Posted on
January 10, 2008 by
jeremyazevedo
It’s no wonder Roger Ebert hates video games!
While there really isn’t any such thing as a “great” movie based on a video game, there are a couple of pretty okay ones, like “Silent Hill” or “Resident Evil”. But more often than not, films that draw their inspiration from games are commercial and critical flops, doing their damnedest to destroy the credibility that the gaming industry has been trying so hard to earn over the years. Following is a list of ten of the absolute worst offenders of the genre, the crème-de-la-crap of criminally bad video game movies, universally reviled by one and all:
Crap movie director Uwe Boll silences his critics by getting their jaws wired shut and typing fingers broke in the ring.
#10 - Doom
I always find it strange when someone adapts a video game with really only one central, core plot point, and then eliminates that one thing altogether. For some reason, Doom takes this approach, eschewing the “demons escaping from hell” plot in favor of something more akin to “28 Days Later” on a space station. It didn’t work for Hellraiser, it didn’t work for Jason, and it doesn’t work for Doom. Rock or no Rock, nobody gives a crap about monsters in space unless they are Aliens and/or Predators. And so, what could have been the poor man’s “Event Horizon” with machine guns degenerates into a long volley of jokes about taking dumps, interrupted by the occasional laser blast.
Illustrative quotes:
Corporal Dean Portman: I gotta take a dump.
Destroyer: What? Now?
Corporal Dean Portman: Unless you want me shitting my pants right here.
Pinky: Portman, I got floor and wall on your gun cam.
Corporal Dean Portman: I’m taking a shit, you fucking gimp.
Sarge: [after pulling Portman out of the water] Portman, what the hell happened?
Corporal Dean Portman: I fell in the damn hole.
The Rock, trying to figure out how to apply “The Rock Bottom” to an inanimate object.
If this fails to convince you that this movie is craptastic, allow me to inform you that part of the movie was shot in first person. Just like the game. So instead of playing the game, you can sit passively and watch it. Which is even stupider than almost anything I can think of.
#9 - Bloodrayne
Ah, Uwe Boll. As I’m sure you all can guess, we’ll be seeing a lot of Mr. Boll here on this here list. Bloodrayne is of particular note for bringing together a talented list of actors, writers and filmmakers to produce a real steaming turd of a movie. Read this quote aloud to yourself in a crappy fake accent and I think you will get the gist:
Rayne (Kristanna Loken): I will sooner rot in your dungeon than dine at your table!
Kagan (Ben Kingsly): Ungrateful bitch.
Ladies and gentlemen, Oscar winner Sir Ben Kingsly!
Two prostitutes pretending to swordfight with crappy plastic swords.
If you really, really liked “Blade”, or have an overwhelming desire to sit through an entire movie to see Kristanna Loken’s tits once, than by all means, give Bloodrayne a watch. But everyone else should steer far clear of this career-damaging nightmare of a movie.
#8 - Wing Commander
Wing Commander may well be one of the dorkiest video game franchises in history, and the subsequent movie hasn’t done it any favors. The plot reads like a bad L. Ron Hubbard novel, with a rag-tag group of ace combat pilots going into battle with a feline race of aliens called “Kilrathi” hell bent on destroying the universe for some unknown reason. Of course the only people that can save us all are Freddie Prinze Jr. and his friends, who operate their ships as if they were nautical vessels, despite the fact that they are in the directionless vacuum of space. All the while treating us with such moving dialogue as the following quote:
Forbes: You’ve got balls.
Maniac: You should see ‘em.
Forbes: Mine are bigger.
Maniac: I’ve been told size doesn’t matter.
Forbes: She lied.
No, you can not haz.
Oh, snap! That’s one hell of a zinger, writer turned shitty movie producer Chris Roberts must have been at Starbucks all day writing that little gem!
#7 - Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
May as well have been a montage of Angelina Jolie’s tits bobbing and dangling about in slow motion. Actually, it sort of was. Tits that were enhanced by special effects to be even larger than they already were, if you can believe that. Which apparently left little budget for anything else. What we were promised was a modernized Indiana Jones with a sexy star, but what we got was a mixed up Hardy Boys mystery with bad accents and lamely choreographed gunplay. I won’t even mention the even worse sequel, but I will provide the requisite embarrassing quote:
Bryce: Me bum’s gone to sleep again, all down the left cheek.
Lara Croft: Really? That’s fascinating.
I don’t even know/care which Tomb Raider movie this image is from.
