Video Game Movies: The Nail in Geek Chic’s Coffin?

by Shawn Lampron | Monday, August 3, 2009

For years, geek pontiffs have been waiting for the bubble to burst.  After a dark period in the late nineties when Marvel almost collapsed into bankruptcy, geeks have virtually ruled the world.  In an unexpected golden period, we’ve seen comic-based movies of unparalleled quality and care.  Men and women who look like models, Kate Beckinsale and Ryan Reynolds for a few examples, have admitted desire to star in geek projects and publicly revealed themselves as fans.  The San Diego Comic Con is attended by Johnny Depp.  Hell, we even have a Spider-Man fan in the White House.

For every boom, though, there’s a bust.  That previously mentioned downturn in the late nineties came after another big period of geekiness.  For comics, it was the speculation/collector boom and the rise of Image Comics.  For movies, there was a wave of geek-related movies.  However, unlike the quality movies we’ve been receiving based on comics, kids of that generation, like yours truly, suffered through video game adaptations.

The progenitor of this awful movement granted me the wonderful still under the title of this article.  Super Mario Brothers: The Movie was a movie that was so bad that even at the tender age I first viewed it, I felt nauseous.  This opinion was coming from a young boy who loved Muppet Babies and thought the best movies in the world starred Jean Claude Van Damme.  The shit storm continued with movies that weren’t quite as noxiously bad, but helped to contribute to the geek collapse of the nineties: Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat.

Why is this important?  With the huge influx of comic properties already out and being churned out over the next few years, everybody has waited for the crowds to start suffering from indigestion over these huge helpings of geekiness.  I’m going to put my geeky reputation on the line and state that I don’t think comic movies will cause the collapse.  Fanboys like myself and people with feelings of nostalgia will never fail to show up for these movies as long as the quality continues.  Instead, I think it will be the next wave of video game movies.

Now, you may be thinking that it may have already started.  True, some people have suffered through the Resident Evil movies, abominations desecrating my most favorite of games.  Hell, I hear some people have actually seen Bloodrayne, Hitman, and Max Payne and lived to tell the tale.  However, the glut of video game movies is coming.  There are reports of everything from Gears of War to World of Warcraft hitting the screen.  Wait for the other shoe to drop, fellow geeks.

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