Leonardo DiCaprio is attached to star in Atari, a pitch that writers Brian Hecker and Craig Sherman sold to Paramount Pictures on Friday about the godfather of the video game industry, Nolan Bushnell. [Story continues]

We can always use more movies about the video game industry, but the concept for the above film catches me a bit by surprise. Of the various video game history books I've read and reviewed, the story of Atari's rise never captured my attention as much as its fall. Atari's story certainly has memorable elements and anecdotes, and Mr. Bushnell's role in the industry was interesting, but I wonder how accurate such a biopic would be when it comes to his recreational management style (ie, allowing employees to be stoned on the job).

Of even greater concern… Leonardo DiCaprio??

What's your reaction to this announcement? Good concept, bad casting? Too soon to tell?

I love the Silent Hill series. Something about how it takes the familiar and makes it perverse is fascinating. I've long believed that video games are a more effective medium than movies in which to portray horror, due to their interactivity: you're not just a passively witness to a murder but an active participant in your own fate.

I still like horror movies but found The Mist a superior adaptation to Silent Hill. So when I found out my friend Lisa was participating in a live action version of the game Silent Hill 2, I was eager to see a more successful translation of the game to film.

The final product proved to be a short film reenacting a particular sequence near the game's end — in particular, one of my favorite scenes:

In just ten minutes, the movie captures many of the elements of the game: the darkness, the despair, the creepy motions of the undead. Even the map that James consults looks authentic, though I'm not sure if it was intended as a parody of the game mechanic. Though the lighting (or lack thereof) is also true to the source material, it's often too dark for us viewers to see anything. And we need to see as much as we can: since the scene is set in the middle of the game, those not familiar with the storyline may be at a loss to understand the film's plot. There are also some jarring transitions (both aurally and visually), which I suppose is inevitable when working within such a tight time constraint. Nonetheless, this is likely the best Silent Hill fanfilm I've ever seen and is certainly more ambitious and coherent than this group's last outing.

For comparison's sake, two of the original CGI scenes upon which the above short is based are after the jump:
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The last time I tried to watch Blade Runner was ten years ago, and its slow pace was unable to retain my attention. To this day, I've never seen director Ridley Scott's masterpiece all the way through.

I'm beginning to rethink this hole in my cinematic education, as both it and its director have made a variety of headlines this year. Blade Runner's 25th anniversary edition hit theaters in 2007, prompting an interview by Xbox Live's Major Nelson, of all people. (That conversation occurs from time indices 48:33 to 52:48 in the linked podcast.) Though it seemed an unlikely meeting of the gaming and film fronts, such reoccurred a few days later when Scott was attached to an upcoming game-to-film adaptation: Monopoly.

Then, courtesy Slashdot, came 1UP.com's look at Blade Runner's influence on video games. Rather than a general look at the two media, the crux of the two-page article occurs on the second page, which outlines eight specific games with obvious stylistic homages to Scott's opus. Some memorable selections include a title for the Apple II; the best adaptation I've encountered of the pen-and-paper RPG Shadowrun; and the newly-released Mass Effect.

With all these confluences, maybe it's time I go back and give Blade Runner a second chance. Or maybe I should read the book instead. In the meantime, I'll observe the influence of the anniversary in my own special way — with a viewing of Aliens vs. Predator.

In 1982, Billy Mitchell set the Donkey Kong world record high score of 874,300. He quickly found fame and fortune when LIFE magazine splashed his face alongside those of other elite gamers considered the greatest of their generation, in a photo-spread in their January, 1983, "Year in Pictures" issue. Many felt his amazing score would never be bested. Then, in 2003, an unassuming science teacher from Redmond, Washington, shattered the long-standing record. In a video-taped performance, Steve Wiebe posted a staggering 1,006,600 points. But there was a problem: the score only counts if it's certified by Twin Galaxies, the self-appointed official keeper of classic video game records. And TG founder and "World's Video Game Referee" Walter Day puts it succinctly: "Twin Galaxies does a lot to promote Billy, because it's to Twin Galaxies' advantage — and very much to the whole gaming hobby's advantage — for Billy to become a star."

