In Laman's Terms: Why Are Video Game Movies So Cursed?

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In Laman's Terms is a weekly editorial column where Douglas Laman rambles on about certain topics or ideas that have been on his mind lately. Sometimes he's got serious subjects to discuss, other times he's just got some silly stuff to shoot the breeze about. Either way, you know he's gonna talk about something In Laman's Terms!

Today, I shall deliver a hot take so fantastically scalding hot that it shall stir up eons of controversial social media discourse. Hold onto your seats folks for this cutting-edge hot take: most video game movies have been bad. Limiting ourselves to live-action American film adaptations of video games, this subgenre really has been the pits ever since it kicked off with twenty-six years ago with Super Mario Bros., the rare piece of Mario-branded pop culture to be an out-and-out flop. Since then, the amount of notably video game movies has stacked up like pancakes on a Monday morning at Ihop. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Assassin's Creed, anything Uwe Boll directed, the mind reels at how many bad pieces of cinema have emerged from the video game movie subgenre.

A Simple Favor Is A Delightfully Unhinged Comedic Thriller

A Simple Favor is the latest in a long line of movies to be woefully mismarketed. Conventional trailers and commercials for the latest Paul Feig directorial effort try to portray the feature as being in the vein of recent financially lucrative Fall thrillers like The Girl On The Train and Gone Girl, but A Simple Favor is far different than those two movies. Instead of being a straightforward dramatic thriller, A Simple Favor is instead a movie that is to loopy thrillers what Rampage was to big monster movies, a big-budget star-studded homage to that just revels in all kinds of trashy twists and "Gotcha!" shock moments. Also like Rampage, A Simple Favor is super fun to watch.

The Ways That Obvious Child Excels Are....Apparent

Why don't we talk about Obvious Child more? I know the film garnered acclaim in its initial theatrical release in June 2014, but man, I feel like writer/director Gillian Robespierre's work here deserves so much more recognition than it's gotten in the four years since it first came out. With Obvious Child, she's created such an entertaining and wonderfully low-key character study bolstered by a terrific performance from Jenny Slate. To boot, this movie is all about lending humanity to a scenario that's usually reserved as a go-to plot twist in a bad melodrama or as a source of villainy in a dreadful Christian movie starring Kevin Sorbo.

Rampage Is Totally Bananas And More Often Than Not, That's A Good Thing

Yes, as you've heard ad nauseum at this point, Rampage is indeed the best video game movie of all-time. That's akin to saying something is the best post-1991 Terminator sequel in that the bar of quality to clear is so low it's comical, but yes, Rampage is indeed the new champion among video game movies. Unfortunately, it doesn't achieve this distinction by proving that video game movies can be great cinema like Spider-Man did for comic book movies back in 2002, but it does manage to be far better than the rest of its brethren by simply being goofy fun and good Lord is this movie ever goofy, sometimes to an utterly bizarre degree.

Dwayne Johnson And San Andreas Director Prepare For A Rampage

Remember when I talked about how video game movies were about to hit the big time next year with 2016 releases like Assassin Creed, Ratchet & Clank and Warcraft? Well, it looks like another big time video game can be added to the slate, with this one, an adaptation of the game Rampage, being planned for 2017. That year will also bring a new Laura Croft movie from MGM and Warner Bros. and I doubt these two will wind up being the only video game movies in 2017.