You would figure by now that people know not to attempt to make a movie based on a game, but sure enough wherever there is a quick buck to be had, then it’s time to sell out.  In this case the sellouts name is Andrew Hussie.  I’m sure you’ve probably played some of his other games, like Bard Quest, or Jail Break.  What you may not have known is that he has wrapped up production of a feature length movie entitled Problem Sleuth , and honestly, watching the movie you would have no idea that it was based off the original games.  Do you remember when Street Fighter the Movie tried to include every single character from all the games, only to end up making you not care about any of them?  Problem Sleuth doesn’t even go that far.  The original characters are hardly even cameos.  But it only gets worse from there.

I'm pretty sure the command was talking about firearms. Not actual arms. As in the firearm on your desk.

So Problem Sleuth is about a detective named problem sleuth who is trying to get out of his office building.   I believe that is really one of the only things that ties it to the original game of Jail Break, but the rest of the movie is a complete departure.  Also while the title might not suggest it, Problem Sleuth himself is one of three main characters, the other two being Ace Dick and Pickle Inspector.   I guess the title Problem Sleuth was chosen over the other two because it is the only name that isn’t an obvious dick joke.  The catch is that in order to leave the office building he must go through a series of trials including things like getting out of his blocked door to his office, making his way through a series of inconvenient architecture, traveling through dimensional portals, signing a peace treaty between warring mystical nations, stitching the fabric of space and time, and fighting a demon god.  

But there is really no back story to give you an idea of why he is in this predicament to begin with.  The movie just starts off in some office, and gives you no character development to understand what lead him to that point.  This felt more like a sequel with no first movie.   Perhaps it’s just a ploy to sell you on the idea of watching a Prequel.

It seems like the characters in the movie are labored with an inability to see the obvious.  At a very early point in the movie one of the characters has the ability to basically DO WHATEVER HE WANTS, INCLUDING BECOMING A GOD and what’s worse is that he retains this power through the entire movie, and yet all the characters still struggle with problems.  Just because becoming a god failed doesn’t mean he couldn’t just choose to not become a god and simply UnMake whatever problem he confronted.  And this ability was attained only a 10th of the way through the movie (with a full 2/10ths of of the movie occurring after the credits already finished running. )

Much like in most anime you see, or as in the Matrix, there is an escalation of power, that can only result in such extremes of power that every simple action becomes a full feature in itself.  There is no way to diminish it.  Like in the matrix where Neo goes from taking on a single agent, to taking on 100 agents, to taking on fucking city full of them.  Regardless of the power level there will always be something above it, so each fight takes an excruciatingly long period of time.  This definitely fits that pattern.  If you look at the progression you go from a simple task of exiting an office, and ending at saving the multi-verse.  With such a spectrum of power increase the movie was bound to be a long winded work of self glorification.

At one point a drink is taken and one of the characters becomes immensely stronger.  Which is fine, but why wasn’t it ever considered to take a second drink and multiple that strength?  The same thought process occurs later on in the movie, but why couldn’t one of the heroes just do so earlier?

Finally I’d like to point out that this movie is filled with events that fall flat.  Much like a Rube Goldberg device this movie has what seems to be monumental efforts to achieve appearingly mundane things.  But the problem is there is never a justification as why the efforts are made by the characters to achieve the end result which in most cases are anticlimactic.  It’s almost as if this movie had multiple writers who didn’t know how the story would end, but decided to propel the mechanics of the story in the hopes that it would make sense down the line.

Unfortunately it didn’t.

Problem Sleuth? More like Problem Suck. ‘m I right?

9 Comments »

1. I agree 100% and wish only that this lumbering beast of a malformed film had never been conceived of.

   Comment by Marelo — April 8, 2009 @ 11:18 am

2. I must play the devil’s advocate here, but I must say that I disagree with the aforementioned movie. I found the non-linear story-telling to be immensely entertaining, and it had some pretty cool a’spolsions.
   ;]

   Comment by Charlie — April 11, 2009 @ 3:22 pm

3. I SENSE SARCASM.

   Comment by Nobody in Particular — April 22, 2009 @ 4:57 pm

4. SEPULCHRITUDE!

   Comment by OniX — May 12, 2009 @ 11:28 pm

5. I’m a huge fan of this “movie”. In other news, you have a great sense of sarcasm/irony.

   Comment by Seth — June 1, 2009 @ 6:25 pm

6. Haha cool stuff, MSPaint movie – what ever next?

   Comment by PS3 Previews — June 29, 2009 @ 3:43 pm

7. But… but it’s a comic… ;_;
   I DO NOT UNDERSTAND

   Comment by NekoMage — December 26, 2009 @ 6:46 pm

8. Problem Who?????????

   Comment by Austin — December 26, 2009 @ 7:27 pm

9. http://www.moviestupidity.com‘s done it once again! Superb article.

   Comment by Edmund Slater — May 28, 2010 @ 1:09 am

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