Mitchell, a larger-than-life character with a world-class mullet, is a hot sauce mogul and successful restaurateur from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. He's also the self-proclaimed "World's Best Video Game Player". Unfortunately, in The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, the new movie from director Seth Gordon (now in limited release), Mitchell comes off as something of a very big fish in a very small pond: in fact, the only thing big enough to match Billy's legend is his ego. Mitchell's opening line in the movie not only sets the tone for the upcoming competition between Billy and his challenger, lovable loser Steve Wiebe, but also gives us a fascinating glimpse into the psyche of an egomaniac. King of Kong is littered with priceless Mitchell one liners: "He is the person that he is today because he came under the wrath of Bill Mitchell"; "Since I so-called debuted on the scene at LIFE magazine in 1982… there hasn't been anybody who's played even close"; and "Maybe they'd like it if I lose. I gotta try losing some time." With a gaggle of video gamer disciples at his beck and call, including one who considers Billy "the champion" and himself "the prodigy", it's clear that Billy Mitchell is very invested in maintaining the mystique of his image. "Everything about him is perfect; Billy is just that person," proclaims one. Even Walter Day seems entranced by Mitchell's charisma: "There's no reason why Bill Mitchell couldn't end up on a Wheaties box someday."

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Title	:	Resident Evil Apocalypse
Platforms	:	Cinematic
Directed by	:	Alexander Witt
Publisher	:	Sony/Screen Gems
MPAA Rating	:	R
Review by	:	Ken Gagne

2002. Movies continue to be adapted from a variety of sources, such as comic books and video games, with varying degrees of success. A few months before Spider-Man webbed his way into movie history, a landmark video game series made its silver screen debut. 

Capcom, formerly responsible for the travesty that was Street Fighter: The Movie (starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Raul Julia in his last film), returned to theaters with Resident Evil, based on a series of "survival horror" video games that scared a generation of gamers with flesh-eating zombies and undead hounds. Expectations were high; satisfaction proved low. 

2004. Resident Evil: Apocalypse picks up the story where the original ended. Expectations are low: satisfaction is on par. The lack of letdown produces a more acceptable experience, as the film is no better, and possibly worse, than its predecessor. 

The setting for Apocalypse is Raccoon City, where citizens are becoming infested with the T-virus, which reanimates necrotic cells (read: kills people and turns them into zombies). Only a few souls have the means and methods to escape alive. 

In one corner, our returning champion, Alice (Milla Jovovich). Shedding her amnesia from the first film, Alice is a more powerful and confident character this time around, attacking her assailants with gusto. The motivation for this malevolence is a stranger to us, as Alice seems to care for no one and nothing — except possibly revenge on Umbrella, the evil corporation (but then, what cinematic corporation isn't evil?) responsible both for her past injuries and the T-virus itself. 

In the other corner, we have Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory). Like a bad Capcom movie, Jill dresses and looks almost exactly like she does in the video game, albeit with the wrong color hair. This is not the "master of unlocking" we saw in the first RE game, who ran screaming like a girl from the first zombie she saw. But neither is the audience made privy to this cinematic character's background. All we know is that she's a disgraced member of STARS (Special Tactics And Rescue Squad) with some prior experience with the T-virus. Her sauciness serves only to fill the scenes lacking Alice; the two don't complement each other as much as they do duplicate. Normally, two such similar women would be played against each other, but these two are rarely at odds; though such animosity would have been cliche, at least it would have had the characters interacting on some meaningful level. 

We also have two returning characters now played by different actors. The artificial intelligence from the first film, portrayed in avatar as a ten-year-old girl, returns as the actual youngster off whom the A.I. was modelled. 

