Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Editor's note: Is the Mass Effect movie adaption dead in the water? Paul thinks so, and he makes a pretty convincing case why it is. Do you agree with him? -Brett

The Internet went nuts back in May, when The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that Legendary Pictures (producers of 300, Where the Wild Things Are, and The Dark Knight) had secured the film rights to the hit BioWare series Mass Effect. Less exciting -- at least to me -- was the news that Ari Arad, who produced stinkers like Ghost Rider and Punisher, will executive produce alongside his pops, Avi Arad. To make matters worse, the story revealed that Mark Protosevich, who bored me to tears with his scripts for The Cell and Poseidon, is on board to write the screenplay.
Not exactly a promising start. Nonetheless, on video-game message boards and movie blogs alike, excitement abounds.
This wave of frenzied excitement is the first phase of a now-familiar pattern in the gestation of any Uwe Boll-less video-game movie. The initial announcement is always delivered to much fanfare, and the producers make a point to assure fans that they’ve learned from the mistakes of the approximately 8,000 horrible video-game movies and bring moviegoers a film that will magically entertain the masses without snubbing fans of the source material.
Soon enough, however, several people shuffle in and out of the production line-up, two or three scripts are summarily rejected, someone with legitimate acting chops (usually Ben Kingsley) mysteriously signs on, and then...we hear nothing. A couple of years and numerous video-game sequels later, out pops a movie so lackluster that people wonder what possessed them to get excited in the first place.
Maybe someday, some happy accident will result in an enjoyable video-game film being made. But the Mass Effect movie project is proof that it’s not worth all the time, money, and popcorn butter-related stomach cramps, and here’s why.
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