Tag: video game movies

Uncharted (2022)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

A treasure hunter (Mark Whalberg) recruits the bartender brother (Tom Holland) of one of his old cohorts to try and find a shitload of goooooooooooooooold.

Movies based on video games have a bad reputation, for a good reason though: most of them are terrible. Even the best have only been “okay”. I’m actually not that familiar with the Uncharted games. By “not too familiar” I mean “I’m aware that they exist, but that’s about it”. For films like this that can sometimes be an advantage, and sometimes a disadvantage. A disadvantage because if the film assumes you know the game, it won’t tell you certain things which mean you’ll be lost. And an advantage because you don’t get annoyed at things like “but his belt buckle is a dark silver in the games, not light grey like in this. They ruined it! That belt is the most important thing ever, and the colour actually matters for reasons I can’t explain beyond crying”

I’ll say outright this is not the best film you’re going to see, but it’s nowhere near the worst. It’s the kind of film you’d rent from a video shop and enjoy, but not quite enough to buy it, and if it’s on ITV on a Sunday afternoon it would be a pretty good option for you. It’s very fun to watch and you’re not going to spend a lot of time looking at your watch or bored. You may spend quite a bit of time saying out loud “well that’s awfully fucking convenient”. The whole thing works on videogame logic in terms of physics, which makes sense considering, well, you know.

One thing this does very well is work for outsiders. Like I said, I know nothing about the game, yet the film made sense. It gave you enough backstory that you knew who the characters were, and what their motivations are. There are probably references etc that I missed, but most of them don’t make you aware they’re references so you don’t feel lost for not getting them, you don’t realise there’s something to get. There’s one exception, after falling from a plane he says what happens to a stranger on a beach, who replies “yeah, that happens to me a lot too”, and the way it’s filmed makes it obvious this is a reference to something, especially when the camera lingers on this random beachgoers face for an unnaturally long time. It turns out he voices Drake in the game, so I don’t object to the cameo itself, but the way they did it was more hamfisted than me when I’m drunk reaching into the fridge for some cold meat to eat.

It’s directed by Ruben Fleischer, who gave us not only the Zombieland films, but also the first Venom. Actually didn’t realise the same guy did those. If you told me that the guy who made Zombieland made this, I wouldn’t believe you. If you told me the guy who made Venom made this, I’d be like “okay that makes sense”. There’s nothing bad about the way this is shot, it has some good visuals and the set pieces are busy but never look fake despite how ludicrous the action in them is. Even when you have someone get run over by a car in mid-air, you never look at it and notice the CGI. But on the other hand, there’s nothing that really wows you. You’re not going to get future directors be influenced by it. It’s a shame as there’s potential for great visuals in here, but it never really gives them to us.

The plot……let’s face it you’re not watching this for the plot. It tries to have one, and it does work. The only issue is a major character dies and it seems to not affect the plot at all. In this world he’s a rich famous person, so you’d think that would be mentioned again. There are so many ways you could have used it to affect the plot, but having it just to be “hey, this person who killed him is bad” seems a massive waste.

In summary: see it, but don’t pay full price, and don’t go on your own.

Rampage (2018)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

I mentioned in my Tomb Raider review (available here) that that film is a video game movie with the emphasis on the “movie” part. This is the opposite, this is like watching a playthrough on youtube of a game. It’s just sheer balls to the wall fun. This is not a smart movie, and it’s not a movie you need to watch again and again, analysing every frame. But whilst it’s not something you NEED to see again, it is something you’ll WANT to see again, late at night, when you’ve had a bad day and just need something to distract you from the unrelenting horror of modern life.

The cast all know this as well, none of them seem to be taking it seriously, and it’s a much better film for it. Jeffrey Dean Morgan, in particular, seems to be having the time of his life, giving his character a southern drawl and carrying himself in the most entertaining way possible. Let’s face it though, you’re not here to see him be entertaining as hell, you’re here to see CGI monsters destroy shit. And you’re in luck, as the closing third of this is just chaos upon chaos, the kind which last years Geostorm could have used. Surprisingly, the CGI holds up remarkably well. There are one or two brief moments where it looks a bit cartoon-like but other than that they’ve done a great job with making it all seem real. It’s also, really, really funny, having multiple laugh-out-loud moments throughout. Now I’ll admit the laughs aren’t exactly high-brow, but they’re incredibly effective. Who’d have thought a monkey making crude hand gestures would be so funny?

