Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Movie NEWS! K.O.!!!

And people thought the 1st live Street Fighter movie was bad.... :/
I'm disappointed in you guys... you gotta "smell" these kind of movies from way far off!



So the King Of Fighters live movie is out...
And it is bad...
Well, BIG SURPRISE there! Did you seriously expected this to be any good?
Van Damme's Street Fighter was actually good in my eyes.
Let me see...
It had a plot! (despite how "fantastic" it turned out to be, talking about it's "universe")
It was well choreographed. (well, at least choreographed shall we say)
It wasn't deep serious and super-emo-gritty-ysh like most of the other game-to-flick adaptations.
The characters kinda looked like the ones they were based upon.
Van Damme kicks ass. (if you hate him, you're probably a Steven Seagal fanboy at heart! or just racist :/ there! I said it!)
The bad:
Obviously it was a tad much over-the-top.. I understand some "2000s kids" might hate that aspect..but hey, we who grew up in the 80s/90s actually liked that stuff!
Van Damme isn't American (as much as he'd like to!), and Guile is...therefore... :(
Characters personalities and/or origins messed up... Like, say, Charlie/Blanka... Or Dhalsim..

Anyway, it was a fun and entertaining movie at heart. And isn't that the goal of any movie/comics/game? To be fun and entertaining??

Let's check quickly the other similar themed movies..
(I was planning on reviewing one or two of those for my Movie Reviews anyway!)


Mortal Kombat, which came out at the same time as the 1st SF movie, was actually pretty good.
Since MK was a gory/badass/violent franchise, their movie went a bit more serious and less "colored".
The combats are a lot more serious and better choreographed.
Though, it is just as much over-the-top.

There was a 2nd MK, simply titled Mortal Kombat 2 (and a tv show, but let's not go overboard with this subject...)
It was a bit more faithful, but a lot cheaper too... The plot was very silly...
Let's just say it was made for fans, not mainstream audience, with a very tiny budget...

Then came the 2000s.
And hollywood, already mass-adaptating comic books, decided it was cool and quite profitable to adapt more video games too.
And since games have a more impressive international fanbase, they could also make those for less money/less professional and make just as much money if not tons more!

So came Dead Or Alive. A sort of Charlie's Angels meet the SF Movie meet a bikini contest. Hey! The game already built up it's audience upon that! :P
It was one of those SF-like movies.
Goofy, fun, stupid yet kinda watchable. Less good and cheaper than SF too...
Fights are boring..which is stupid since this is a fighting game-to-movie adaptation...

There also was SF: Legend of Chun-Li.
Which made money for only one reason... It kept promising people it was going to be a SF movie done right...
And kids "bought" that.. -sigh-
From the first pictures to the first trailer..I knew it.. It was a stupid "super-emo-gritty-ysh" modern adaptation with serious tones and even less respect to the source material.. Exactly what the 1st SF wasn't and what made it good despite what "internet rants" say.
So it was a big flop... They even put a bit too much money on this movie, even if it doesn't show..in the marketing department... Big commercial failure!
And people were finally saying again that the SF movie "wasn't that bad" in "a cheesy kind of way".
(I kinda hate this expression.. "cheesy"... it was over-the-top, OF COURSE! but not that "cheesy"... I find Avatar "cheesy"...big blue furry cat people...ewww...)

Then was announced two more similar movies...
This King of Fighters...
First pictures.. you could smell it...another Legend of Chun-Li.. With just as much respect for the source, the same type of tone...

And the upcoming Tekken movie...
I'll say my early impressions of these, without seeing it. Cause you can easily understand what producers will make of a movie from early infos.



Wow.
I won't like this as much as my good ol' Van Damme Street Fighter...
But this kinda looks good... I mean, not good, but better than the Chun Li movie!
Why? It's quite close to the Mortal Kombat movie in tone. Lots of characters? Check. They don't shy away from the game visuals&costume? Check. (except Heihachi's stache and Kazuya's hair) And it seems to actually feature some combat, which is always good fer a frickin' fightin' game adaptation!!

Hum..
*cough*
Anyway..
Now, let's turn back on our brain and see what we did learn today:
- Hollywood likes money.
- If something's successful, some Hollywood producers will be planning to cash on it with a movie, be it a comic, a game, a book, a ride, toothpaste, a commercial, some clothes, a product mascot...anything!
- The cheaper the better. Better profits that way.

Thus I ask.. why are they keepin' on making adaptation of those "frickin' fightin' games".
You know. Games were gameplay, characters and movesets are the more important aspect? Not movie adaptations of actual adventure games, action games... stuff where the plot and universe are more important for the immersion, and stuff...
There was talks about a Halo movie or Mass Effect... I'd take a bad Halo over a bad Soul Calibur anyday! (YOU KNOW they'll do it...eventually...)