Though some may consider it a spoiler, anyone who knows saw the end of the first film should've already connected the dots: Matt, Alice's sole surviving partner from the first movie, returns as the mutated killing machine Nemesis. To get a feel for Nemesis' appearance, imagine Mr. Potato Head dressed for the Matrix, and in a leathery suit with less facial expression than a live-action ninja turtle. This "villain" bears similar functionality to Robocop: obeying directives from his superiors and occasionally providing the audience with a view from his perspective, complete with visual data akin to a video game display. 

Here's another missed opportunity for character interaction. The audience knows Matt is Nemesis; does Alice? If she does, we see no indication of such for most of the film. Nemesis is a minor, rarely-seen, non-threatening character — which is odd, he was important enough to earn the subtitle in the movie's source game, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. Alice and Matt's encounters are further limited to fisticuffs, of which there is little in the RE games (due to the lack of thrill in such limited firepower). Does Mr. Potato Head seem like a likely candidate for a boxing match? Give us some Matrix- or Equilibrium-style gunfights! 

Firearms aren't the only things not shooting well: the cameras use the recently popular technique of short, fast cuts from one angle to another. Perhaps this style is meant to suggest the frenetic pace of a battle, but it succeeds only in making such scenes disjointed and hard to follow. Fortunately, such shooting is not as prevalent in Apocalypse as it was in Blade II or The Bourne Supremacy. 

Other effects include frequent flashbacks, either to the first film or to what little time separates it from the sequel. Another scene is almost shot-for-shot the opening from Resident Evil: Code Veronica, which is some creative continuity: the first film was based loosely on the second video game, and this one on the third. Veronica is the fourth game in the series. Where are they going with this? This isn't a tip of the hat to fans of the games; it's a mallet to the head. The film's ending moves quickly with several discrete occurrences and elements that seem far separated from the rest of the film. 

The best effect of the movie was to make me want to play the video games again. The Resident Evil series defined a new genre with its excellent settings and surprises. Sadly, the films have never enjoyed similar artistic success. Apocalypse is not horrifyingly bad, and may be worth a DVD rental, but let the first film be a warning for you to set your expectations appropriately.

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This article is copyright (c) 2004, 2007 by Ken Gagne. All rights reserved. Not to be distributed without permission.

Original publication: Tech News, 21-Sep-04

Title	:	Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
Platform	:	Cinematic
Director	:	Jonathan Mostow
Publisher	:	Warner Home Video
MPAA Rating	:	R
Review by	:	Ken Gagne

The future is dangerously close to becoming the present. But he said he'll be back — and he is. 

Arnold Schwarzenegger returns as the robotic assassin from the future in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. John Connor (Nick Stahl) and Kate Brewster (Claire Danes) will need his protection as they are hunted by the malicious T-X, an advanced model of terminator, played by Kristanna Loken. 

Schwarzenneger is one of the film's few personalities of continuity, as series veterans James Cameron and Linda Hamilton are both absent. Though this film does little to honor its predecessors, it is an enjoyable, action-packed, and even funny film on its own. But fans cursed with the tendency to think too much and over-analyze things might be unsettled by some inconsistencies. 

Having realistic expectations about an unrealistic science is often an exercise in disappointment. Fiction has collectively created many variations of temporal mechanics, and even those that don't make sense can be overlooked when they are used effectively — witness the movie Frequency. So despite the causality loops of the previous films, what we've seen so far in the Terminator series does not prepare us for the new continuity created by T3. 

The events of the series' progenitor engendered both SkyNet and John O'Connor, the leaders of the post-Judgment Day war. T3 terminates this clever poignancy by making SkyNet's existence in dependent of that causality loop. We discover that the second movie's protagonists did not change the future; they simply delayed it, and Connor must again fight to set things right. This defeatist attitude of an inevitable outcome is in sharp contrast to all we've watched Cameron's heroes strive for so far. 

Also, though the future timeline has been altered by past events, Schwarzenegger's terminator is apparently aware of the facts of the first two films, despite this new machine coming from an alternative, and now non-existent, timeline. 

