Hollywood is seemingly bereft of fresh new ideas and thus executives pilfer through existing media for adaptation purposes to make boatloads of cash. Sometimes, it’s great, sometimes it’s awful and almost always it pisses off a lot of people.
One thing Hollywood consistently does, and does well might I add, is take a beloved video game franchise and turn into a reviled movie franchise. Now, adaptation isn’t easy (trust me, I’ve done it), but with such a big fan base already in existence, you think movie makers could try just a bit harder.
With Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code) directing the upcoming World of Warcraft movie and Michael Fassbender (X-Men: First Class, Shame) attached to Assassin’s Creed, things look like they might be turning around, but let’s take a walk down memory lane and see how movie adaptations have made us collectively cry for all of our shattered memories.
10 – Tomb Raider
What to do with a female Indiana Jones who totes guns and short shorts as she uncovers lost secrets from the past? I know! Let’s put Angelina Jolie in the role, make her do a terrible accent and take out all the fun!
This movie was basically an excuse to put Jolie in said short shorts, do a bunch of poorly choreographed wire stunts and have awkward father/daughter drama with real life estranged dad Jon Voight. Does anyone even remember what she was actually after in this movie? All I remember was she fought a giant robot at one point, which doesn’t even make sense. Why would an archeologist adventurer have a training robot that she consistently destroys? And how much money does daddy dearest have to blow if his daughter is destroying advanced technology faster than she destroys ancient ruins?
Luckily, everyone was pretty dissatisfied with this film (despite reaping an abundance of money at the box office) and when the sequel hit theatres, it quietly died the death of crappy sequels that follow crappy movies. There’s talk of reviving Lara Croft in the near future, so maybe someone decided they wanted to do it right. Only time will tell. Camilla Luddington did a stellar job of voicing Lara in the latest video game reincarnation of Tomb Raider but whether or not she fits the role herself is doubtful.
9 – Final Fantasy
I’m a huge Final Fantasy fan, so when I heard about this, my loins quivered in anticipation. Imagine my surprise when I watched Spirits Within only to discover that it only shared the thinnest thematic elements with the Final Fantasy series and was really just a movie about respecting the Earth.
To be fair, the movie isn’t bad. It’s beautifully made, looks gorgeous even 10 years on and has some pretty awesome voice acting. Honestly, if it had been called literally anything else I probably would have loved it… but it wasn’t. They ran with the Final Fantasy name and pissed off everyone. Fans of the game were let down and people just looking to watch a good movie were confused.
Thankfully, Square Enix decided that they were just going to do it themselves. They put out the so very awesome Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children a few years later and appeased a large number of the fans that Spirits Within had disenfranchised. Hollywood has wisely stayed away from making any more of these movies while Square Enix has decided to just make the Final Fantasy games more of a movie little by little.
8 – Doom
When they were drawing up the movie adaptation of Doom, the casting director had the right idea. Grizzled Marines like Karl Urban and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson go to Mars where they have to kill monsters bent on unleashing hell on Earth… well, Mars, but you get the point.
Unfortunately, there was also a director and (apparently) three writers on this project who obviously had never had the joy of playing Doom. Basically, if you want to know why this movie sucked so hard, watch this video.
Now, there seems to be some sort of cult following that loves this movie (as this link will attest to). I can only assume they are people who also enjoy Uwe Boll, but he comes later, and good Christ do I give it to him good.
Basically, if you loved rupturing demons skulls and shooting off the BFG when you were younger, avoid the Doom movie at all costs.
7 – Mortal Kombat
When I saw this movie as a kid, I thought it was the best thing to ever happen. I held on to this memory for years, until one day around 2006, I decided I was going to relive the great memories of days gone by and re-watch Mortal Kombat. I expected the same level of awesomeness but what I got was one of the worst things I’ve ever sat through.
Comically bad acting, a story line even thinner than the games and ‘effects’ that were bad even in the 90’s made me realize that my childhood self who had loved that movie was an idiot. Then they had the audacity to make a second one with an even smaller budget and what I can only assume was a monkey with a learning disability on script duties. It must have been the same monkey on casting as well because if they didn’t learn that Christopher Lambert (well except maybe for Highlander) is ALWAYS a bad choice the first time around I hope they did by the end of this round.
This time, when someone had the idea for a reboot, it was as a pretty solid web series with a pretty good cast and ‘gritty, real world feel’ about it. If you haven’t seen Mortal Kombat: Legacy yet, it may wash out some of the bad taste these movies left in your mouth.
