Steven Spielberg Fails to Make Video Games Popular Again

Photo: EA, Getty Images
The game's fundamentals don't seem to be the problem — it got good reviews, with a Metascore of 85. It's got a solid, non-gimmicky concept — building a tower and knocking it over — that toddlers have loved forever and that, as the continuing popularity of building implosions on YouTube will attest, still has legs. Perhaps Spielberg simply underestimated the competing demand for complex narratives and yoga poses. Or perhaps he should have gone with the rumored original concept, in which the objective was to knock over Shia LaBeouf by pelting him with empty cans. —Linda Holmes

Eight Year-End Films Vie for Oscar Contention
Sondheim and Lansbury on a Lifetime in Theater
The Black Keys Release Their Hip-hop Debut
How the BQE Became an Artistic Muse