Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is the latest computer-game movie that will have audiences wanting to reboot. For anyone who has been keeping score, this comes as no surprise - a report from Tom Maurstad, The Dallas Morning News.
From Super Mario Bros. in 1993 to Mortal Kombat in 1995 to Wing Commander in 1999, the story of game-inspired movies is, thus far, a short, sad chapter in the history of cinema. Even the genre's one bright spot – thanks to a $23 million opening weekend, Mortal Kombat was briefly the No. 1 movie in the country – is dampened by a dreadful sequel.
And now Tomb Raider can be added to the arcade's lengthening list of losers. With an $80 million price tag and an Academy Award-winning actress in the lead, Tomb Raider is the biggest, flashiest entry yet (at least until the $120 million Final Fantasy comes out later this summer). But for all the high-dollar flash and famous flesh, the song remains the same – dull and tuneless.
It's easy to understand why Hollywood is so eager to absorb computer games as a storytelling source. Gross domestic revenues, according to the Interactive Digital Software Association, are $6 billion, which places the game industry just behind Hollywood's annual take of $7-plus billion. When executives see those kinds of figures being generated by a market made up of that prime demographic of entertainment consumers (18- to 24-year-olds), the word "synergy" flashes to the sound of cash registers ringing.
Adding to the attraction is that Hollywood is doing what it has always done – feeding off other media. Whether it's books, theater or, more recently, a slew of sitcom spin-offs, film is the original unoriginal medium. The problem is that filmmakers are trying to treat computer games as just the latest source to be co-opted. They aren't. Whereas books and theater and television are linear experiences, computer games are spherical experiences – that is, they are designed to move in many directions at once.
And whereas plot and character are central to other entertainment media, they are but ancillary concerns in the gaming world, there to provide texture and depth to an experience rooted in action. Games are all about immersion and intensity and, to use a term worn out by marketers' hype, interactivity. You watch movies (passive); you play games (active).
At its most exciting moments – which are few and brief – Tomb Raider re-enacts the action sequences of the game. Except that in the game, you are the director of the scene, controlling all the action, making all the choices. Watching the movie, then, is like watching someone else play the game – fun for a few minutes, but frustration or tedium quickly takes over. There are some signs to indicate movies and games are moving toward a more successful melding. But you wouldn't know this from watching game-based movies.
The clearest glimpse of movie/ game synthesis that we've been given is The Matrix. It wasn't based on Hollywood's simplistic spin-off formula, and it wasn't a computer game splashed onto the big screen. It's a movie that behaves like a computer game rather than a computer game behaving like a movie.
The viewer is immersed in an alien reality where he must figure out the rules, how to play and how to win. It's a complex lesson in the simple art of having fun.
SOURCE:
www.dallasnews.com
