Here Are 10 Video Game Movies That Failed Epically
It’s almost like an unwritten rule that whenever a movie studio decides to make a movie based on a video game, that movie is going to be terrible. Yet, movie studios keep doing it. It’s a very special feeling when you have a game that you love and you hear that a movie studio is releasing a movie based on the game. Excited, you make your way towards the theater, buy your ticket, buy some popcorn, the film starts rolling and 15 minutes into the movie you walk out of the theater because the movie producer never played the game and therefore didn’t know what to do with the movie. Today we are going to share all our favorite disappointments with you in our Top 10 Video Game Movies That Became the Biggest Jokes of the Century from bad to the absolute worst. Please keep in mind that this is our list of stinkers, so if you don’t see a movie that you think should really be here, don’t fret because we may just put it on our second (or even third) worst video game to movie list. Please enjoy.
10. King of Fighters
The Characters Sure Look “So Much” Alike To the Video Game Characters
King of Fighters is a perfect movie to start this list with because it perfectly demonstrates the main problem with video-game based movies. King of Fighters (the game) isn’t as popular as Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat but it still has a loyal fan-base and many people prefer it over the other two. Characters have their back stories and all of them have something to fight for. Could they have made a good movie based on this game franchise? Probably. Did they? Not really. So what did King of Fighters do? Well, they focused the story on only a few characters and threw in a tournament at the end just because this is a fighting movie and every fighting movie needs a tournament. The actors look nothing like the characters they are supposed to represent, the story is boring and the only time there is actually any fighting whatsoever is during the very beginning and at the very end of the movie. Needless to say, King of Fighters fans should stay away from this one, as should you.
King of Fighters Trailer
9. DOA : Dead or Alive
Not Even the Beautiful Actresses Could Have Saved This Movie
Believe it or not this one wasn’t a complete failure. It actually made a little bit of a profit in Europe and Australia. However, as soon as the film was released in North America the fans buried it with negative criticism. So, we have the license to make a movie based on a video game where hot women fight each other, what should we do? Let’s just make a silly Charlie’s Angels rip-off. This is probably the kind of movie you should rent when you are in the mood for some really bad movies, or if you mistakenly rent it thinking that it’s the game. If you are a fan of Dead or Alive, please steer clear of this one.
Dead or Alive Trailer
8. Postal
The Postal Guy Doesn’t Even Go On a Killing Rampage In the Movie.
Postal and Postal 2 are… interesting games. The whole point of them is to do mundane tasks while brutally murdering everyone in your way, especially innocent people. Yes, it sounds controversial and horrible, but it’s a video game, it’s stupid, it didn’t take itself seriously at all and, naturally, it was relatively successful. Who on Earth thought it would be a good idea to make a movie based on a game like that? Does the name Uwe Boll mean anything to you? Well, you might want to remember that name because it might just show up again on our list. Uwe Boll thought that a game about a psychopathic killer would work great as a movie about a weird religious cult that’s trying to steal a valuable stash of goods from an amusement park that some Taliban also have their eyes on. The postal guy is simply thrown in as an observer and if the movie and the game didn’t share the same name, we would never even picture that it was based on it. It’s stupid, it’s ugly, it has jokes that make you want to vomit and you feel dirty after watching such garbage. If you’ve ever played Postal, you already know why this couldn’t work and why it wasn’t a success.
Postal Trailer
7. Doom
Hey Let’s Make a Movie in 2005 Based on a Game From 1993
Doom is often considered the father of first-person-shooter games. Even today, there’s a certain charm when playing the original Doom that just can’t be matched. Maybe it’s the music, the gore or the evil grin your portrait makes. Either way, we love Doom and quite honestly, we actually thought that making a Doom movie would work. While Doom does have a story, hidden deep beneath the game, it was mostly about shooting demons in the face with massive guns. On top of all of that, they cast The Rock to play the lead, which sounds amazing. Alas, everything was ruined. Doom has a stupid story, with stupid characters and hilarious special effects. It tries to take itself too seriously and you cannot help but laugh at its feeble attempts. To give you an idea how desperate the movie was, one of the last scenes of the game was filmed from a first-person-perspective to make it look like the game. How cute, yet sad at the same time.
Doom Trailer
6. Double Dragon
The Power Rangers Called. They Want Their Costumes Back.
Double Dragon was one of the best remembered beat-em-up games on the NES. Ask anyone who enjoys this genre and they will undoubtedly mention Double Dragon. So, since the game was so popular in 1987, they decided to make a movie based on it, a whole 7 years after the game’s release (1994). “Oh yeah, I played Double Dragon when I was still in Elementary school” was what most of us thought when we saw this. We have no idea what the producers or the developers were thinking. First they hire top celebrities like Andy Dick to start off the movie, then they introduce a lame not-so-post-war California and finally they just ruin everything with dumb characters, lame special effects and lame story. At one point in the movie, the characters even break the Double Dragon arcade machine, why? What was the point of that? This train-wreck is still fun to watch, to be honest. It seems like a last-minute movie project done by a bad film-making student who never even played a beat-em-up game. As of writing this, you can actually watch the movie for free on youtube right now if you want.
