Rick’s Flicks Picks » This Weekend’s Film Festival – Five Best TV Series-to-Film Adaptations

This Weekend’s Film Festival – Five Best TV Series-to-Film Adaptations

18 11 2009

With STAR TREK arriving on DVD and Blu-ray, This Weekend’s Film Festival run downs the five best TV series turned feature films. To keep things simple, I didn’t include films based on TV characters fro sketch shows or miniseries. What are your favorites?

Starting off the countdown is SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT. To quote my original review, “The film allowed [creators Trey] Parker and [Matt] Stone to be even more outrageous than they could be on TV. And they get to stick it to their critics real good.” Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny are hopping to see the big screen debut of their favorite Canadian TV comedians Terrance and Phillip. After seeing the foul-mouthed feature, the kids can’t stop cursing. Kyle’s mother Shelia Broflovski then wages war, literally, on Canada. As the Oscar-nominated song says, “Just blame Canada.” The crudely animated film pushes as many buttons as it can while, through extreme exaggeration, makes a convincing argument against censorship and blaming all public ills on the media.

Director Brian DePalma and writer David Mamet transform the Robert Stack TV series, THE UNTOUCHABLES, into a gritty crime drama. Kevin Costner plays Elliot Ness, the FBI agent assigned to clean up the mob scene in Chicago. His chief adversary is notorious gangster Al Capone, played in a memorable supporting role from Robert DeNiro. Ness puts together skilled team of cops and agents dubbed the Untouchables. One of those cops is veteran Irish beat cop Jim Malone, played in an Oscar-winning performance from Sean Connery. DePalma patiently builds tension through well-paced and homage filled direction. As I said in my original review, “In 1920s Chicago the line between good guys and bad guys is quite blurred and the by-the-books Washington agent Elliot Ness must learn that lesson real quick.”

J.J. Abrams’ reboot of STAR TREK is not just the best STAR TREK feature, but also one of the best TV adaptations ever made. Through innovative uses of sci-fi, the film keeps everything that happened in the series and other features in tact, but also allows for the series to start from the beginning and take the story in new directions. Abrams brings together a perfect cast to play the iconic characters. Chris Pine takes on the role of cocky Federation trainee James T. Kirk, while HEROES star Zachary Quinto channels Leonard Nimoy’s logic-obsessed Vulcan Spock. In this thrilling space adventure, the new Starfleet cadets must save Earth from an angry Romulan from an alternative timeline named Nero (Eric Bana). As I said in my original review, “Just like CASINO ROYALE did for James Bond, J.J. Abrams’ STAR TREK has opened up grand possibilities for an aging franchise.”

At #2 is THE MUPPET MOVIE. As I said in my original review, “Through wonderful songs, well timed gags and puns and cameos galore, this movie captures the Muppet spirit on a big scale and serves as one of the best examples of how to take a TV series and transform it into a big screen spectacle.” This often hilarious film serves as an origin story for how the Muppets came together to become performers. Kermit the Frog dreams of something better than his lily pad. Along his journey to Hollywood, he meets up with other famed Muppets like Fozzie, Gonzo and of course his divine swine Miss Piggy. Working wonderfully as a satire of fame and the entertainment business, the story builds tension and an ingenious metaphor for the soul twisting pull of fame and fortune with villain Doc Hopper (Charles Durning) trying to convince Kermit to be the spokesperson for his chain of frog legs restaurants. Jim Henson, director James Frawley and all the puppeteers make dreamers of us all.

In my humble opinion the best TV series adaptation is Andrew Davis’ THE FUGITIVE. Like the popular TV series, Dr. Richard Kimble is wrongly convicted of murdering his wife, but he claims it was a one-armed man. In the feature, Harrison Ford plays the smart doctor who tries to keep two steps ahead of the federal marshals out to capture him. Tommy Lee Jones plays head marshal Samuel Gerard, a no-nonsense law enforcement officer who is simply doing his job. Screenwriters David Twohy and Jeb Stuart craft unique and fully developed characters throughout this action-packed thriller. There’s a lot of action for sure, but it comes from the smart characters engaged in a game of cat and mouse. To quote my original review, “All around this is a tight, thrilling and often funny action flick that doesn’t talk down to the viewer as it’s twisting and turning to its conclusion.”

To see these great adaptations simply head to the videostore, update the Netflix queue, check out HelloMovies.com for streaming sites, visit Zap2It.com for TV listings or help put the site by buying the films on DVD or Blu-ray at the links below.