Video game movies keep relying on the wrong kind of violence

polygon.com:

For most of their brief history, video game movies have been laughed at by fans and movie enthusiasts alike. Recent TV megahits like The Last of Us and Prime Video’s Fallout prove video games can be effectively adapted as TV shows, but video game movies mostly remain a blotchy chimera. From the neck down, they sport the lumps and limbs of action movies. But these films’ brains are merged with the source material. When a video game movie like the lackluster Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li confuses the original’s story or gets its ineffable vibe wrong, the whole thing collapses under its own weight. The catalyst for this failure, usually, is the specific way video game movies depend on violence: It’s hardly ever the right kind.

The filmmakers behind video game movies tend to act like nervous parents, peeking through their fingers at Call of Duty snipers and Mortal Kombat beheadings, guessing that all video games are essentially blood-and-guts time bombs. Assuming that all players want from games-turned-movies is to witness destruction, directors lean on impressive stunts and gore to make their movies. But they miss that the most successful video game violence is thoughtful, too.

Cinema knows violence well. Even films from the birth of the medium could make audiences sweat, showcasing train robbers with polite-looking pistols that still seemed menacing on screen. Artificial violence, scientists think, provides us with safe, pleasurable adrenaline hits, and filmmakers have spent a century satisfying that innate craving for thrills. After a century of trial and error, perfecting tension and fake blood, we’re left with a modern movie landscape dominated by Marvel movies and expert action directors like Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino, the Wachowskis, and John Woo. They serve up glass-shattering fight sequences as nonchalantly as baby food.

This landscape produces tons of video game films like The Super Mario Bros. Movieand 2016’s totally forgettable Assassin’s