Through the years, Hollywood has been trying to reach out to gaming community. Although in the past they have not succeeded too well when converting video games into movies, most of the time they had been flops. Recently this past summer Warcraft was released and came out with mixed reviews from the gaming community and with the release of Assassin’s Creed we are potentially entering into the year of video game movies. Depending on the success of these two movies we may see more video game movies in the near future.
Looking back at Warcraft the story was loosely adapted on the very first game of World of Warcraft. Personally, I liked this movie, it had a story that was easy to follow, it didn’t leave you questioning what was going on, and the action in the movie was not overly done or under done, it was simply balanced. According to outside sources the reason I liked the movie is because I didn’t play the game. Although this may be true, I feel that the movie still would have been liked. Looking at the movie as a whole it was very good for a video game adaptation. The style was done well, the script was written well, and the acting was done exceptionally well. These three factors make a good movie. From the thoughts of those who played the game and saw the movie many of them agreed that the story was done well, but there were some who played the game and saw the movie that disagreed so the mixed reviews to this movie did not help. This ended making the movie lean more toward the flop section.
We the gaming community are now relying on Assassin’s Creed to be good. If the movie is successful, then I definitely see video game movies popping up more and more next year and the year after. From the trailers, we can see that this movie has not only excellent well-known actors, hello Jeremy Irons for crying out loud, but the real reason this movie has potential is because it has such a strong director. Justin Kurzel directed the new and very successful Macbeth last year and Snowtown in 2011. If he made both these movies well and the artistic style was very pleasing I have faith that Assassin’s Creed is going to be very successful and that we will see the future of video game movies.
While I don’t believe 2017 and 2018 are going to be littered with video game movies, I would like to see more of them. I truly think movie adaptation is a good road to travel but it must be done correctly. The acting first and foremost needs to be good. The story needs to follow similarly to the story of the original game, but can have SOME leeway when it comes to adaptation. The only problem that will forever hinder the video game movie industry is the fact that every gamer is a major critic. If it didn’t happen the same way it happened in the game, then they won’t like it. So, gamers, when going to see Assassin’s Creed don’t expect the exact same thing to happen in the movie that happened in the game, expect change and accept the change.
