Video game movies just ain't great. They've been getting better recently, which I suppose makes sense - games have been growing in maturity, taking more cues from blockbuster films, and in turn the film adaptations of them have been improving. This correlation is not necessarily causation, however. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Assassin's Creed, one of the most cinematic games around, has an incredibly naff adaptation. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Uncharted, one of the few games even more cinematic than AC, has been met with a lukewarm reception ever since Tom Holland wasಞ cas💞t, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:fanfare has continued to fizzle.
Fortunately, the two best video game movies ever - 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Detective Pikachu and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Sonic the Hedgehog - have just been added to Netflix. The thing🧜 is, neither game initially felt particularly suited t🐻o the big screen. So what gives?
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, which is better than it's given credit for, but s🌟🔜till hardly a challenger to Detective Pikachu. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Doom, Alone in the Dark, and Resident Evil all appear too. Fun fact: all of these movies are rubbish.
We all have different opinions, but it's hard to think of any credible challengers to Pikachu and Sonic. In fact, if you Google 'best video game movies', the top results that come up are Free Guy, Gamer, Jumanji, Tron, and Wreck-it-Ralph - all of which are about video games but are not actively based on any existing games. By the time you get to an actual video game movie, it'sWhy are Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog so great then? Detective Pikachu has a decent enough story, but it's hardly the pinnacle of video game narrative, and Sonic lore is just a string of words about gems and space. Yet both movies are spectacular. Perhaps there is a sense of causation after all. Not because blockbuster games have adapted well to the screen, but because in making blockbuster games, gaming has convinced the film world to take them seriously. Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog were just the first ones to get in on the ground floor.
Away from these two, the tide appears to be turning. The 2021 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Mortal Kombat was a significant upgrade from the original flick, while The Last of Us' TV series seems to be shaping up well from the little glimpses we've seen so far. Resideﷺnt Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City also seems to have both a better understanding of the games and generally just not suck like the Jovovich movies, while even Werewolves Within w�🍎�as pretty decent for what it was, earning an impressive 85 percent on Rotten Tomatoes - the highest score ever for a video game movie. Detꦏective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog occupy the s🦂econd and third spots, respectively.
Detective Pikachu works because it's not really a video game movie - it's a good family movie that has Pokemon in it. It takes more cues from something like Despicable Me, or a PG Deadpool, than it does from Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. It isn't trying to be Detective Pikachu, it's trying to be a decent film with loveable characters who just so happen to be Pokemon and it’s geared towards people of all ages. Likewise, Sonic makes virtually no attempt to explain Sonic lore, because it makes no sense and even Sonic fans are exhausted by it. The movie just understands that Sonic is a selling point. Make him funny, make him fast, and you've made a movie. That's what they've done.
This trend looks set to continue too. While we've seen nothing of Super Mario or Borderlands, each 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:boasts an impressive cast - plus 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Chris Pratt as Mario - and gives us reasons to be hopeful. There are still outliers - Monster Hunter follows the footsteps of the old Resi movies, and Uncharted doesn't look very good - but overall, video game movies seem to be decent now. In the years to come, even better ones will emerge, but for now, Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog are the best we've got. If you've given them a miss because video game movies stink, give them a try when they come to Netflix this month. You might be pleasantly surprised.