Hey, that one’s actually kinda funny… But the movie is still horseshit! If you really wanna see Lara Croft’s melons, download the “Nude Raider” patch. And if you really wanna see Angelina Jolie’s jugs, there’s always “Gia”!
#6 - House of the Dead
This movie is so bad, picking on it is almost like shooting bottle rockets at a retard in a broken wheelchair. It almost makes you feel like some kinda jerk for doing it. Almost. But then you read some quotes like these and it all seems funny again:
Rudy: You did all this to become immortal. Why?
Castillo: To live forever!
Rudy: We finally got to the boat but it wasn’t there.
Alicia: Guys, check out this book. Looks pretty old, maybe it’ll help us!
Simon: What’re we going to do? We don’t have weapons or food. We don’t have shit!
Capt. Victor Kirk: Actually, we do.
I didn’t know there were graveyards/ninja swords/plastic surgeons on desert islands!
So many bad quotes, I almost don’t know where to begin attacking this one. Sure, the movie’s low budge, with no name actors and all. But nothing can excuse the shitty premise and shoddy editing running rampant in this stinker. Apparently there have been rave-music hating pirate zombies right off the coast of Seattle for a couple hundred years now. Or something. The action is so bad, the editor actually cuts in clips of actual gameplay from the game itself, I guess as some sort of misguided attempt to remind viewers of the source material. Thanks again, Uwe Boll! I believe in god even less every time someone pays you to make another goddamn movie!
#5 - Street Fighter: The Movie
Now here’s a movie that almost falls into the “so-bad-it’s-good” category, except for the fact that it’s dumber than a busload of reality TV show contestants. At least Mortal Kombat, another reprehensible movie based on a fighting game, actually took place at a fighting tournament. Street Fighter fails to even get this right, opting instead to struggle to find some cockamamie reason for a dozen or more totally unrelated characters to come together at various times and fight one another. The fact that the lead actor, Jean-Claude Van Damme can barely speak English doesn’t help matters any.
I shit you not, the actors in the movie really look like this.
Some would say that it is a crime against all that is holy that Street Fighter was Raul Julia’s last film. I don’t know if I agree, as the only thing I can honestly remember him being in was the Addams Family movie. Big deal. But seriously, this movie sucks. The best thing about Street Fighter: The Movie? It has the distinction of having spawned what is, to my knowledge, the only video based on a movie based on a video game, ever. This little game tape is known as “Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game”, and inexplicably, looks and plays just like Mortal Kombat.
Um… okay.
Awesome quote:
[Solemnly, in a thick accent of indeterminate origin]
Colonel William F. Guile: Troopers, I just received new orders. Our superiors say the war is cancelled. We can all go home. Bison is getting paid off for his crimes, and our friends who have died here will have died for nothing. But, we can all go home. Meanwhile, ideals like peace, freedom, and justice, they get packed up. But, we can all go home.
[Angrily]
Colonel William F. Guile: Well, I’m not going home. I’m gonna get on my boat, and I’m going up river, and I’m going to kick that son of a bitch Bison’s ass so hard that the next Bison wannabe is gonna feel it! Now, who wants to go home… and who wants to go with me?
[The troopers cheer]
What? The war is cancelled? Dang! I wanted to kick ass off the payroll, and put my life in danger in order to teach some guy I’ve never heard of a lesson!
#4 - DOA: Dead or Alive
DOA is kind of like a combination of all the things that were stupid about Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Tomb Raider, much like the game upon which the movie was based. DOA is one of those films that young boys rent when they are not old enough to graduate to hardcore porn, one of those late night, soft-core B movies that have the maximum amount of hard nipples, jiggly fake tits and gratuitous panty/and/or camel toe shots possible whilst still retaining a PG-13 rating.
Long, awkward exchange you would think was written by a 12 year old:
Bass: Tina! It’s showtime!
Tina Armstrong: Dad! Not now I’m in my underwear.
Christie Allen: Which I hate. Why you can’t just sleep in the nude like me I’ll never know.
Bass: Oh my god.
Tina Armstrong: No Dad, she’s just another fighter. We’re just sleeping together.
Bass: Yeah I can see that.
Tina Armstrong: No. I mean we’re not sleeping together. We’re just… sleeping.
Bass: Seems to me like my baby girl’s found a special friend. We’ll settle it tomorrow, sweetie. Nice to meet you miss.
Christie Allen: Oh it’s Christie.
Bass: Tina’s real name’s Christina!
Tina Armstrong: Dad!
Tina Armstrong: Thanks a lot, bitch.
