Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Yeah, I played a lot of Dead Island. I don’t get the lukewarm reviews. Is it equal measures Left 4 Dead and Borderlands? Sure is! Am I upset about that? Sure ain’t! The Borderlands randomized weapons boxes/automatic upscaling of enemy powers brings the addiction part and Left 4 Dead part brings the gory zombie action.
I like it, I don’t necessarily think there’s any real story from the game that needs to be adapted into a movie, but I dig the aesthetic and if you’ve seen the teaser trailer for the game you know that someone with a flashy style could have a lot of fun in this world now that Lionsgate is now planning on making a movie from the game.
In fact, the press release from Lionsgate mentions the above trailer specifically as being the jumping off point for the film, which they promise to be focused on “family ties and non-linear storytelling.”
I’m all for it if they’re willing to go full hardcore R rated fun zombie mayhem. The human emotion and family ties stuff is very important, but what we like about the trailer is the style, gore and focus on zombie kid violence. And by “we” I mean “me.”
And who should direct it? I bet you a bazillion dollars they want to get Zombieland’s Ruben Fleischer to direct, but having just seen Juan of the Dead I really would love to see Cuban director Alejandro Brugues get a shot at it. I mean, he’s already done a fun zombies-on-an-island movie!
Will this be the first truly great video game adaptation? Probably not, but it’s a good start that they’re not trying to adhere to the very thin plot of this game and instead want to take the title, setting, tone and look and build up a movie around that.
What do you folks think?
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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