It’s not all good though. The villains are basically as substantial and necessary as the pop tarts one of them eats (although the actors playing them, again, do remarkably well). It’s a shame as I feel they’re just a few scenes away from being entertaining as hell, but they’re just not given enough to do to justify you remembering who they are. There are also three characters introduced at the beginning who disappear after the first act, which is just weird as they’re all introduced with character traits and personalities that could have justified them being there throughout. They’re built up so well and then just disappear. I’m guessing there’s deleted scenes of them somewhere but at the moment it just seems a bit weird, like the scriptwriter just forgot to delete them in his second draft.

It’s also not helped by its rating. It needed to be slightly more visceral. Now I’m not asking for 90 minutes of decapitations and torture porn, but there are some moments where they cut away slightly too early, or have something in the background out of focus that could have looked great in focus. Although you can have great violence in a PG film, a good example of this was The 5th Wave, which featured someone being knocked over by a giant wave. Now instead of having them just knocked off a balcony, it had them knocked off, and their back hit against a railing on the way down. It made it feel more real and painful. This film also has the “you mother f-explosion” thing which WAY too many films have lately and it’s annoying. Just say “fuck”.

So in summary: don’t go out of your way to see it, but do see it if you can. Incredibly fun and joyous. Kind of like Jumanji. And The Rock is hilarious in it, kind of like Jumanji. Actually, this is a lot like Jumanji, only slightly less so.

5 Video Games That Should Be Films

On By troubledproductionsIn ListLeave a comment

Yes, we’ve all had this discussion. “Oh my god, that would be an amazing film”, then you actually watch Street Fighter, Super Mario Bros, or anything by Uwe Boll and suddenly you blame video games for all that’s bad in the world. Maybe they’re picking the wrong games, or maybe they just don’t care as they know people will watch it anyway, who knows? But here’s five games they haven’t done yet, which I think could work, our reason for doing this? I dunno, can we blame it on Hardcore Henry basically being a FPS?

1. Eternal Darkness

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Hot damn I love this game. Scary, beautiful and with a fantastic story. It’s a horror that spans a thousand years and just four locations. We get to see the places in different stages throughout time, for example we see the Amiens Cathedral during the medieval years, and again when it serves as a hospital during the first world war. All the stories are connected by one common theme: mankind fighting the ancients. Because of this I feel it would work as an anthology film, six 10 minute segments each with their own director, with an overarching theme directed by David Robert Mitchell, the director of It Follows. There’s not many anthology films, which is a shame as they can be fantastic when done well. Horror serves the format well as there’s more than one kind of way to do horror, there’s the “blood and guts torture porn”, the “no deaths but lots of shadows” etc. That’s why I feel they should each have their own director, that way each segment has its own unique style. It will be odd if one person enjoyed every segment, but the diverse styles should mean that there’s at least one section that they’d like.

2. Turok

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It’s a man fighting dinosaurs. If you make that Tom Hardy and make sure it’s directed by George Miller then this will basically be Mad Max only with dinosaurs instead of cars. Not as long as the previous entry, but it’s Tom Hardy shooting dinosaurs, do you really need anything else?

3. LA Noire

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Because there’s a distinct lack of noire lately. The closest we’ve had have been films like The Pledge, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Sin City. Which is a shame as it’s a good genre with a unique style and stories that draw the viewer in and holds them round the throat and refuses to let go.

4. The Secret Of Monkey Island

This has to be made on one condition: it HAS to be animated. Not realistic pixar animation either, we’re talking the almost elastic-looking animation. The kind where characters bodies stretch in unnatural ways and they look frankly ridiculous running. Also, it has to be funny. Very very funny. Have someone like Bill Hader as the voice of Guybrush Threepwood (who wants to be a pirate), and a good script and you’ll have an awesome movie.

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5. Zombies Ate My Neighbours

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As anyone who saw Goosebumps can testify, there’s definitely a market out there for horror movies aimed at kids. And this could be it. The original game was a fun cartooney and really really silly game where your main weapons were water pistols and cans of soda. Translate this to a modern film, keep the references to obscure b-movies in to placate the nerds (such as me) and you’ve got a hit. Or a noble failure.