I don't know if there is an official list of rules as far as making a good movie goes. But if I were to start one, here is the first rule:
Never make a movie based off of a video game.
Making a movie based off of a book series or a comic book series is harder to mess up. The audience already has to try to picture what is happening in the story in their heads based off of the wording and still drawings. It is a lot easier to put those words and drawings into action, as it would only really serve to validate what the audience already pictured.
For whatever reason, either because it is hard to take creative liberties with the plot lines, or the effects are terrible, or the studios are more focused on raking in the dough, movies based off of video games rarely do well with the critics. Let's take a look at some popular video games that had cinematic adaptations go down the toilet.
Super Mario Brothers yielded just a 15 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, which in all honesty may have been generous. None of the Pokemon movies reached 20 percent until Pokemon the Movie: I Choose You! topped out at 33 percent. Only two of these types of movies even reached 50 percent: Tomb Raider and Rampage. Even then, their Metacritic score was still below 50.
One would think that the movie studios would give up on a project like this. Somehow, though, Detective Pikachu got the green light and will be coming out next summer. The live-action adaptation of the Nintendo 3DS game will star Ryan Reynolds as Detective Pikachu (and you know that this would provide some great fodder when and if they make another Deadpool movie) and Justice Smith as Tim Goodman.
Now I think that this movie could actually work. Would it be a cinematic masterpiece? Not by any stretch, but it would certainly perform well with the critics and at the box office.
First of all, you have Ryan Reynolds in it. Reynolds has proven that he can play a wide range of characters and make a wide range of movies successful, from Van Wilder to The Proposal. Of course, you also have the fourth wall breaks in the Deadpool movies.
More to the point, this is going to be a buddy-detective movie with at least a partly believable plot, and the gameplay mechanics actually play into this. A lot of video games don't have the mechanics necessary to turn that into a movie with a solid plot, as their either popular platformers or fighting games. Detective Pikachu follows the gameplay of most detective-mystery games. You're looking for Tim's father, a universally understood and often used plot that could substitute the characters and not change anything. The other half of the plot that makes this a Pokemon game is that, for whatever reasons, a bunch of different Pokemon is going rogue, and you have to figure out why.
Now, I do have some qualms. The animation necessary to bring the Pokemon to life gives them a look that I can only call creepy. It's almost too good quality in that you can see the details in the fur, scales, whatever. That could actually be terrifying to most younger audiences.
Second off, what if they turn this into a cash grab? A lot of movies based off of video games bank on the name recognition, a move that ultimately spells its doom. I would hope that, with how easy the original gameplay mechanics are and the fact that half the plot isn't reliant on the brand name, the producers are successful in making a good movie.
I want to see this trend of awful video game movies end at some point. But with Sonic the Hedgehog in the works, Detective Pikachu will end up being an exception to the rule instead of a reversal.
