With Wreck It Ralph releasing earlier this week, we got to thinking about movies that are based on video games, and historically… it isn’t too pretty. Video game based films have a pretty bad reputation in the industry for being awful movies. Vaunted game franchises such as Super Mario Bros. and Doom have been translated poorly to the silver screen time and time again. It turns out that just having a character loved by millions of nerds isn’t a proper replacement for a good script, quality acting, and fine directing.
Below are the five worst video game-based movies.
5. Prince of Persia
Prince of Persia looked to have all the makings of greatness on paper: A-list
Trust us, play the 1989 game instead.
starpower (Jake Gyllenhaal, Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina), the backing of a major film studio (Disney), and the leadership of a well-known producer, Jerry Bruckheimer. However, the translation from video game to movie didn’t fare too well. The story was too forced, the characters were bland and overacted, and if you aren’t a fan of the video game series, there is little incentive to invest two hours into this epic dud.
The 2 hours of the film could easily be spent trying to figure out what kind of accent Jake Gyllenhaal was trying to pull off (was it Persian, was it British, we don’t know…). In the end, you’d be better off playing the original 1989 computer game version of Prince of Persia than sitting through this Arabian disaster.
4. DOA: Dead Or Alive
Nothing says “serious martial arts film” like a beach volleyball scene.
What can you expect from a film that is based on a fighting game franchise that’s foundation is the size of the female characters’ breasts (Seriously. “Jiggle physics” is a term originated with the Dead Or Alive video game series.)? Many adapted screenplays are criticized for straying too far from the source material, but Dead or Alive’s biggest mistake is sticking too closely to its original source’s plot. Fighting games in particular are known for having insane story lines that make no logical sense and DOA is no exception. Seeing it as bit segments between rounds of fighting in a video game is one thing, but seeing it on screen as a movie makes it so much more nonsensical. In lieu of a plot, there is basically 90 minutes of women fighting in their underwear. On second thought, maybe we should move this to the top 5 best video game adaptations…
3. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
While the previously mentioned movie stuck too close to its source material, others get too far away from what makes the games so great in the first place. The Final Fantasy video games series is revered for its character development, complex plot lines, and common blend of magic with science fiction. The film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within had none of that. It seems the production company spent all its money on cutting edge computer animation and A-list voice acting, but forgot to work to put any funding towards the story development. So what we got was a bland science fiction film, characters that we didn’t care about, and nothing that made it feel like a Final Fantasy (no chocobos, no moogles, no giant swords). While not as bad as many other video game movies, this one is mentioned because it started out with such promise only to dash our hopes with boring mediocrity.
2. House of the Dead/Alone in the Dark
You can’t make a worst video game movie list without including any Uwe Boll films. In fact, we probably could have made the whole list out of his collection of films. But to avoid monotony, we just included a two-fer here because we couldn’t decide between his two worst: House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark.
Uwe Boll has been universally panned across the Internet for being a horrible director and for good reason (just Google Uwe Boll if you have doubts). For instance, aside from having just plain terrible acting and gaping plot holes in all his films, he made the strange decision to include cuts of actual video game footage from the House of the Dead video game (a 1996 game!) into action scenes of the film. What’s worse, the video game footage doesn’t even match the scenes of the film! Oh, and for a film called House of the Dead, only about 5 minutes of it takes place in a house…
As for Alone in the Dark, all you really need to know is that Boll cast Tara Reid as a scientist/museum curator… Let that sink in for a second. Tara Reid. Plays a scientist. I’m willing to buy that there are mutated monsters trying to kill all humans, but this is just too far. Finally, for supposed “horror” films, both come off more as comedies because you would think they are purposely bad and are not in the least bit scary.
1. Super Mario Bros.
Wow. Super Mario Bros. the movie is so bad, that it’s infamous for being the worst video game adaptation of all time, having little or nothing to do with one of the most iconic video game series other than the titular main characters. We can’t say much about this film that hasn’t already been said, but for a full review of what went so horribly wrong, check out this great article from Game Informer about the production of the movie and how it got derailed from the start. Fun fact: Tom Hanks originally signed on to be the lead for this movie, but jumped ship.
That guy in the middle is actually supposed to be King Koopa. Uh, what?
