My Top 5 WORST Video Game to Movie Adaptions.
N.B. I write from the heart. There’s a spellcheck and a grammar check, but there is no editor or filter.
We’ve seen a lot of video games turned into movies. I can’t think of one that’s amazing. I can think of some terrible ones. And I can think of a few (and a few franchises) that were pretty decent, and some of the more recent ones that are really, really good (Fallout, The Last of US and the Sonic the Hedgehog) series come immediately.
With the Borderlands movie not doing too great — when they beg you to give it a shot, you know you’re in for kinda of a “meh” time.” I’m suddenly reminded of every other video-game-to-movie adaptation that has left me open to embarrassment and ridicule for being a gamer (let alone a game developer). None of these would make it into the “So-Bad-That-It’s-Good” category either.
Worst Street Fighter Movie Ever: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)
Whoever wrote the script, directed and edited this had at best a passing knowledge of what Street Fighter is. This martial arts film about Chun-Li versus M. Bison had an incoherent plot that failed to justify the pretty decent (for 2009) fight sequences. I watched this again just to write this, and I still don’t understand the subplot about transferring evil or consciousness into his unborn child AFTER Bison kills his wife.
You want a Street Fighter Movie that has great combat and good acting that sells the over-the-top nonsensical plot with fight scenes and god-like special powers. You want the movie starring Raul Julia, Jean Claude Van Damme, Kylie Minogue (yes really!) and Ming-Na Wen (as Chun Li) from 1994:
Two Worlds. One Movie: What was Warcraft ABOUT?
I have vague happy memories of this movie. It was one of the few movies that I have actually gone to the cinema to see in all its IMAX 3D Glory because I still have a level 99 Paladin, Demon Hunter and Rogue languishing in an account somewhere. It was enjoyable, and I remember it as a “fun time”because my wife and I saw it together on a date.
Otherwise… I don’t remember a thing about the plot, the characters, much of the world and setting or anything else. It was just kind of there, failed to draw me back into the game(s) and did not betray any nostalgia that I still have for the games or Blizzard.
It’s just there.
Hitman — Trying to be John Wick before John Wick was a thing
It doesn’t matter which one you watched — Hitman (2007) starring Timothy Olyphant or Hitman: Agent 47 (2015) starring Rupert Friend — both failed to find the target and hit the mark. Poor pacing, plot and writing hampered the first film, and the 2015 reboot suffered from the same. The planned 2019 sequel was thankfully scrapped before it could suffer the same fate.
In an ironic twist of fate, John Wick’s first video game — John Wick Hex — didn’t enjoy its movies' critical box office claim either.
Maybe it's time for both video game companies and big-budget movie studios to realize they should stay in their respective lanes.
Resident Evil — Welcome to Me Walking out of the Theatre.
I’ve walked out on three movies in my entire life. I know what you did last summer (1997) because I was too young to watch that ALONE. Ready Player One (2018) because of a family medical emergency. And then there was… whatever this is attempting (and failing) to pretend to be in 2021 during a pandemic. Irony of ironies.
This was, at best cheesy, over-the-top action flick masquerading as a horror movie that crapped on its source material. Albert Wesker and Leon Kennedy were butchered as characters. The lack of respect given to the source material, coupled with the bad plot and worse acting could not keep me in the cinema.
This comes from a guy who LIKES the bio-punk Resident-Evil films of Anderson, Jovovivch and company from 2002–2016.
Final Fantasy: What does MY spirit within say?
While Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) carries the Final Fantasy game brand, it is removed from the RPGs that spawned. People are generally divided on what to make of this, once you remove the blow-your-mind visuals from two decades ago.
You either find this to either be an abominable waste of digital film with more holes than plot- it did kill SquareEnix’s Square Pictures division — or an underappreciated gem with a star-studded lineup — Ming-Na Wen, Alec Baldwin and Donald Sutherland — that should have a larger cult following.
So that’s my top five worst video game to movie adaptation list. What does yours look like? Hit me up in the comments!
