight=alone+dark


http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5349

See this thread on Alone in the Dark....I saw it this weekend and I wanted to slash my wrists it was so bad. Videogames really don't get the respect they deserve....which is odd considering videogames are starting to eclipse the movie industry in revenues and profit. If we keep moving movies like this, the VG/movie scene is doomed.

-Rob

Please keep in mind I heard nothing at all about this movie before seeing it..I wish I had now.....

So there you have it. DO NOT see this movie. You will hate yourself and kill your kids and beat your wife if you do. And that's bad.

-Rob

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

Here's another glowing review, this time from our pals at the underrated Film Score Monthly site...


The race is over! For any 2005 film to get worse reviews than this one is getting, it would have to actually leap off the screen and eat babies. From the director of House of the Dead. 'Nuff said.
LOL

[Jorpho]

It was uttely HORRRIBLE. Espically with thos random clips from the game inserted.

Did they really do that? (Was it at least House of the Dead 3?)

[Sph1nx]

Oh yes... they did. RANDOMLY!!!
It was horrible.

I'm not sure as I can't remember, but it looked like the arcade version of hotd the origional.

The theater was funny though, it was far from packed. The people who were there all look the geek type, either in groups, or dragging along girlfriend (such as I did). All the females seemed to look bored BEFORE the movies started... actually I think my gf took a nap.

[Jorpho]

Oh dear. They must have truly been aiming for mediocrity. (From what I've seen, the movie's zombies didn't even look like the game's zombies.)