Time travel aside, there were other aspects of T3 to dislike. The new antagonist, the T-X, is much less personable than either Arnold or the T-1000. We see very little interaction between her and other characters, and her ominousness comes primarily from her technological capabilities, not her demeanor; in contrast, Robert Patrick's T-1000 was a wicked and malevolent villain, due not just to Hollywood's then-emerging morphing technology, but the actor's own excellent portrayal. The fist- and gun-fights between Arnold and the T-X are mundane and consist mostly of exchanging blows in turn; there were no real surprises. Even the final showdown between these two characters was anticlimactic. 

There was also a sequence that showed a plane landing and taking off - but the plane we see in these scenes is different from the one we see airborne. Though movies are rife with such minor errors, few are as obvious and unexcusable as this one, which should not have been overlooked by the production crew of a big budget Hollywood film. 

There is still plenty to like about this film, though, including at least one action sequence that is as unforgettable as classic scenes from other Terminator flicks. Rather unusual for the Terminator series was the presence of good amount of humor in this third installment, but its execution was appropriate and realistic and was a funny and original element. 

Overall, T3 was a good film, but I prefer to consider it a "what if?" rather than an actual extension of the first two films. Director Mostow has recreated Cameron's dream in his own image. Is the result a great movie? Yes. A great Terminator film? No.

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This article is copyright (c) 2003, 2007 by Ken Gagne. All rights reserved. Not to be distributed without permission.

Original publication: Boston Beacon, 01-Nov-03

Title	:	Resident Evil
Platforms	:	Cinematic
Director	:	Paul W. S. Anderson
Publisher	:	Columbia Pictures
MPAA Rating	:	R
Review by	:	Ken Gagne

Resident Evil, Capcom's second game series to make the jump to cinema, has nearly become an indelible part of pop culture. Its 1996 launch for the Sony PlayStation defined the "survival horror" video game genre. Unfortunately, its movie counterpart fails to be similarly extraordinary. 

The film Resident Evil resembles the plot from the games, but the details are a good deal different. Columbia Pictures and writer, director, and producer Paul W. S. Anderson (who also directed the movie Mortal Kombat) did not chain themselves to the games' minutia — a trap which snared previous video-game-to-movie adaptations such as Super Mario Bros. and, to an extent, Street Fighter. 

The movie is inspired by the first three Resident Evil games, in which the pharmaceutical/genetics company Umbrella allows an experiment to escape. The first game was set on the outskirts of Raccoon City in an abandoned mansion, where scientists fell victim to a virus that transmutes living organisms into undead zombies. In Resident Evil 2, the virus had spread to the main city, where two strangers became involved in an Umbrella plot gone awry; their escape from the city led them through an Umbrella experimentation installation. The third game in the series was synchronous with its predecessor, following RE1's heroine Jill Valentine as she too made her escape from Raccoon City. 

From setting to climax, the movie is based on Resident Evil 2 most of all. 

The story starts in the afore-mentioned mansion, giving only the briefest of nods to the story's original locale before setting out for the Hive - Umbrella's vast laboratory located beneath Raccoon City. The Red Queen, the advanced artificial intelligence that controls the Hive, has killed everyone in the facility without offering a peep of explanation or justification. This technological killer proves to be only one of several threats the Umbrella special operations squad encounters as they attempt to penetrate the Queen's defenses and determine not only what's happened, but how to rectify the situation — if they can. (Unlike the games, there is no Special Tactics And Rescue Squad, or STARS, of good guys; just Umbrella employees.) 

Our stars are Alice (Milla Jovovich) and Spence (James Purefoy), who spend most of the movie suffering from amnesia. Rather than create suspense, this storytelling device prevents the audience from identifying with the main characters, who have no idea who they are. It seems a waste of the audience's time to wonder which is the hero and which the traitor; such allegiances hardly matter when surrounded by bloodthirsty zombies. 

Zombies, dogs, and "lickers", all common enemies in the games, are in the theatrical version. Hollywood's zombies are hungrier than the PlayStation's ever were, but the licker appears as though a corner or two were cut in its animation process. 

