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 Jadenim wrote:
I think the best computer game film so far is actually Prince of Persia; it’s no Oscar winner, but it’s good fun and, more importantly, it actually uses the core game mechanic as a key plot point.

Agree on this point. Prince of Persia is a good action adventure movie with a decent cast that somewhat takes things seriously.

For those who say Mortal Kombat, I imagine you have not seen it recently. I watched it a few days ago on Netflix. It is fun and has interesting set design, but it is by no means good. They struggle to jam in everyone's plotline and the ladies in the film can NOT act. That said, the Goro effects still stand the test of time pretty well.

If the bar for good is "Not a total trainwreck" then Mortal Kombat makes the bar, where so many others can not even do that.

A.T. wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
A director who almost made it a specialism to licence video games for the purposes of movie making. I believe he has on occasion been mooted as the worst director of all time.

The tax loopholes he was exploiting required his movies to tank, and he needed marketable names/licences to reach the cash threshold for the tax evasion.

It amuses me that that is essentially the plot of The Producers and if I'd known before he "retired" I could have been persuaded to attempt to campaign to get enough people to watch a film that it made a small profit.

But does making a bad film on purpose make the film less bad?

I've also always felt this was a bit of post hoc ego salving anyway. I mean, structuring the finances for your film to mitigate the damage is sensible, but why pursue recognisable actors and licences if your intentions are not to succeed? That actually works against your alleged best interest. But I've hardly spent hours researching it, so perhaps there's a plausible reason.

The obvious problem with turning games into movies is that the former often have pretty poor plots and even when they have decent plots they're driven by completely different factors than those of movies. On top of that, Hollywood seems to be determined to pick the worst games to try to make movies out of - fighting games and shooters usually don't have the best plots yet fighting games in particular are really popular, probably because they have very distinctive characters. This works the other way too. I find games that try to be more like movies are really, really dull.

That said, I need to vent about the Doom movie. Despite being maligned for its lack of plot and story (including by one of its own creators) the movie version jettisons the plot of the game for something much worse and even more non-sensical. I strongly suspect it was something to do with not wanting to get into the whole demons/Hell stuff for political/religious reasons but it just sucked all the narrative drive out of the film for me.

A.T. wrote:
Tenuous links for Tron (blockade) and Wargames (computerised tic-tak-toe) :p

 Azreal13 wrote:
A director who almost made it a specialism to licence video games for the purposes of movie making. I believe he has on occasion been mooted as the worst director of all time.

The tax loopholes he was exploiting required his movies to tank, and he needed marketable names/licences to reach the cash threshold for the tax evasion.

The tax loophole was just a fan theory From what I can tell, there is a tax loophole that helps motivate investment in the arts in Germany, but as director he got paid the same either way. The loophole was for the investors (who kept coming back to him).

The biggest problem with the fan theory is that his films did not all "tank" -his budgets were kept low enough that it was not very hard to recoup the money and make a profit off of people who were happy to watch trainwrecks.



And there's another version of the Uwe Bol story:

- The story is that he got investors to fund his first original film (which tanked) then he got investors to do House of the Dead (which did well enough to recoup its budget and make a bit of money). After that, he could only get investors interested in his adaptations of video games, and if they had a low enough budget, they could make up the money without being any good (because enough of us are willing to go and see a WTF adaptation from a video game that it is easy for them to end up with enough money to recoup the investment).


The Uwe Bol story ends with a trilogy of original films called Rampage. He liked to say that they were "critically acclaimed" which really means that critics didn't all totally hate them. But he still had trouble getting investment money, so he went to Kickstarter to add some funding for his big climax scene for the third film. When people absolutely did not invest in it, he posted up a video saying "go f*ck yourselves, I quit." He did finish Rampage 3, but he hasn't made any more movies since.

I have watched the video tantrum he threw when he left the film industry for good, and I am convinced that he was sincere. He didn't make his films terrible on purpose, but he was ok with being a guy who made some bad films (I get the impression that he didn't respect the video games he adapted). He was also convinced that his Rampage series was the epitome of high artistic achievement, and he was truly offended when people didn't swarm to his Kickstarter.

I'm pretty sure all his films tanked. Some might have recouped their production budget, but that in no way means they make a profit.

I also think you're crediting him with too much artistic integrity, my general impression is he fully understood the implications of the German tax laws around investing in movies and set out from the get go to exploit them, but I daresay that can't be proven without the man effectively confessing to what could amount to tax fraud.

 Azreal13 wrote:
I'm pretty sure all his films tanked. Some might have recouped their production budget, but that in no way means they make a profit.

I also think you're crediting him with too much artistic integrity, my general impression is he fully understood the implications of the German tax laws around investing in movies and set out from the get go to exploit them, but I daresay that can't be proven without the man effectively confessing to what could amount to tax fraud.

