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For the fan boys
A look back at the golden years of video-game inspired movies
 AP The cast of "Doom" seeks to make the first good movie based on a video game ... and fails miserably. |
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 Nick Cannon on directorial debut Nick Cannon makes his directorial debut with "The School Gyrls," a film about three talented young girls. Cannon tells Access about the difficulties of directing. |
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In the beginning there was “Super Mario Bros.”
In 1993, Hollywood blew millions on a film about a mustachioed plumber named Mario. That the Mario of the film title was based off a video game character was strange. Stranger still was the 140-minute run-time, longer than “Citizen Kane.”
“Super Mario Bros.” tanked among filmgoers, the bong-and-waffles set excluding. Yet neither Hollywood nor the paying public learned their lesson. Over the following decade we saw video game inspired films like “Mortal Kombat,” “Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within” and this Friday's release of “Doom.”
Trash, all of it. But with geek auteur Peter Jackson set to apply his chubby fingers to the adaptation of the Xbox game, “Halo,” and perhaps infect an average SciFi plot with (shudder) emotional resonance, we may look back at the last decade as the golden age of bad video game films.
Let's celebrate the trash that is the video game-based movie with a look back at the low/high points. Readers are warned. Spoilers lurk in the paragraphs below. But if you're the type to get upset over spoilers in these types of movies, well, perhaps you should be separated from your Blockbuster card.
“Mortal Kombat” (1995)
Years before there was a “Grand Theft Auto” to kick around, politicians, church groups and the media had "Mortal Kombat."
The martial arts fighting game boasted a high punch-to-blood-spillage ratio. Each punch and kick yielded buckets of blood which in early 1990s PC graphics technology looked more silly than frightening.
Infamy came with “Mortal Kombat’s” signature finishing moves. Players who had memorized certain key strokes combinations could execute a special finishing move like, say, ripping out the skull and spinal column of the vanquished and hoisting the gore on high like the Stanley Cup.
Stories on how “Mortal Kombat” was corrupting America's youth led the local news. Pundits pontificated. Politicians bloviated. And across the country, kittens and puppies cried for no reason.
Naturally, Hollywood stepped in.
1995's “Mortal Kombat” did more to end the controversy surrounding the game than all the media hand-wringing ever could.
Let's start with Christopher Lambert wearing a Chinese conical hat and talking like Wolfgang Puck. The techno soundtrack sounded like it was pilfered from a disco in Monaco. Or how about the fighting? Pillow fights on “Blossom” have been more intense.
Fighters like “Scorpion,” “Johnny Cage” and “Sonya Blade,” evoked dread in the game. In the film they evoked the names of spin instructors.
Yet the tale about a group of warriors enlisted to battle to the death to save the world struck a chord among filmgoers. It grossed $125 million worldwide. The actors went on to star in Cinemax late night erotic thrillers. And director Paul W. S. Anderson established himself as king fan boy. His other credits include “Alien vs. Predator” and “Resident Evil.”
Video game moment: Bad guy Shang Tsung uses the game's key phrase, “Finish Him!” several times throughout the film.
Shadowy organization: An evil empire in a parallel realm
For the fan boys: Heroine Sonya Blade is captured by Shang Tsung and made to wear a mini-skirt.
“Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” (2001)
The original PC game “Tomb Raider” had gamers exploring hidden ruins, dodging dinosaurs and taking in what was then in 1996 considered state-of-the-art 3D graphics.
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Paramount Pictures File Lara Croft: A fantasy for all the fan boys. |
What ensured the game's place in pop culture history, however, was the explorer-protagonist, Lara Croft. Or rather Lara's Crofts, a pair of physics-defying orbs that had fan boys replacing their Red Sonya screensavers with shots of the pistol strapping, short-shorts wearing, explorer-minx overnight.
By the time Hollywood got into the act with 2001's “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” the games series had lost its cachet among serious gamers. But if Hollywood couldn't be timely, it could at least go weird — which it did by casting Angelina Jolie as the lead.
As film adaptations of video games go, “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” is not unwatchable. Sets like the subterranean Angkor Wat and palatial Venetian ballrooms were a far cry from the Styrofoam rocks of “Mortal Kombat.”
“Lara Croft” established the template for all video game based movies to follow. Shadowy organization intent of ruling the world? Check. Monsters? Check. Requisite near nude scene with young starlet? Check. And they managed to throw in a storyline involving Lara's love for her dead father (played by real-life father Jon Voight).
Jolie not only looked the part — at least as much as a mere human could look like the digital fantasy of millions — but she sounded great; not so much reading her lines but purring them in an accent best described as Oxbridge meets Rich Daddy's Little girl.
Video game moment: A room-sized spinning device in the final scene has Lara Croft hopping from one platform to the next.
Shadowy organization: The Illuminati
For the fan boys: Jolie takes a shower. No nudity, but she does spend a lot of time underneath the shower-head open-mouthed.
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