I generally find video games to have a greater capacity for scaring its audience. A movie viewer might identify with the main character, but a gamer becomes the main character, with zombies becoming personal nightmares rather than detached threats. That lack of involvement prevents the atmosphere that worked in the game from necessarily work in the movie. A movie and game that are both extraordinary are such in different fashions, as appropriate to their media. 

Overall, this film is a decent action flick with a hackneyed "infiltrate and escape alive" plot. Fans of the games will enjoy the film, even if, for better or worse, it is not a direct translation.

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This article is copyright (c) 2002, 2007 by Ken Gagne. All rights reserved. Not to be distributed without permission.

Original publication: Sentinel & Enterprise, 25-Mar-02

Title	:	Parasite Eve
Platform	:	DVD
Directed by	:	Masayuki Ochiai
Publisher	:	ADV Films
Rating	:	17+
Review by	:	Ken Gagne

Video games have proven a dubious source of inspiration for films. Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy, two well-known video game series, reached the silver screen this summer with moderate success. Video games and movies do not always inspire each other, though, but sometimes simply share the same source material. 

Parasite Eve was a PlayStation game released in 1998 by Square, the same company that brought us Final Fantasy. It was based on a Japanese novel by Hideaki Sena, as was the 1997 Japanese film Parasaito Ivu, which is now available to American audiences on DVD under the name Parasite Eve. The disc features the original Japanese audio track with subtitles. 

Both adaptations propose a popular hypothesis: that mitochondria, the energy producers of the human cell, were once separate organisms. 200 millennia ago, mitochondria and our cells entered into a parasitic or symbiotic relationship. The question is: what if the mitochondria wanted to be free again? 

Though both the movie and the video game are based on the same source material, I suspect the movie is closer to the original novel, whereas the game is simply "inspired" by it. Deviation from the source should not be taken as a flaw, however. 

Set in New York City and starring police officer Aya Brea, the video game opens on Christmas Eve at an opera house, where the star singer mysteriously sets the audience aflame. Officer Brea proceeds to face a week of deformed animals, strange occurrences, and mysterious flashbacks that lead her to a final showdown with a massive mitochondrial monster threatening to destroy the city. 

The movie takes a slower, more subtle approach to the threat. Other than the title, there are two Eves in this movie. Kiyomi (Riona Hazuki), whose name is the same Japanese character as her birthday, Christmas Eve, is married to the scientist, Dr. Toshiaki Nagashmia (Hiroshi Mikami). The doctor is researching mitochondria, which is inherited from a mother's cells. Toshiaki dubs humanity's first ancestor to have such symbiotic cells "Mitochondria Eve." 

When a sudden accident leaves Toshiaki with a difficult decision to make, he turns his grief into a newfound obsession over his work. His dubious practices and experiments produce a mitochondrial being with the abilities to change shape (think a more transparent Odo from Deep Space Nine) and cause people to spontaneously combust. 

Both game and film adaptations feature lackadaisical endings: the game, with a repetitive, anticlimactic climb of the towering Chrysler Building; the movie, atop a hospital where love proves the strongest energy of all. 

I generally find movies to be more dramatic than games due to the total inability of the viewer to control what's happening. Yet Parasaito Ivu, despite not being a bad film, fails to involve its audience. We feel strangely detached from the girl suffering from kidney failure; the surgeon who lives in shame after a failed operation; or the mourning, depraved widower. The lack of activity in the first hour of this 120-minute film does not help matters. 

Meanwhile, the video game has a plot that progresses slowly but steadily, combining the feel of both the book and cinematic renditions of the story. For example, a scene that occurs halfway through Parasaito Ivu serves as the opening for Parasite Eve. 

Movies often draw fans of their video game counterparts, but in this case, players of Parasite Eve will find little of the game's appeal in the film.

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This article is copyright (c) 2001, 2007 by Ken Gagne. All rights reserved. Not to be distributed without permission.

Original publication: Sentinel & Enterprise, 10-Sep-01