I've looked into it a little bit more. He did confess, in a way. In the commentary for Alone in the Dark, he says

"Maybe you know it but it's not so easy to finance movies in total. And the reason I am able to do these kind of movies is I have a tax shelter fund in Germany, and if you invest in a movie in Germany you get basically fifty percent back from the government."

That's not tax fraud, but with incentives like that, angel investors would continue to support him (angel investors are investors who prefer to give the money away because otherwise it will go to taxes).

But the German government closed that loophole the next year in 2006 and Uwe Bol kept getting investors and kept making films for another decade.


Both stories can be true (investors were taking advantage of the German laws, but were still more willing to invest in a video game adaptation rather than Boll himself).


Generally, the way that investors look at films like his is for them to fund ten of them and if one of those films takes off, it makes up the money spent on the other nine that weren't profitable. So losing money isn't a big problem so long as investors think there's a strong enough possibility that his next one might take off.

Gitzbitah wrote:
Karl Urban and the Rock are worth the price of admission for Doom (I know, not his best film- but way better than Scorpion King).

I disagree. The Scorpion King with commentary from The Rock himself is fething hilarious.

"And you see in the background the dancing woman with the fake breasts which were perfectly common in 6000 BC."

LOL! I must admit I did not view it with commentary- I imagine he could save it.

oh aye film accoutancy is one of the darker fiscals arts, i think it was the first Burton Batman didnt make a profit on paper for at least a decade

and in my old HMRC minion job there was a period where anything mentioning film finance or investment got referred to technically trained inspectors for the once over, so suspect Mr Boll was amongst many making use of wobbly RAW tax rules

Just out of curiosity how did the scam work?

OK so rich German dude invests a million Euros in Boll's picture and gets to deduct it from his taxes.

The picture never makes money so the investor never gets his money back. So instead of going to the government his money went to Boll.

OK I can see Boll pulling that off once or twice to enrich himself, but what was the benefit to investors? Just the hope that Boll's never movie would make a profit?

Percentages, if memory serves?

I’m not terribly clouded up about it, but I am aware of various complaints about film making tax loopholes at my work (I specialise in a different area)

However it works, it does work. That’s why HMRC decided to launch investigations into various such film funds, and people were issued with tax bills.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Essentially it seems to be the classic result of ever more labyrinthine tax rules, creating conflicts and loopholes all over the shop. Especially when said rules are consulted on by Tax ‘Efficiency’ Firms.

Some of the issues crop up when the films simply never materialised.

Ok OK OK!
Hear me out....Super Mario Bros.
That movie is pure 80s schlock and it rocks for it. Yeah it was made release in 93...but it's a film throughout rooted in 80s crust punk and it is a blast.

I particularly enjoyed Doom as an effort.

Given the games are One Nutter Against Hell, they can be forgiven for doing a bit of world building. But the First Person bit where Karl Urban has a wee Rampage was immense fun, and did evoke memories of playing Doom II.

And hey, Karl Urban is always good value in any film.

Does Twitter / Facebook count as a game ?

If so the Black Mirror episode Nosedive might qualify, really unsettling what if premise pondering if social media actually had a bearing on the real world, heck I even tolerated Bryce, plus it has a happy ending

So yeah the plot of the Producers (Mel Brooks film and musical) was they got people to invest millions more than they needed then planned to disappear with the money after the show flopped.

They weren't planning to make a dozen plays over the course of decade, so why did people keep investing? Was it just that it was a no lose proposition, pay the money to Boll and maybe you'll get a profit, or pay it as taxes and never get it back (directly, barring intangibles like an educated society or safe streets)?

My thoughts on some of the films mentioned so far....

Doom: acceptably cheesy and fun (though it was neutered a bit by the not having actual demons thing as mentioned in a previous post.

Super Mario bros: meh...always a fan of Bob Hoskins ever since The Long Good Friday, but what they did to the story? nah..

Silent Hill: Fair play, acting not the greatest but an enjoyable film that certainly nails the atmosphere (never thought of Johnny cash`s "Ring of Fire" the same way since)

And now the elephant in the room.....

ANYTHING by Mr Uwe Boll.....
So I was born tail end of the seventies, by the early nineties I was gaming age and loved me some point and click adventures etc. Imagine how happy I was to find out there was a film of ole Mr Edward Carnby and his paranormal investigations.

Oh dear, OOOHHH deary me.... Mr Slater, WHAT the heck happened to your career man?!!"!!!

From there, things just get worse.

I once tried to sit through Postal with some friends for a laugh (heavily propped up by a quantity of beverage made of apples {well, mostly apples }

Didn't make it through 20 mins even being completely blotto it was still awful.

