The Roundup with Jeff Stockton (Season 11 Round 2)

Another round is done, and we saw another video game movie bomb, the triumphant return of Mr. Matt Damon and a bunch of kids battle evil tape worms in the woods (really?). Here's The Roundup....

3. Bioshock Soundtrack
Bioshock was not a good movie, but damn does it have a good soundtrack featuring some fantastic songs from back in the day. I don't feel the need to ever really watch the movie again, but you can be sure I'll be listening to the soundtrack again.

2. Newbury Street
While the film takes its time revealing itself, it turned out to be a really smart crime drama about a duplicitous man and the lengths he'll go to get what he wants. It featured some strong, interesting supporting characters - being a Lon Charles film, it featured some actors you wouldn't expect to see - and a game lead performance from...

1. Matt Damon
He gave one of his finest performances of his career in his first LRF release since the disappointing The Osterman Weekend way back in Season 1. He's certainly the early front runner for Best Actor for Newbury Street.

3. Ethan Hawke
He just felt wasted. The role doesn't really play to any of his strengths as a performer and he seemingly disappears from the plot by the halfway point. Clearly he was doing James DeMonaco a favor, but it just was a thankless role.

2. Tom Hanks
Another actor that just seemed to be wasted in their part. I get the idea behind casting someone like Hanks as Andrew Ryan in Bioshock - to play on the audience's expectations to play a larger than life character - but there just wasn't enough for him to do.

1. Bioshock
Another failed video game adaptation. It seems to be that the common denominator in the failed attempts at video game films boils down to the lead character. In video games, the main character is often left mysterious or lacking in personality so that the player can feel like they are the main character. But this obviously leaves the screenwriters in a conundrum and now they have to choose to stay faithful to the game and have a boring lead character, or change the personality of the lead and possibly annoying the fans of the game in the process. Bioshock chose to stick with the character seen in the game, the problem is that it is a boring stock character without a personality, which makes him to root for or care about.