I’ve been playing video games almost my entire life — from the Family Computer to the Super Nintendo to the PlayStation(s), I’ve pretty much been through them all. That being said, it always gets me excited to find out that certain games are being adapted to the big screen. More often than not, however, I leave the theater a little less than thrilled. Most of these movies end up incredibly disappointing. There are those adaptations, however, that remind me of why I loved the games in the first place.
The Ugly
This one is really no contest. The hands-down, all time ugliest (and when I say ugly, I mean it literally) adaptation of a video game is 1993’s Super Mario Brothers, starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo.
Everything about this film — the set, the script, the characters — was all so horribly translated to the screen, you could barely recognize anything. Apart from Mario’s red and Luigi’s green plumber jumpsuits, the rest of the movie was disappointingly unfamiliar and visually appalling. The set design contained elements like sticky mushrooms, slimy dinosaurs and a dark and dingy netherworld that left so much to be desired. Koopa looked like a freak, Yoshi was disgusting and the Gumbas were just plain weird. The light, fun and bright elements that the game became so popular for were all missing.
The Bad
I hate to give it to one of the gaming world’s biggest franchises, but the worst video game adaptation, based on storyline, acting and such, has to be Street Fighter, whose cast was headlined by Jean Claude Van Damme. The 1994 flop had so many weak performances it made Van Damme’s acting look halfway decent. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the movie took the coolest part of Street Fighter — the game — out of Street Fighter, the movie. I don’t think I can recall any scene in the film where Guile used his Sonic Boom or Dhalsim breathed fire or Ryu threw a fireball. No powers equals no fun.
The cast of unknowns and has-beens (except for Raul Julia, who was pretty decent) failed to do justice to all these characters who most of us, as kids and even as adults, love. For such a popular game franchise, one would think they’d have a bigger budget, or at least a better script than “mad dictator (Bison) tries to conquer the world, but American soldier (Guile) is there to stop him.”
The Good
I think the critical element that determines a video game adaptation’s success is maintaining the look and feel that gamers have embraced. Otherwise, the movie seems uneven and unfamiliar, and often ends up as a disappointment. The video game franchise that has done this successfully is Final Fantasy, especially with Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.
Advent Children retains the same animated characters that the video game used in its original release back in 1997. Also, the movie is set two years after the game’s storyline ended. This enables the fans of the game to quickly and readily embrace the movie, as it looks and feels like a continuation of a journey they already began.
In fact, Advent Children does not only adopt the same animation style that is used in the video game, it improves on it. The movie looks absolutely gorgeous. The colors are vibrant, the movements are crisp and the action is furious. Gamers and anime fans will enjoy all the well-produced fight scenes, which the game almost entirely left to our imagination.
On looks alone, this is the best video game adaptation ever made. Add to it a fresh, albeit short, storyline, and you’ve got yourself one hell of an animated movie.
Catch the TV premiere of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children on Animax, May 26, Saturday at 8:30 p.m.
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For questions, comments or corrections, please e-mail me at emailcarlramirez@yahoo.com.