Ten movies inspired by video games
Capcom's Street Fighter series celebrates its 25th birthday this week and while the world is awash with various mementos – including boxsets and a dedicated Street Fighter site for fans to reminisce on their favourite moments – we decided it was the perfect opportunity to look back at the film adaptations of video game …
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Resident Evil series is good
Just because 'critics' don't like it, fans do.
It's top quality zombie killing action featuring the fantastically talented Ms Jovovich, each film was profitable and made more money than its predecessor.
I'm surprised AvP was left off the list, although I suppose the comic did come first, technically.
I think they were planning a Bioshock film?
Could be good, most likely it'll be nonsense.
--SPOILERS--
He will only be saving the little sisters because he has fallen in love with Tanenbaum or other such nonsense.
Re: Biodome?
There's only one reason to watch that film: Kylie Minogue is in it.
Ironic?
I hate to be that guy, but still... How is it ironic that RE never reached the heights of a Romero flick, when Romero pulled out early on? On the contrary, surely it makes perfect sense?
Re: Ironic?
How is it ironic that RE never reached the heights of a Romero flick, when Romero pulled out early on?
I suspect that bit in the article was a gloss for something along the lines of "ironically, he [was attached to the project but] pulled out ... early on". The irony would consist in the reviewer comparing the film to a Romero production when it started as one.
Given the current text, I agree it's hard to support the use of "ironically", but you can see how it might have made sense in an earlier revision. So chalk it up to editing.
(Pro tip: The trope irony consists of the violation of expectations. It can be the audience's expectations that are violated, or those of someone else, such as a character in a play or novel. In recent years it's become fashionable to complain that a situation which was described as ironic is not in fact ironic - but ironically those complaining are often wrong, because they don't know what irony is. They should start with something easier, like metonymy.)
There's a movie begging to be made
I still can't believe no one has taken up the gauntlet of Duke Nuke'em.
If ever there was a film begging to be made, it's that franchise.
Of course it will take 10yrs to produce and still be a massive let down, but that's what we've come to expect from that title, n'est ce pas?
Re: There's a movie begging to be made
They made Hell Boy, which was a close enough approximation.
Silent Hill wasn't bad.
...and I'm quite a fan of the games. I just accept that the film is nothing like the games. Not that the games are all that connected either.
+1 on SF: The Anime. Top quality.
Re: Silent Hill wasn't bad.
You're right. The first half in particular was surprisingly good, they made a fine job capturing the creepy and disturbing ambient of the game and translating it to the movie.
Sadly, in the second half they just dropped the ball, somewhere just after the jaw-droppingly brutal attack of the Pyramid Head. I don't know, I just feel they abandoned the links to the games and started doing *whatever* with the characters... the quality of the film fell sharply as a consequence.
When they <SPOILERS> killed Cybill </SPOILERS>, I knew they had gone too far.
Even so, it's one of the best video game movies out there. Which is kind of sad if you think about it
Re: Silent Hill wasn't bad.
Yup, I agree, Silent Hill was really well done. It captured the creepy weirdness of the games well and was genuinely unnerving in some parts.
Re: No Super Mario Bros...!?!?!
"No Super Mario Bros....!?!?!"
Yes, it's a disgrace, they should have included it. Even though they did include it on page 4.
Tekken movie with one of Bros in - that was terrible, but kind of mindless fun,
...better than Street Fighter at any rate.
There's a couple of CGI Resident Evil movies that are not bad - kind of like cut-scenes from the game expanded into a film (with acting to match unfortunately),
First Tomb Raider film was okay, first Resi film was great fun, especially the laser grid scene. Also Michelle Rodriguez, cor.
Uncharted
I recommend the 3 BluRays of it, however you need a particular model of Sony BluRay player.
As to a remake - no thanks, they would use the wrong cast and the only actor suitable for Drake may be a bit too old, Elena looks like her actress though.
fallout
now that is a movie that might not suck. such a good premise and plenty of back story around already.
Re: fallout
Was "The Road" not effectively Fallout without the guns, nuka cola or Liam Neeson?
Re: fallout
not really.... post apoc, sure, but didnt have the quirkyness... i would also like to see them getting out of the vaults etc.
Doom is awesome
I saw Street Fighter in the cinema when i was about 10, and realised it was a turkey back then. Having watched it again recently, it is devoid of the vast majority of the special moves, except for some throws that don't require any CGI. The word HADOUKEN appears nowhere in the film.
Super Mario Bros. concentrates far too much on the brothers' plumbing skills and not enough on the jumping/mushroom-eating for my liking.
David Webb's (above) review of Resi is spot on.
Doom looks like it is a real film with an actual budget, game plot-line discrepancies aside. The Rock may not be a great actor but everyone else is at least averagely convincing. And the first-person section is an amazing bit of cinematography.
Can't comment on the rest, haven't seen 'em.
Re: Doom is awesome
Indeed. I quite liked the Doom film.
I mean, sure, it was no Citizen Kane. But for what it was I thought it did pretty well at it.
Re: Doom is awesome
I enjoyed Doom for what it was as well.
Worst ever film must be the Bob Hoskins Mario one
Anything which went 'trio' ?
My stance is that if a movie is made from a videogame instead of the other way around then its usually best avoided although there are some exceptions.
But that left me wondering: any scenario known where a videogame 'spawned' a movie which in itself spawned a new videogame (or the other way around; movie to videogame to movie) ?
I'm sure Hollywood never came up with that scheme (yet). Hm, maybe I should have kept my mouth shut ;)
Re: Anything which went 'trio' ?
