Only a passing mention
Mortal Kombat (the first one) was rather enjoyable I recall, especially the brilliant casting of Christophe Lambert, who you suspect was constantly thinking "how on earth did I get cast in this role?"
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 …
I remember that for every single action sequence having been cut and paste from another film. The literally tried to do a sequence from every genre; there's a carrier landing accident where they have to bulldoze a wrecked fighter off the landing deck which obligingly falls off the end of the deck... in zero G and a submarine-being-depthcharged (still in space at this point) sequence where all the senior officers spend a few minutes staring at the ceiling of the bridge while looking worried.
There's also the Final Fantasy film, that's ok.
Ah, Hitman - the movie with the missing S in the title. Clearly you have forgotten such plotting gems as the titular character getting into a four-way Mexican standoff with three other Hitmen ... who are all allied with each other and had attacked him as a group. The only redeeming feature that movie had was frontal nudity from Olga Kurylenko (which ironically made it better than the same year's Bond movie).
AndrewInIreland,
You bastard! I'd forgotten that Wing Commander film. Until now...
I've not seen many of these fortunately. I think I saw Resident Evil on telly, and that's it. It wasn't very good, but it was watchable, and I was bored or feeling lazy.
It's a pretty horrific thought to have to sit down and review 10 of them. I think the best options here are resignation, or setting up some compromising material on your editor's PC, so they're fired before they can make you witness the full horror.
Wing Commander and Tomb Raider are the only two movies even mentioned here that I've seen. And, frankly, the only reason for remembering WC is the soundtrack. Gotta love a soundtrack where one of the tracks is named, I kid thee not, "Big Damn Ending".
As for Tomb Raider, there are only two reasons for its existence, and they're frontally mounted on Ms. Jolie.
"As for Tomb Raider, there are only two reasons for its existence, and they're frontally mounted on Ms. Jolie."
I can't believe I'm going to complain about this but her bra was so stuffed with padding in that movie that I couldn't concentrate on the action scenes because of the two unnaturally static orbs strapped to her chest.
Now that I think about it though, this does seem reminiscent of playing the tomb raider games as a teen...
Agreed with Res Evil. It was quite a nice little zombie/survival flick with a bit of conspiracy theory thrown in for good measure. It is odd to see a film panned for not just playing on blood and gore effects.
Though it probably does say something about the skills and scripts of the main characters as they were all up-staged by the six year old girl playing Red Queen who, for me, outranks HAL as how a homicidal AI should operate.
Tbh i was not a fan of the games and the film was shit, but some of my friends rated DOA. would have thought it be on that list tbh.
"With such bad form, it's little surprise Blizzard laughed away Boll's approach to direct the upcoming World of Warcraft film."
Do Blizzard really need to bring in outside directors? Their cut scene work in D3 was mind blowingly good, even though the game sucked. They should be able to make an unbelievably pretty Warcraft film, the story line is already written so surly for them they just need to create the graphics.
In terms of films that haven't been made, I think the Portal games would do very well, especially the early years of Aperture Science. GTA Vice City had a bit of a weak plot but San Andreas and IV would also work pretty well. (I know there's a film called Grand Theft Auto but that has nothing to do with the games).
...would work as a brainless film. Mark Wahlberg seeks to escape the rising tide of violence in his Liandri Corp. mining colony so he enters the Liandi Corp. tournament. Cue increasingly montaged fight scenes, culminating in some sort of boss battle (perhaps with the actual boss of Liandri Corp., I think it was in the game) and some triumphant trophy hoisting. Who needs dialogue when things are exploding.
There is one film, which after waiting for it for what seemed an eternity, failed in such spectacular style even the greatest fan of the original material was driven to despair. The Hitch hikers Guide to the Galaxy must be the epitome of how not to make a film.
I know the Radio series, books and BBC were there first but it was quite a good game so I would consider its inclusion in this pile of turds should be a given.
Hitman was the only one of the bunch that i enjoyed, it was kinda like Jason Bourne with a shaved head........
The game Silent hill gave me the fucking creeps so I didn't bother with the film.
Surprised they haven't made Metal Gear Solid into a film series. ( I would love to see someone replace The Terminator)
I wonder if they will consider doing Uncharted as this is definately a candidate to replace Indiana Jones.
The silent hill film isn't too bad, especially when compared to other films in the genre of 'darkness, silence, music building tension, SUDDEN BOOGIE MAN!". Just don't watch it on TV in the UK because it's usually cut to ribbons. I think the UK DVD may have cuts as well.
What odious little shit should be strung up for the disservices he has done the gaming and movie industries. If ever there was a reason for extraordinary rendition to a country where torture is a national sport, Uwe Boll is it.
Paris, 'cause she doesn't mine a good boll now and then.
That's the thing about Boll, though. I think he's actually convinced that he's making good films. He really wants to make a great movie... he's just terrible at it. I'm betting the reason he's slowed his output is simply because, for now, there are no investors, and no one will let him use their video game for a film - not because the loophole has been closed.
I actually like the RE films, they are a bit of fun to watch if you totally ignore the actual RE part of it and just take it as a zombie shooter style movie. Of course, seeing Milla Jovovich naked makes the film totally perfect and devoid of any criticism ever. Indeed, if you have the worst movie in the world ever (as voted for by El Reg users) the films become instant classics if you have Milla Jovovich naked at the end.
Hell, even Twilight would become watchable if you had Milla Jovovich naked in it (albeit for the 5-10 seconds she appears).
I can't take this list particularly seriously, as it's omitted the only genuinely decent film I've ever seen that was based on a videogame - namely, Street Fighter: The Animated Movie.
As for whoever mentioned Portal, any feature-length film would need to be at least as good as Portal: No Escape:
(see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4drucg1A6Xk if you don't know what I'm talking about).
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.
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.)
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?
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
...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.
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.
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 ;)
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Quote: 'Angelina Jolie was perfect for the portrayal of the sexiest video game character of all time too. Can you imagine anyone else playing Ms. Croft so well?'
Whilst Angelina was okay, I always though Rhona Mitra would have made a better Croft.
Better figure, better looking (in my op) and is actually English!