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It appears that Detective Pikachu may be the first videogame movie to achieve fresh status according to rotten tomatoes among critics, though a few others (Warcraft, Rampage, Resident Evil, Silent Hill) did so with audiences. Its also rare for them to be box office successes either. But why? Its true that videogames generally aren't known for their plot or characters or setting... but some are. And its not like for every good book, manga, TV show, classic old movie, etc etc, that there aren't a sea of mediocre and bad ones too.
I mean I guess you could argue that the things which make a videogame successful aren't the things that would make it suitable for film adaptation, whereas the things that make more literary mediums successful are more liable to... but from that perspective there is lots of schlocky works that in turn get schlocky adaptations that make piles of money too, and even schlocky movies can get favorable reviews for that matter. Reminder that with Detective Pikachu we're up to a grand total of 3 videogame adaptations with better RT reviews than friggin Twilight... most can't even beat Fifty Shades of Grey, an adaptation of a hastily reskinned Twilight fanfic. And these days comic book movies, which were once seen as little better than videogame adaptations, have become a sizable fraction of all box office returns and in many cases see wide critical acclaim. I mean in truth I could buy an argument like maybe the limitations of the source medium means "most videogame movies suck", I'd expect a few solid ones, just like even before the 21st century you had a few movies like the 1989 Batman one. Its one thing to be bad, another thing to be so resoundingly consistently bad.
Also what is it that you would want from a videogame adaptation that isn't being provided? Besides you know, not this:
Personally I'd say that live-action is often a mistake. Basically any 'mascot' videogame (ie a lot of the more popular and iconic ones) should probably be CGI or handdrawn, both because it reflects the source material better and allows for the exaggerated surreal aspects of those games, but also because while videogames are for everyone now, they were for kids first and foremost, especially the 'mascot' games. Live action works better for settings deal with more serious things like giant monsters wrecking shit or just featuring characters that look more like actual humans.
I mean I guess you could argue that the things which make a videogame successful aren't the things that would make it suitable for film adaptation, whereas the things that make more literary mediums successful are more liable to... but from that perspective there is lots of schlocky works that in turn get schlocky adaptations that make piles of money too, and even schlocky movies can get favorable reviews for that matter. Reminder that with Detective Pikachu we're up to a grand total of 3 videogame adaptations with better RT reviews than friggin Twilight... most can't even beat Fifty Shades of Grey, an adaptation of a hastily reskinned Twilight fanfic. And these days comic book movies, which were once seen as little better than videogame adaptations, have become a sizable fraction of all box office returns and in many cases see wide critical acclaim. I mean in truth I could buy an argument like maybe the limitations of the source medium means "most videogame movies suck", I'd expect a few solid ones, just like even before the 21st century you had a few movies like the 1989 Batman one. Its one thing to be bad, another thing to be so resoundingly consistently bad.
Also what is it that you would want from a videogame adaptation that isn't being provided? Besides you know, not this:
Personally I'd say that live-action is often a mistake. Basically any 'mascot' videogame (ie a lot of the more popular and iconic ones) should probably be CGI or handdrawn, both because it reflects the source material better and allows for the exaggerated surreal aspects of those games, but also because while videogames are for everyone now, they were for kids first and foremost, especially the 'mascot' games. Live action works better for settings deal with more serious things like giant monsters wrecking shit or just featuring characters that look more like actual humans.
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