10 Commandments All Movies Should Obey

10. If You Can't Make Your Video Game Movie A Big Action-Fest, Don't Make It At All

I'll cut to the chase with this one - Criticize the "Resident Evil" films all you want, but they GET it. I show up to a "Resident Evil" film knowing four things: 1. Milla Jovovich's Alice will probably look pretty good in most of what she barely wears. 2. Ali Larter will probably annoy me a lot less than she did in "Heroes". 3. Things will get biologically messed up, there'll be a lot of violent (mostly zombie) deaths in the struggle to keep our protagonists alive, and wherever they are will probably explode. 4. Nothing will get resolved. Again. Numbers 3 & 4 are critical (Although #1 is quite nice, and #2 is a blessing). You don't sit down to play "Resident Evil" for the cut scenes. Unless you're either drunk or a glutton for punishment, of course - They're at best perfunctory, and at worst some of the most terribly voice acted in their genre. The deal with those games is this - You show up expecting to mess bad things up and hopefully survive. And even then, you don't expect to fix anything permanently. There'll be a game sequel and it's better to just acknowledge that than to start off messing up the world again from scratch. Sound familiar? It's pretty much a rough description of every "Resident Evil" movie. Pedants and purists may snipe at me in the comments, but let's face facts: People keep seeing these movies, and considering they're video game-inspired that's quite impressive. Considering what they've come to expect is usually, oh, Super Mario Bros, Doom, Something they can blame Uwe Boll for, Mortal Kombat..... Let's be blunt - For the most part, none of those made anyone happy. Hey! I hear you say. What about "Tomb Raider"? It even got a sequel! Uh huh. There's one, maybe two reasons I can think of that that happened.

Angelina Jolie is part of it. She was pretty much at her apex of public interest for being hot/crazy/desirable when those films came out, and they pretty much guaranteed her wardrobe would be limited to the "plunging neckline/cameltoe-inducing" variety. They've been threatening a reboot for awhile, but I guarantee that they won't find someone who's mere appearance will guarantee as good an opening weekend. Second, they DID pump some big-budget action into those films. Having Jon Voight and Jolie DID mean that there needed to be some "acting" and "development" too....but I'm sure it was never a high priority. And I'm sure none of you rushed out to get those in your Blu-ray collection, either. Video game movies are going to most appeal to the VIDEO GAME'S FANS. They're going to want to see that world presented well, and that's usually not a film required to work on multiple levels - You really only need to make the protagonist likeable, have a reasonably acted plot setup, and get on with getting to all those nightmares on legs in Silent Hill. (Another film that kinda got it.) What most people DON'T want to see in video game films are slow plot buildup scenes (usually an indicator that the budget can only afford a film that's 25% action tops), "Reinventions" of their game characters (Memo: King Koopa does NOT resemble Dennis Hopper on the console - So don't do that onscreen!), or cheesy stock horror scenes that even the latter-day Hellraiser franchise wouldn't touch (Basically any Uwe Boll, so I'll pick on, oh, "House of the Dead"). Most video game movies are adapting action-based games. So give us action based movies that look like or even BETTER the game's world. Do it right, and we, the audience, will reward the makers with a franchise. You'll probably even be able to afford bringing that supermodel-type back as the lead every time.