6 – Prince of Persia
I know Hollywood needs bankable stars to sell movies to audiences, but in what world does it make sense that your Prince of PERSIA is Jake Gyllenhall? And his love interest is Gemma Arterton, who is incredibly British. I still can’t wrap my head around this one!
As if that wasn’t enough, it featured literally none of the things that made the games fun. Wall running, hacking and slashing, using the sands of time more than once and not giving a Bill and Ted-esque ‘Whoa’ reaction to it are all things that were absent in this movie. Perhaps we’ll just avoid the overt racism of many of the characters, in particular Alfred Molina’s Sheik Amar.
Thankfully, this movie was a giant bomb and effectively killed Jerry Bruckheimer’s relationship with Disney. Let’s hope that keeps any more National Treasure movies from cropping up too.
5 – Uwe Boll
Remember I said he was coming? Yeah, this is the guy responsible for House of the Dead, In the Name of the King, Blood Rayne, Far Cry, etc. Basically, any B level game to movie adaptation that came out post 2000 and was the biggest piece of crap you could think of.
I dare you to sit through In the Name of the King. I dare you! It was worse than House of the Dead, which is easily one of the worst movies ever. That’s how bad this guy is; he makes one of the lowest rated movies of all time and then TOPS IT.
A few years ago, Boll was so tired of the negative press, he put out a petition and said if enough people signed it, he would retire. It only took a few hours to fill up, but Boll refused to retire and now we all cringe in fear at what game he will turns his sights onto next.
4 – Super Mario Bros.
I’m not even sure where to start with this one. The setting? The casting? Everything? Other than pretty much everyone agreeing it was the single worst set they’ve ever worked on, it was also seen as pretty much the most awful movie anyone has ever seen as well. I mean, sure, there’s no real story to a Mario game, but seriously. Here’s a clip to revel in this sad attempt at putting the single most popular video game character on screen.
3 – Street Fighter
Jean Claude Van Damme as American Marine Guile. That is all.
2 – Resident Evil
When I first played the Resident Evil series, I had to resign myself to only playing during the day due to the horrific nightmares and how often I nearly soiled myself when I played it at night.
So, when I played Resident Evil 3 (and had a panic attack about once an hour when Nemesis would come for you) imagine how ecstatic I was when I saw they were making a movie! I planned on not sleeping for weeks and possibly filling out some sort of ‘if you have to put me on life support’ form just in case I didn’t pull through what was going to be the scariest time of my life.
And then I saw it. And then I saw the second one. And it was after that that I began to wonder what sort of leniency a judge would give me for killing Paul W.S. Anderson if I told him how much I truly loved the games. Now, ‘Resident Evil 6 – The Third Time the Apocalypse has Happened’ (or whatever silly title they put on it) is coming out and my rage still hasn’t abated.
Lucky for the film makers, the storyline to the games have become more convoluted than The Matrix trilogy and the movies don’t seem SO bad now. Lucky enough for me, the games are still hella fun to play, but I doubt I’ll ever recover from the abuse Milla Jovovich (stick to Leeloo, that was a great character) handed me with this one.
1 – Max Payne
Remember pill addicted New York Cop Max Payne whose drug addiction could give him the ability to slow down time and his surprising English degree let him spit lines like ‘Snow fell like ash from post-apocalyptic skies’? He was also the guy who murdered an entire mob family as he uncovered a conspiracy by an Illuminati type group as he sought vengeance for his murdered family. It’s one of my favorite pairs of games (I refuse to acknowledge the existence of the third one) and thus it is the most heartbreaking of all the movie adaptations.
Max Payne isn’t exactly the most nuanced character ever, but he’s at least more than an angry cop from Boston which is what Mark Wahlberg brought to the table. And then there was Jim Bravura, Payne’s grizzled boss whose years on the force have worn him down who was brilliantly cast with Ludacris (ludicrous, right!?) somehow seeming like the best choice. Then there was the drug induced hallucinations of angels that ended up killing people somehow – they didn’t even bother explaining that one.
Much like this whole list, they took all the best parts of the game, threw them away and dropped a massive three coil steamer in its place. Basically, if you have your villain monologue his crimes to your hero and then said hero doesn’t even shoot ONE bullet at him because ‘the cold will do it for us’, you should never be allowed to make a movie again.