Having been a big fan of Namco’s Tekken franchise since the release of the very first Tekken game on the playstation one (or psx as I hear all the cool kids calling it!), you would think that this movie is something that I would be looking forward to with to. Well you would be wrong. I really can’t think of a single movie adaption of a computer game that I liked, but I can think of plenty that I have just plain hated! Previous films of a similar nature include Street Fighter (starring Jean Claude Van Damme) and Mortal Kombat. Street fighter was so bad it became amusing, whereas Mortal Kombat was more tongue in cheek but ultimately it was never going to win an award!
So why don’t computer games convert well into films? Well in a lot of cases it’s the fault of the directors, lack of budget, and just terrible scripts! Also, just because a computer game is awesome, doesn’t mean that it’s going to make a great film, especially in the case of fighting games which have a very limited plot anyway. Tekken in particular has such a weird set of storylines that I really don’t know what’s going on sometimes!
Watching this Tekken trailer, I cringed, I laughed out loud, I cried, and then… finally… I died a little inside. It just looks truely awful. The costumes although staying true to the game look ridiculous, the effects look similar to a budget sci fi movie from the 80′s, and the story line… is there one? Again the casting even seems quite good with recognisable characters, but the film just looks BAD. It hasn’t learnt the important lessons from previous game to movie films and I fear a lot of loyal fans will be disappointed, and this could be close to being a straight to DVD movie. But hey, that’s just my opinion. Maybe some of you will watch this and go “whoooaaaa, that looks awesome”. But I doubt it.
Thinking about it, there is one game to movie film that I liked but it was the manga version of street fighter. Maybe if Tekken was a computer animated film then a lot of the issues with costumes, budgets etc wouldn’t be a problem, and maybe you could make a half decent adaption?
Tekken is due for release later this year in summer 2010.