John Rhys-Davies has weighed in about his latest role in a video game movie, In the Name of the King.  You may remember Rhys-Davies as the awesome little axe-wielding dwarf Gimli from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, if you’re a huge nerd like me.  While I’m not particularly familiar with his new movie, nor do I know much about the video game from which the subject mattered was culled, I can still tell you that this interview is worth a read.  I found it on slashdot earlier today, and I really enjoyed it.  Rhys-Davies, being an accomplished veteran actor, can speak more freely than many actors choose to, and he has some really interesting things to say.

My favorite part of the interview is the part where Rhys-Davies starts weighing in on his opinion of why video game movies get made in the first place.  I don’t want to ruin it for you, but suffice to say that Rhys-Davies is more than a little unimpressed with the creativity (or lack thereof) of Hollywood these days.  And he’s right, to be honest.  Video games are such a different beast from film - the way you introduce characters, parse out information, and allow events to unfold are all quite different in video games than in film.  And yet, for some reason they keep coming back to these games for ideas, no matter how hard the movies suck and then bomb because they suck.  Here’s hoping that when the writer’s strike ends, we get a few more good ideas, because nobody wants to sit through  Hitman 2: The Movie.