When a movie tanks, everyone involved has to start pointing fingers. Yesterday, Paramount got the jump on all of us concerning the poor showing of the latest "Tomb Raider" flick:
Studio Cites Game for Weak 'Tomb Raider' Sequel
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The romance between Hollywood and the video game industry is suddenly a lot chillier after the studio behind "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life" on Monday cited problems with a related game for the sequel's weaker-than-expected debut.
The movie and video game industries have grown closer in recent years as films increasingly are tied in to games and games, in turn, are licensed as movies.
But the comments by Paramount Pictures underscore the tensions between the two sides when sales disappoint.
"The Cradle of Life," the second film based on games heroine Lara Croft, opened in fourth place at the U.S. box office last weekend with sales of $21.7 million, well below the opening weekend of 2001's "Tomb Raider."
All this means is that studios aren't going to be so quick to drop $90 million ("The Cradle of Life's" estimated budget) on a video game movie. Disney and Columbia TriStar somehow survived the poor performances of "Super Mario Bros." and "Street Fighter," respectively, probably becase they didn't spend an obscene amount of money in the first place. Either keep your budget in the $20-30 million range, a la "Resident Evil" - that way even if the theater run isn't that great, you cans still recoup in DVD sales and rentals - or just make a low budget film that might as well go straight to video anyway. I'm talking to you, "Double Dragon."
There are exceptions, of course.
And I have some bad news for Paramount: people didn't stay away in droves from the second "Tomb Raider" movie because the latest game was buggy and almost unplayable, they stayed away because the movie is an incoherent piece of shit. For crying out loud, she rides a great white SHARK in one scene. If she'd tried that in the video game, you'd be hitting the restart button. Audiences were laughing out loud, which in and of itself isn't a bad thing, except "Cradle of Life" isn't a freaking comedy.
Black bikinis and lazy CGI also can't disguise the fact that this movie is a complete rip-off of a much better film. Action movies don't have to be mindless, you know.
I was entirely baffled by the shark scene. She clearly summoned the shark on purpose, taunted it with her tasty blood, then punched it in the nose and rode it, all to no apparent end.
There are all sorts of such-and-so shark species; the best explanation I have seen for this scene is that that was an elevator shark, which as any Blue Planet fan knows will carry you to the surface when socked in the schnoz. If the shark had carried her upwards I might buy this, but it appeared to just carry her along a bit at the same depth.
Did you understand what was supposed to be happening here, o movie guy?
Wing Commander was the best live-action combination submarine/carrier movie set in space of a generation, and rightly so.
Jason, she had to get back to the surface. And the quickest way up was to attract a shark - which takes no time at all, since they swim right at you instead of circling you warily for a long time - and jump on that bad boy. I'm sure scuba divers the world over will take note.
When is Tetris due to arrive on the big screen?