District 9: Proof that We Will Never Have a Good Video Game Movie?
Okay, its been a while (which saying that sadly reminds me of that awful song from a few years back). Anyway, I'm here to do another pseudo-movie review where I don't actually review the movie I just watched. Confused? Good.
So I saw District 9 about a week ago. If you don't know what that movie is you are seriously out of the loop (and you didn't read my movie preview list which hurts). This movie is being hailed by some as a Sci Fi master piece. If you don't like Sci Fi, GET OVER IT ALREADY! Sorry about the rage. Anyway. I've seen it and it is quite good folks. My favorite part might be the fact that the trailers ruin almost zero plot for you.
There are essentially two tales at the heart of District 9: a sort of beauty and the beast love story and a father and son story. Ultimately it will be the father and son story that warms your heart mostly because you don't expect it to. The movie does a fantastic job of taking a realistic approach to aliens suddenly showing up on Earth. The surprisingly believable take on something so ridiculous really sucks you in (or sucked me in at least). And if you aren't impressed by the characters or story, you should at least be quite entertained by the expert craftsmanship of this movie (along with its fantastic action). The movie looks and sounds incredible. Sadly, this makes the movie a bitter sweet experience for people like me, and here is why.
District 9 is made by the exact same team that was set to make a movie for the Halo video game series. Now despite not owning an X Box, I have always enjoyed Halo and the series has huge potential for a movie (much like District 9, it involves humans vs. aliens but on a grander scale). After seeing District 9 I have almost zero doubt that the Halo movie would have been incredible. Sadly the movie didn't happen because one of the studios funding the project pulled out and everything collapsed. All of these terrible terrible movies based on video games are released every year and the one that has a chance to be great falls apart! What are the odds?
Video games have yet to have a movie that is above mediocre. Believe me when I say there are video games out there that have great stories and beautiful artwork but so many will never know. People like Roger Ebert will continue their reign of hate against video games because all they see is trash like Doom or the live action Super Mario Brothers movie (shudder), and that is truly tragic.