Is Hollywood desperate?

I’m a huge science fiction and fantasy fan (like this blog isn’t a dead giveaway), so when I see an announcement for a new movie that is based on a video game, cartoon or comic book, you can practically consider me a part of the captive audience. It won’t take a lot of convincing to get me to the theater as long as the movie is halfway good.

But here’s the thing, even a fanboy like me is appalled at some of the drek that Hollywood would like to be slinging at us. I’ve already given my thoughts here about what I think of the upcoming GI Joe and Street Fighter movies.  I have little doubt they’re both going to be awful. Throw onto that pile the upcoming Prince of Persia film starring Jake Gyllenhaal and the Dragonball live action film. Yep, I think they’re going to be terrible too.

It’s hard to be optimistic at some of these films. GI Joe is pretty weak material for a movie. If you look at the cartoon, you wonder how anyone can make a gritty, serious movie based on that. Throw in a world wide cynicism towards the US military and you have a movie that just doesn’t work for the times we live in.

Street Fighter has some of the same problems. The Street Fighter games didn’t have much of a plot. The plot in those games were just a premise so you could fight the next baddie. Who’d have thought that something so flimsy would  be the basis for not just one but two feature films (see the original awful Street Fighter film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme). I’ve already given my opinion about the miscasting of Kristen Kreuk as Chun-Li so I’ll leave it at that.

Dragon Ball Evolution, the title of the live action version of the cartoon, just flat out looks bad. If you remember the cartoon, the episodes were just a series of power ups where the main characters got stronger but in turn fought tougher and tougher enemies. Again, not exactly Pullitzer winning stuff. And certainly not something that should be made into a feature film. When I first heard that they were making this film, I didn’t think they were serious. They were. Take a look at close look at the trailer. It’s cringe worthy, especially the fighting scenes.

Prince of Persia was a pretty good (not excellent) series of video games. And of all the films I’ve listed so far, Prince probably has the most detailed back story and even has a pretty good comic book that sort of tidies up the Prince of Persia canon used in the games.  The film has Jake Gyllenhaal in the lead role, who’s a big-name actor. I’m not sure what’s Jake’s motivation for taking on a role like this, but he looks serious about it (see below). My only gripe with Jake playing the Prince is that, as a character, the Prince was always portrayed as an acrobat. Jake looks a bit beefy too me for the role. As for the film,  I dunno, it *could* work or it can also flop really, really badly. I could probably name a half a dozen franchises that I’d choose before making Prince of Persia, but then again, I didn’t think Iron Man was going to be as good as turned out. And I wouldn’t have chosen Iron Man for a feature film either.

Jake looks a little too beefy to be lithe, acrobatic prince.

None of these films wow me. I’ll probably go see them anyway because that’s what kind of sucker I am; however, none of these films can fire up my enthusiasm like the Lord of the Rings did or even some of the Star Wars films. These aren’t films that I’ll go see at the midnight showing. In these economic times, they’ll probably be relegated to my video only watch list.  I don’t think I’m alone in these sentiments.

I understand nowadays that films are made as much for their merchandise, commercial tie-in and foreign sale prospects. Cynically, it’s easier to imagine a bean counter in there with the producers and script writers asking for certain features to be added to each film to increase the movie’s monetization potential. However, the films I see coming make no pretense of trying to be entertaining or even true to their source material (what little there is of it sometimes).  These films are disingenuous attempts to cash in a potential fan base identified by means of marketing analysis and focus groups.  In my opinion, that’s a terrible way to pick the subject for a movie.

Overall, I’d advise whoever has the final say in picking the subject matter for these multi-million dollar film projects to try a little bit harder.  With stuff like that in the pipeline, it’s little wonder that the gaming industry has passed motion pictures in terms of consumer spending and cultural cred. Hollywood has to stop throwing in the towel and produce films that will not only inspire but capture the imagination of fanboys like me.

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