[General Discussion] The marriage of games and movies

I just watched Children of Men and searched for its thread in Media Centre out of curiosity. After reading these:

Originally Posted by Hantei

It was almost like it was straight out of a video game (the car sequence, was like something out of a shooter).

Originally Posted by Dr. Uzuki

reminded me of a first person shooter with a million different things going on around you and you have to find your path through the carnage.

I have to bring up how I too was struck by the films likeness to a video game. There's emphasis on the 'a', because there's one game in particular that this film was remarkably similar to in many aspects: Half-Life 2.

As a gamer, it's a particularly nerdy exercise of mine to imagine various games I've enjoyed recast into the medium of cinema. What would the cinematography be like? What style of camera-work? How would the action sequences be paced? Half-Life 2 was a major one I liked dwelling on, and honestly, Children of Men answers most of those questions, and it's thanks in no small part to its story sharing many of the themes of Half-Life 2.

Both are set in dystopian, oppressive futures. The environment has gone to pot, and the bleak scene in CoM of grassland, boggy and discoloured through the industrial waste pumping into it, with a smog covered town in the distance, is strikingly reminiscent of the picture painted of HL2s world when we pass through the industrial outskirts of City 17 via the water canals.

Fascist state police are omnipresent, shuttling about humans whom have no rights - exactly how it is in HL2. Buses full of refugees pulling into internment camps parallel trains full of civillians pulling into City 17; those destinations themselves are very similar - the lick of technology in City 17 is absent, but otherwise a similar gray look and mood is present. The climactic action sequence in CoM takes place in this same camp, and it mirrors the climactic fight for City 17 very closely. Both battles, by the way, are triggered by a civillian uprising.

Yes, the action. As Hantei and Dr. Uzuki say, it is just like a video game, with chaos happening all around, drawing you in in a manner few films manage, but many FPSs rely upon. Clive Owen scrambles about for cover during the uprising - YOU do the exact same in City 17. There's a moment when he searches a building under siege, with explosions going off and bullets flying in through the windows - again, the exact same happens in City 17, as you run from wall to wall in the husk of some building, dodging out of the sight of snipers and Striders firing in through the gaps.

Is it Children of Men that was unusually video-game like, or Half-Life 2 that was remarkably cinematic? I'd say they meet in the middle. It should, in an ideal world, raise the bar for people doing movie adaptations of games. They should be aiming for the same feel and atmosphere a game draws you in with, but they won't. Just lifting storylines and remolding them to fit some action movie template seems to be enough for them, making the whole exercise pointless.

Well, back to fantasising how a proper Deus Ex movie would work.

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