A brief review of District 9; also, will there ever be a good movie based on a video game?

I found out today that the movie theater near my apartment in Tucson (it's one of those gigaplex deals that's attached to a mall) has a deal where you can get in for 5 bucks if you see the first matinee of the day, which is a pretty sweet deal. I'm going back tomorrow to see Inglorious Basterds at 11:00, and I just might fuck around and see a movie every weekend if it's going to be that cheap.

Paying 5 bucks to see District 9, it turns out, is an absolute steal. I don't really want to go into too much detail about the plot, because it's better if you go see it knowing as little as possible about what happens. Suffice it to say that District 9 is damn near a classic, and almost certainly the best sci-fi film since Children of Men. Everything about this movie just works; the grit and realism of the setting, the convincing performances (mostly by unknown and/or non-professional actors), the handheld-style cinematography, and particularly the special effects (which one-up Cloverfield in seamlessly and convincingly integrating the creature-effects into pseudo-documentary camerawork). Like most classic science fiction, District 9's story juxtaposes the fantastical elements with allegorical aspects touching on contemporary themes; in this case, state-sponsored racial apartheid, but it never lets those elements overwhelm the plot or the action. District 9 takes its time building up, but when it lets loose in the second and third acts, it pumps out some of the most incredibly visceral action sequences in recent memory. If you think you might want to see District 9, trust me, you do. And if you don't think you want to see it, go see it anyway - it's that good.

So what does all this have to do with video game movies? District 9 is the first feature directed by Neill Blomkamp, a South African special effects whiz. but his debut was originally supposed to be a mega-budget adaptation of Halo. That project was put on hold almost three years ago, when the studio financing deal fell through, and it's probably never going to happen. Which is a shame, because essentially every aspect that would be needed to pull of a successful Halo movie are on full display in District 9. A sampling:

• Truly convincing and believable effects, for alien creatures, huge spaceships, and sci-fi weaponry
• Well-orchestrated and shot action scenes that manage to be visually coherent while still conveying a palpable sense of chaos
  
• The incorporation of David Cronenberg-style body-horror effects, which would be particularly effective in portraying Halo's Flood creatures
• Effectively establishing a rich backstory with a minimum of forced exposition

And so on and so forth. I was always skeptical as to whether Halo could be made into a movie; Seeing District 9 has convinced me that it could be done and that Neill Blomkamp really is the person for the job. Unfortunately, he's now publicly stated that he probably won't be going back to it. The Halo fiction actually has a intriguing and well-thought out backstory (which is mostly only hinted at in the games themselves) and an Aliens-meets-H.P Lovecraft aesthetic that could make compelling blockbuster source material. In fact, the same could be said for any number of video games, and yet, there's hasn't been a single game-based movie that's amassed even a decent reputation for quality, although many have been financially profitable (particularly the Resident Evil series of films, none of which I've seen).

Taking a look at i09's list of video game movies in development doesn't reveal anything that looks likely to reverse this trend. Of the listed projects, Gore Verbinski's BioShock adaptation probably has the best combination of filmmaker and source game pedigree, but I'm skeptical that it'll ever get made. Brilliant and fun as it was, I always thought it was remarkable enough that BioShock's trippy melange of art-deco, steampunk, and Objectivist philosophy was a hit as a video game. I really doubt a Hollywood studio is going to sink 100 million-plus into making a blockbuster movie with those left-field themes, and there's probably no way to do it justice on the cheap. There's also Len Wiseman's planned Gears of War adaptation, which is more likely to get made, but probably less likely to be good. Although I was a fan of Wiseman's Live Free or Die Hard, I think he'll probably bring a more traditional action-blockbuster aesthetic to Gears, which won't capture the intensity that makes the game so great. (If I had my way, anyone who wanted to direct a movie based on Gears of War would be forced to watch on a loop the jaw-dropping single-take tracking shot at the climax of Children of Men where Clive Owen sneaks his way into the besieged refugee camp building. I'd put a big sign underneath the screen that said "THIS IS WHAT YOUR MOVIE NEEDS TO LOOK LIKE.")

The rest of the list is the typical retarded pap, save maybe Sam Raimi's World of Warcraft, which I can't get excited about because I've never played WoW and I did see Spider-Man 3. The fact that there are planned adaptations of Asteroids and The Sims speaks volumes about the extent to which Hollywood is flailing at straws artistically when it comes to game adaptations. I'm halfway hoping that the fact that District 9 is a both a critical and box office hit might convince some studio execs to pull Halo out of mothballs and throw tons of money at Neill Blomkamp to get it made, but I think the more likely scenario is a bigger budget District 10 in a couple years time. Which I'm OK with, seeing as that would probably be the superior film in any case, but it's certainly interesting to consider what a missed opportunity Blomkamp's aborted Halo seems to be.