Where is the age of video game adaptations?
This is the story of a young man (Aaron Paul) who, to avenge the death of his friend (Harrison Gilbertson) decides to drive at high speed in a Shelby Mustang from New York to California to challenge Dino (Dominic Cooper) for one last race.
Need for Speed, directed by Scott Waugh, might be the first decent video game movie adaptation of the last decade. But why are good video game adaptations so rare? What is keeping Hollywood from investing in such a prolific domain?
The gaming universe has an infinite source of material yet to be explored by filmmakers and, like the universe of comic books, it has millions of followers. Superheroes have currently replaced the apocalyptic blockbusters genre of the 90s and yet there might be a time when video game adaptations could take the lead. The only problem is that the few films like Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia and Resident Evil that worked well at the box office are exceptions: most video game adaptations are easily forgotten or massacred by fan reviews. To name some: In The Name of the King, Alone in the Dark, Far Cry or the one that everybody tries to forget, Final Fantasy. Plot unintelligibility, terrible visual effects and blank characterisations are just some of the traits they share.
The answer seems to hide behind the camera: filmmakers do not seem to care or have a great knowledge of video games they are adapting. In contrast, comic books usually face a debate about how to find a good balance between satisfaction of the readers and the critics who would not accept a blank cinematic reproduction of comic strips.
Superheroes have currently replaced the apocalyptic blockbusters genre of the 90s and yet there might be a time when video game adaptations could take the lead.
Another important issue is the running time of the film. The universe of a game is so vast that it is sometimes impossible to reduce seven or ten hours of gameplay into a two hour long movie that would manage to balance plot, character dialogue and fun action sequences. Prince of Persia is probably the best example of such a failure: the Persian world is rich and dark; the characters, both evil and good, are powerful and interesting and yet the adaptation was blunt and silly even if easily enjoyable.
Moreover, it was distributed by Walt Disney Pictures and directed specifically at children. This limited the experience for a lot of the gamers who expected a fantastic but also sinister universe. Even though it failed as an adaptation, it had the advantage of credible action sequence; and in the end it also became the highest grossing video game adaptation ever made with a worldwide income of $335 million.
Need for Speed came out on the 12th of March and has already had many negative reviews. Yet most critics do not consider its importance for the gaming universe. To understand this, the audience should consider the fact that originally Need for Speed does not have a coherent plot and the film tried really hard to create one that could integrate references from the game: for this it was already a success. Instead of being restricted by the game’s universe, Scott Waugh decided to expand it. He injected a dose of realism: most races were actually performed and the editing clearly enhances the experience by cutting out the music and allowing us to enjoy the sound of tires squealing against the concrete.
Yet what is the future of video game adaptations? In the past few years we have entered an era where video games try imitating cinema more and more. We embarked on an emotional journey with the characters and we got to feel what they felt and cry with them when the journey came to an end. One might even argue that some video games improved so much that it has become impossible to adapt them: think about the interactive Heavy Rain, the highly cinematic Uncharted 2 or even the recent Grand Theft Auto V. In the next few years we will see several video game adaptations come to life: Uncharted, Assassin’s Creed, Kane and Lynch and also Warcraft in 2016 and there have been some rumours about The Last of Us.
It is still too soon to speculate about how they are going to influence the genre, though hopefully one day the video game adaptations will be able to stand up against those of comic books.
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