Then I got suckered into watching In The Name of the King as i am a big fan of both Dungeon Siege and "The Stath". You`d think i would've known by now....
I honestly cant decide if i think its worse than the first Dungeons and Dragons movie (which frankly should be burnt for crimes against the fantasy genre).

Its not like I have high standards (hello "The Meg" and I am currently on a quest to watch every Roger Corman movie i can find again..last week was Galaxy of Terror and now i need to bleach my brain...if you have seen it, you will know why).

But good god Boll cant even do "so bad its funny properly". The man just seems to be on a mission to destroy every game I loved as a kid.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Ok OK OK!
Hear me out....Super Mario Bros.
That movie is pure 80s schlock and it rocks for it. Yeah it was made release in 93...but it's a film throughout rooted in 80s crust punk and it is a blast.

I always kind of liked the SMB movie. I don't know if I'd try to convince anyone it's a good movie, let alone a good video game movie, but watching the cast deliberately (I hope) ham it up is entertaining, and the effects for the goombahs and Yoshi are pretty good. I can never not crack a smile at the elevator sequence where Mario and Luigi escape by getting the goombah guards into the musak and dancing with eachother.

Also: Was Not Was.

To be honest, I think making it anything remotely like the SMB games at the time wouldn't have improved it. As Slipspace said...

Not movie per-sea, but...

The Witcher series on Netflix wasn’t bad. Once you figured out that the episodes were non-linear in time. Which they kinda dropped the ball on. None of the normal “this is a separate time” cues (different seasons, hairstyles, outfits). I know when the main characters are ageless, it makes it a little harder, but going in without playing the game fist, it took a while to catch on.

I’ve since played the game (most of the way through Witcher 3 now) and it seemed to do a decent job capturing the themes.

 Nevelon wrote:
Not movie per-sea, but...

The Witcher series on Netflix wasn’t bad. Once you figured out that the episodes were non-linear in time. Which they kinda dropped the ball on. None of the normal “this is a separate time” cues (different seasons, hairstyles, outfits). I know when the main characters are ageless, it makes it a little harder, but going in without playing the game fist, it took a while to catch on.

I’ve since played the game (most of the way through Witcher 3 now) and it seemed to do a decent job capturing the themes.

I loved that series. But I only read the books, never played the game. The Tv series is a very loyal adaptation of the novels, especially the first book, and all the people I know who criticized the series were fan of the videogames.

 Blackie wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
Not movie per-sea, but...

The Witcher series on Netflix wasn’t bad. Once you figured out that the episodes were non-linear in time. Which they kinda dropped the ball on. None of the normal “this is a separate time” cues (different seasons, hairstyles, outfits). I know when the main characters are ageless, it makes it a little harder, but going in without playing the game fist, it took a while to catch on.

I’ve since played the game (most of the way through Witcher 3 now) and it seemed to do a decent job capturing the themes.

I loved that series. But I only read the books, never played the game. The Tv series is a very loyal adaptation of the novels, especially the first book, and all the people I know who criticized the series were fan of the videogames.

Never played the game or read the books - watched two episodes and gave up on it - could not stand the incredably annoying bard guy, the cos play armour and didn't really like anyone.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
So yeah the plot of the Producers (Mel Brooks film and musical) was they got people to invest millions more than they needed then planned to disappear with the money after the show flopped.

They weren't planning to make a dozen plays over the course of decade, so why did people keep investing? Was it just that it was a no lose proposition, pay the money to Boll and maybe you'll get a profit, or pay it as taxes and never get it back (directly, barring intangibles like an educated society or safe streets)?

Yeah. The Producers was about fleecing the investors.

Get their money, and then some. Each has an identical investment agreement, where if the play succeeds, the Investor gets say 75% of all takings (can’t remember the amount in the film). But if it flops, their investment is lost, and no repayment needs to happen.

Hence the effort to make the worst possible play imaginable, a sure fire loser.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
Not movie per-sea, but...

The Witcher series on Netflix wasn’t bad. Once you figured out that the episodes were non-linear in time. Which they kinda dropped the ball on. None of the normal “this is a separate time” cues (different seasons, hairstyles, outfits). I know when the main characters are ageless, it makes it a little harder, but going in without playing the game fist, it took a while to catch on.

I’ve since played the game (most of the way through Witcher 3 now) and it seemed to do a decent job capturing the themes.

I loved that series. But I only read the books, never played the game. The Tv series is a very loyal adaptation of the novels, especially the first book, and all the people I know who criticized the series were fan of the videogames.

Never played the game or read the books - watched two episodes and gave up on it - could not stand the incredably annoying bard guy, the cos play armour and didn't really like anyone.