Double Dragon Trailer
5. Street Fighter
Don’t Let This Picture Fool You, It’s Just Another Terrible Movie
No, not Street Fighter. Not one of the most beloved video games of all time. Don’t do this to us. Well they did it. Quite honestly, it’s not as bad as some other movies on the list but because of the name we had no choice but to put it on our list. While it’s called Street Fighter it mostly focuses on Guile and M.Bison while the other street fighters just pop in during the movie with little to no explanations. To be perfectly honest, the characters look cool and there are some good cameos, but that couldn’t save the movie from bad acting and awful fight scenes. The last scene in particular had us rolling our eyes as it features a fight between Bison and Guile where M. Bison repeatedly flies into Guile and he is too stupid to dodge his attacks. While it’s still pretty bad, you just might be able to survive watching this one if you immediately play a good Street Fighter game afterwards.
Street Fighter Trailer
4. Alone In the Dark
This Movie Should Listen to Its Title and Stay Alone In the Dark
Uwe Boll strikes again with Alone in The Dark. This original Alone In the Dark is considered the father to survival horror games. If you try to play it today, it’s a little clunky but fun non-the-less. It’s responsible for some of the greatest horror games ever released like Resident Evil, Silent Hill and maybe even modern titles like Amnesia or Outlast. So what can we do to preserve the legacy of such a fine pioneer game? Well, make a terrible movie about it of course. Add some poorly made monsters give everyone guns and hope that, if none of the mentioned suckers the fans into the theater, at least Tara Reid might bring some excited fans. Well, she didn’t, and the film was dead on arrival. If you are a fan of the classic Alone In the Dark game, here’s an idea. Watch this movie, and note down all the similarities it has with the game. So far on our list, we only have the movie title.
Alone in the Dark Trailer
3. Bloodrayne
I’m going to kill you know… if that’s ok?
Mr. Boll, it’s so “nice” to see you again sir. Which lovable game are you going to ruin today sir? Bloodrayne, you say. Well ok, if you say so. What’s that? You say one movie is not enough, you want to make a trilogy? You know what? Instead of talking how ungodly awful this movie is, let’s talk about Uwe Boll. Did you know that there is an educated rumor that Mr. Boll, for some reason, earns a lot of money for each bad movie he makes. In fact, the worse a movie is, the more money he will earn. With that logic, Bloodrayne should have made him a millionaire. Oh my lord, how bad this one is. If you’ve never heard of Bloodrayne, it’s basically an over the top third person shooter similar to Max Payne, where you play as a deadly vampire-like protagonist. It was a little rough, but the game was a lot of fun. Mister Boll made sure we don’t get any of that in the movie. The movie features awful action scenes that make you yawn, the actors don’t care at all about their performance and it also has two sequels, and both of them are terrible.
Bloodrayne Trailer
2. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
Uhhhhh… the Movie Theme Was Kind of Cool
The first Mortal Kombat movie was ok. It was nothing special and you wouldn’t sound crazy if you said you liked it because it had some good moments. Unfortunately, movie makers couldn’t let us have a good movie based on a video game so they made a sequel to wrong all the rights the first one made. Step one; replace main characters from the first movie, done. Step two, kill some of them immediately. Step three, have incredibly bad acting. Final step, make a story that makes children’s plays look like works of art comparatively. Just when we were about to say that we had one decent movie based on a video game, the sequel came and ruined it. In fact, the sequel is so bad it makes all other movie-based video games look good. If you have a person you really hate and want to see them suffer, tie them to a chair and make them watch this. That’s how bad this one is. Don’t take our word for it, search it online yourself, and instead of finding information about it, it’s much more likely that you will find lists of the worst scenes from this abomination.
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
1. Super Mario Bros.
Mario, What Had They Done to You?
During the NES era, Nintendo supposedly had so much money that they could literally burn it on stupid stuff. One of the dumbest things Nintendo invested their money in was this movie. You know, the story of how this movie was made and developed is actually much more interesting than the movie itself. Basically, nobody wanted to make this movie. The script was passed from writer to writer, the directors were constantly changing and the final product looked nothing like the movie was supposed to be. The main actors are embarrassed to even admit they once acted in such a poor-excuse for a movie and Nintendo admits that the movie was very disappointing. Mario and Luigi work as actual plumbers in Brooklyn, they go to a dinosaur dimension to stop a humanoid Bowser. Did we mention that the Super Mario Brothers are actually father and son and that their last name is Mario?
Mario Mario and Luigi Mario, we really hope to never see you again on the big screen. This movie not only destroyed itself but also created the rule that video game based movies just don’t work.
Super Mario Bros. Trailer
And that’s our list of our least favorite video game based movies. As we’ve said before, there are quite a lot of bad video-game movies out there and our list alone cannot do justice to the amount of abominations movie studios can make when they want a quick buck. If you want to give one of your movie loving friends a nasty gift, pick whichever one you want. Otherwise, steer clear of these movies. Go play the games instead.
For more lists similar to this one check these out:
21 Video Games That Were Made Into Movies