Indeed it has! Look no further than Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4UdQVYkCZg (home version)
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV6TfJ3rvRI (arcade version)
Also, the anime character designs for the first Street Fighter Alpha game was allegedly influenced by the young Ryu/Ken scenes from Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie
Re: Anything which went 'trio' ?
SF:TM:TG is the only US case I can think of, but there's so much cross-contamination among media in Japan that this must have happened there. Anime-game-anime is a likely cycle. I don't have an example off the top of my head, but I'd be surprised if there aren't some.
The Final Fantasy film is basically just one of the games that's all FMV and no button-mashing, and the plots and concepts for those games are pretty incestuous. But I don't know that I'd claim any of the subsequent games were "spawned" by the film - they're just all part of the same vein Square has been mining for years.
They'd probably ruin it, but a film based on Speedball/Speedball 2 _could_ be fantastic, in a gritty, violent, retro Rollerball type of way.
+1
ive thought that since i first played it. brutal deluxe FTW :)
The first time I watched super mario bros or street fighter, I was quite frankly depressed at how poor they were. Mortal Kombat wasn't much better.
But after watching them again they're not that bad for thoughtless entertainment and I'm glad I got them on DVD.
The more serious attempts that I've see are worse. Resident evil goes down hill very quickly and it just doesn't have enough excitement or horror. I saw tomb raider the other day on iplayer and it's shit. I'll certainly watch SMB again before I watch that. I don't think angelina was a good lara and daniel craig's shit accent and poor acting is a good reason for anyone to have been hessitant about him becoming Bond.
Even postal easily had more entertainment value than tomb raider.
Edgar Wright pwns Uwe Boll
A slightly different category: A film in the manner of a video game, sorta. Scott Pilgrim; I salute you 10/10 (beers)
Mortal Kombat
Had a brilliant soundtrack though so all is forgiven.
Deus Ex
I hear there is a Deus Ex movie coming based on Human Revolution. It will probably suck bi time but I will still fork out my hard earned to go and check it out. I guess I'm an optimist...
I agree
There's also a Mass Effect motion picture adaptation in the works but it looks like it might be stuck in development hell. We can only hope.
Shadow of the Collossus
There is some talk about a film version of the above mentioned game.
It could be awesome, but somehow, I suspect not.
Uwe Boll
Honorable mention for UB, Ramage was actually a pretty decent movie, not based on a computer game though.
Re: Uwe Boll
Rampage was fucking epic, what postal should have been like.
It was like that falling down film from the 80`s had michael douglas been 18 and actually used his guns to shoot people (a lot of people, i think the bodycount from the rampage is nearly 100). It basically puts onto film what everyone dreams of doing when life gets you down and people piss you off.
Re: No Dead or Alive?
Terrible film.
Some brilliant camera angles though.
You must be kidding.. silly bad taste you got, really.
Silent Hill is a top-notch horror movie. Too bad so many people can't recognize quality.
Hit-Man too is a top-notch violent movie. A very good adaptation.
Resident Evil movies are high quality to top-notch quality movies.
All those movies produced with quite small budgets look much bigger and better than so many blockbuster movies with officially sky high budgets.
In conclusion...
... Films based on video games are shite.
There, five pages summed up in one sentence!
@Caleb
I think you're letting your opinion / perception of what many of these movies should have been cloud your judgement concerning the movie's quality. Some of these movies are indeed turds but some of them are actually decent movies in and of themselves if you just put aside any preconceptions based on the game of the same name. Doom, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Tomb Raider for example were all decent flics that I continue to enjoy to this day. If you put aside any opinions based on the game those movies aren't actually bad. most of them do tend to have at least one mediocre actor in it granted but what movie doesn't? Even Mario Brothers, despite having a script targeted at children, was an enjoyable movie. Street Fighter and Double Dragon were pretty much just stinkers though. I can barely get through either of them without falling asleep. For some perspective I recommend you sit down and watch Battlefield Earth or perhaps Manos: The Hands of Fate (Without the awesome riff-trax). Then you'll have an idea what a bad movie really looks like.
So what's the video game that Prometheus is based on?
I haven't found out.
The good:
Mortal kombat
Silent Hill
Tomb Raider
Resident Evil
Final fantasy, more for the cgi than the confusing storyline.
The insanely violent shooty one whos name I cant recall.
The bad:
Street fighter
double dragon
The mortal kombat sequels
Mario Bros, although i concede that kids might like it.
Wing commander
Still waiting for films based on ...
1. Elite
2. Alpha Centauri
3. Lemmings (o.k, joking a bit here)
Re: Still waiting for films based on ...
Alpha Centauri would either be mind-blowingly awesome or mind-numbingly terrible.
Re: Still waiting for films based on ...
It would be a great movie, however, it would also be sixteen hours long, four of them focusing solely on a terraformer's epic struggle against blooming fungus. Meanwhile, the fans don't care, because they're just there to see the Gaians. And unless there are a dozen scenes where a lone man armed with a laser pointer destroys an entire convoy of attacking tanks, it's just not going to be true to the game.
Old RPGs
Personally, I enjoyed Hitman and the first MK. Plus - for those who mentioned SF - The animated movie... I see you and raise you a Tekken - the animated movie.
Aaaaaanyhow. What I was going to say is that I'm still waiting for someone to buy the rights to all the old LucasArts games. Curse of Monkey Island, The Film? (ok, so that's basically Pirates of the Caribbean). Day of the Tentacle? Loom? Grim Fandango?
They would all make awesome films.
Beer - because you all owe me one when Boll reads this and makes a fortune.
Re: Old RPGs
We need a film of The Dig.
Considering it was originally going to be a film and was instead made into a video game, that would be do-able.
Not entirely sure Day of the Tentacle would work as a film, but I have very fond memories of playing it. Brilliant game.
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