This is something I'd never do, if I start a tv series (or a movie, book, videogame, etc...) then I must finish it. I remember that after 2-3 episodes of Game of Thrones I said: why on Earth I decided to watch this trash? In the end it became one of my favorite series

But I also think that the first episode of The Witcher is probably the highest moment of 1st season and if you didn't like that you probably wouldn't enjoy the following episoeds.

the Castlevania series on netflix kicks ass, IMO.

the_scotsman wrote:
the Castlevania series on netflix kicks ass, IMO.

yarp still think Alacard got a bit short changed with his s3 plot but i guess making mooching in a castle interesting isnt easy even with bewbs and betrayal

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Yeah. The Producers was about fleecing the investors.

Get their money, and then some. Each has an identical investment agreement, where if the play succeeds, the Investor gets say 75% of all takings (can’t remember the amount in the film). But if it flops, their investment is lost, and no repayment needs to happen.

Hence the effort to make the worst possible play imaginable, a sure fire loser.

A bit more subtle, you see Zero Mostel/Nathan Lane selling 10% of the profits here, 25% there, and it's only after a minute you realize he's sold like 500% of his profits in 5 minutes.

But I gather that was not Boll's plan, he wasn't pocketing the investor's money. So what exactly was it?

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Yeah. The Producers was about fleecing the investors.

Get their money, and then some. Each has an identical investment agreement, where if the play succeeds, the Investor gets say 75% of all takings (can’t remember the amount in the film). But if it flops, their investment is lost, and no repayment needs to happen.

Hence the effort to make the worst possible play imaginable, a sure fire loser.

A bit more subtle, you see Zero Mostel/Nathan Lane selling 10% of the profits here, 25% there, and it's only after a minute you realize he's sold like 500% of his profits in 5 minutes.

But I gather that was not Boll's plan, he wasn't pocketing the investor's money. So what exactly was it?

Unfortunately (and against all evidence to the contrary) its that Boll considers himself a genuine artist (hell, he even had a damn boxing match against one of his critics to defend his films..cant direct worth a damn but kinda decent in the ring amazingly..just google Uwe Boll Boxing Critic if you don't believe me).

I've seen a number of interviews with him and he genuinely believes he makes good films and no one else understands them.

I mean, I respect the man for having his dignity and standing by his decisions, but lord knows he has a habit of misunderstanding source material and situation equivalent to the famous "Peace in our Time" speech (this is history everyone, and an example of how it is important to learn, so you can make obscure references on internet forums ).

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Just out of curiosity how did the scam work?

From what I understand it was fairly standard 'hollywood accounting'.
I believe the general idea was that the cost to the investors (after they had written off as much of the investment as their accountants could manage) would be less than the value of the tax break they recieved.

Broadly.

The whole idea seems to revolve around the German law had two things going for it: there was no tax liability on an investor unless the film made money (and it was a tax write off if it made a loss) and, what I think is most important, it did not stipulate that the film must be made in Germany.

Therefore they could make the film somewhere like Georgia which also offered tax incentives (as long as you made the film there) and the subsequent double dipping meant the amount spent on paper was a chunk less than the actual outlay.

So the investors didn't in fact make money off the project, but by investing reduced their tax outlay, which is effectively the same thing.

Boll had his own fund by all accounts, which allowed him to invest in his own pictures, and presumably paid himself a salary from a limited liability corporation's books set up specifically to produce the movie.

There's probably something I've missed, but I think that's the concept.

 Blackie wrote:
Wreck It Ralph is a masterpiece, and its sequel is also a very good movie. It's not a real adaptation from a videogame though.

I like Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Tomb Raider (2018). Street Fighter actually works as a funny B-movie. Resident Evil 2 was kinda meh, but I still appreciated.

I didn't like Assassin Creed, Doom, Hitman (2007), both Jolie's Tomb Raiders, Mortal Kombat Annihilation, Need for speed, Prince of Persia, Resident Evil 3-6, Warcraft.

Absolutely hated Alone in the dark, Bloodrayne, House of the dead, Rampage, In the name of the king, Super Mario Bros.

Among those movies that I have seen my favorite is definitely Tomb Raider (2018) and the worst is Along in the dark.

The only games I've played extensively among those titles are Max Payne, Hitman and Bloodrayne. I did some games with Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter and Doom when I was a child.

House of the Dead provided only one good thing, and that was the nudity. That's pretty damning. Or beneficial depending on your view. Especially given my favorite Smallville actress was one of those instances. Still not worth suffering through the whole movie, though.


Also I'd like to add Mortal Kombat: Annihilation solely for the Johnny Cage death scene. I may put that on infinite loop the next time I need to hit the elliptical.

Alone in the Dark is a movie in which no actor is ever alone or in the dark. My group of friends collectively refer to it as Grouped in the Light.