Christie Allen: Save your strength sweetheart, big day tomorrow fighting daddy.
This is why Jaime Pressly can no longer sleep the sleep of the innocent.
So horribly bad, you’d think this movie would never see release, but then you’d be underestimating America’s sexually repressed desire to be titillated by sophomoric and juvenile sex and violence. Watching this movie is like watching one of those WWE women’s wrestling matches in which the women can neither wrestle nor act, but are so scantily clad that you continue watching in hope of catching a nipple slip or glimpse of sideways smile that never, ever comes.
#3 - Alone in the Dark
Alone in the dark is considered by many to be not only one of the worst video game movies ever made, but also one of the worst movies of any kind, period. All you really need to know is that Tara Reid is cast as a genius archaeologist who is also a marksman with various firearms. Tara Reid, the actress best known for having her tits pop out at red carpet events. Uwe Boll has obviously sold his soul to the devil, as there is a sequel already in development as we speak, despite horrible box office performance and terrible, hateful reviews by nearly every living person that ever had the misfortune of seeing this film. Christian Slater’s career, however, may never recover.
Who are Tara Reid and Christian Slater going to have to blow to get this one stricken from their record?
Lines Christian Slater delivers with a straight face throughout the course of this movie:
Edward Carnby: Being afraid of the dark is what keeps most of us alive.
Edward Carnby: Fear is what protects you from the things you don’t believe in.
Edward Carnby: I learned the truth a long time ago. Just because you can’t see something, doesn’t mean it can’t kill you.
#2 - Double Dragon
You know your movie is in trouble when David Hasselhoff backs out due to a scheduling conflict with a series of air conditioner commercials. Double Dragon, starring Scott Wolf, Mark Dacascos Alyssa Milano and Robert Patrick, is so retarded, you need to wear a helmet when you watch it. The plot details some asshole’s plot to “take over the city”, whatever that means, and two losers’ valiant effort to thwart him. Much karate ensues, peppered with clever lines such as this:
Smartass Mohawk: I can see you!
Jimmy Lee: Now you can’t!
[Shoves Broom in eyehole]
Now I understand that Double Dragon comes from a simpler time in which it was often enough for an action movie to throw out a couple of karate chops here and there and call it a day. But this movie came out nearly ten years after “Big Trouble in Little China”, and almost five years after “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”, and managed to copy the “hopeless, crime ridden future with mystical eastern undertones” look, without retaining any of the great action, characterization, fun or spirit of those films.
For those of you who weren’t born yet, the 80s pretty much looked just like this.
Double Dragon is nearly the worst video game movie ever made, but is worth seeing, if for no other reason, than to marvel at the ever-naïve vision held by so many filmmakers in the 80s and early 90s that gangs would one day take over the major cities of America, not with guns, or drugs, but with karate and magic. I wish we could believe that to be true today, but movies today project a much bleaker view of the coming post-apocalypse. Usually involving some kind of zombies. And I never saw a zombie that could do bitchen’ karate.
#1 - Super Mario Bros.
A sick, sad debacle that pleases no one and offends everyone else, Super Mario Bros. takes a beloved franchise, ripe with wonder, color and character, and destroys it so thoroughly that a second attempt never was and most likely never will be made at rectifying the mistake. Despite having Bob Hoskins, john Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper in the cast, Super Mario Bros. manages to get nearly everything wrong, turning everything into a dark and dreary abortion that has nothing to do with the spirit of the game that changed the video game landscape forever.
The plot has something to do with dinosaurs being separated into another dimension by a magic meteor and then evolving into people-like creatures or some such nonsense, but it hardly matters, it’s too great of a strain on the viewer to pay attention long enough to care anyway. Not that the original game’s story is any better, mind you, it just had a certain timeless charm to it that lost it’s appeal by being thrust into the real world, much like “He-Man: Masters of the Universe” some years before it.
Why yes, that is Dennis Hopper, surrounded by muppets, wielding a Super Scope.
Just about the only good thing about the Mario Bros. movie is that it clears up the question of Mario and Luigi’s last name rather succinctly, a subject Nintendo had been dancing around for years:
Desk Sergeant: Name.
Mario: Mario.
Desk Sergeant: Last name.
Mario: Mario.
Desk Sergeant: And you?
Luigi: Luigi.
Desk Sergeant: Luigi Luigi?
Luigi: No, Luigi Mario.
Desk Sergeant: Okay how many Marios are there between the two of you?
Luigi: Three: Mario Mario and Luigi Mario.
