Given that the video game industry is the
biggest entertainment industry in the world,
it makes sense to capitalise on it in every
single way possible.
Merchandise, fan events, a dreadful film,
you know, all of the ways.
It’s a much joked about topic among video
game enthusiasts that film adaptations of
gaming entities are either in a near-constant
state of ‘nearly being made’ or are just
absolutely rubbish.
There’s a good chance you might have seen
Mortal Kombat in the mid-90’s and thought
it was awesome, but critically it wasn’t
highly thought of at all.
And 20 years later, excluding films that merely
feature character cameos like Wreck It Ralph
of course, Hollywood still isn’t getting
it right, with 2018’s Rampage and Tomb Raider
films not receiving much love at all, but,
get this, they sit atop the all time rankings
for game movies.
Yeah!
They, as of the release of this video, are
the best received video game films of all
time.
With not a single release scoring higher than
53% on rotten tomatoes or 58% on Metacritic,
and Sonic’s WEIRD HUMAN LEGS making an appearance
later this yeah, I think it’s high time
we chronicle the very worst of this sorry
bunch, so let’s look at them.
I’m Ben from TripleJump, and here are – according
to rotten tomatoes – the 10 Worst Video
Game Movies Of All Time.
10.
Hitman: Agent 47
A quiet and resourceful assassin, Agent 47
is not a person you want to mess with, and
the same is true for the 2015 movie film,
hitman: agent 47.
That is, you don’t want to mess with him.
Because he’ll throw you into a jet engine
and then have a gun fight in the street.
Just like the game!
Considered something of a betrayal of the
character established in IO Interactive’s
iconic series, the film is a loud, dumb action
movie with a lot of product placement, and
earned just a 9% approval rating from 116
reviews.
However, perhaps due to a large advertising
push, it managed to make nearly three times
its budget back.
It does have Zachary Quinto in it, which is
nice, always good to see Zach, but even he
couldn’t save hitman: agent 47 from assassinating
itself.
9.
Double Dragon
Based on the beat em up of the same name and
released in 1994, Double Dragon does not take
itself very seriously.
Set in the distant future of 2007 in an earthquake-ravaged
Los Angeles where police rule the day and
those gosh darned punks run the night, the
evil but-cool overlord Koga Shuko wishes to
control everything by obtaining both halves
of a magic medallion called the double dragon.
Oh but it’s not as simple as just ordering
the other half on amazon, no no, because look
who’s here, irritating halfwit brothers
Jimmy and Billy.
Imbued with divine stupidity and enhanced
ass kickin’ powers courtesy of their half
of the medallion, the duo bumble their way
to victory in spite of Shuko’s best laid
plans.
I’m very much #teamshuko on this one, guys.
Starring the likes of Robert ‘i’m a terminator’
Patrick, and the ever-popular Alyssa Milano,
the film earned itself just 8% on rotten tomatoes
and failed to earn back its budget at the
box office.
8.
Silent Hill: Revelation
A sequel to 2006’s Silent Hill, Silent Hill
Revelation was released in 3D in 2012 to a
critical spanking, and sits at 8% on rotten
tomatoes.
A continuation of the story told 6 years prior,
Sean Bean and his daughter have moved to a
new town and assumed new identities because
a cult from Silent Hill are chasing them.
Haunted by spooky visions, the daughter makes
friends with jon snow from game of thrones
at school but then sean bean gets kidnapped
and she decides to go and rescue him or something.
Then Malcolm mcdowell of all people shows
up and he’s got half of the seal of metatron
and she has the other– wait this sounds
familiar.
Anyway, pyramid head is in it, there’s a
creepy girl who was burned alive by the cult
who’s going around doing naughty things,
and those confusing feelings nurses are present
and accounted for too.
Silent hill revelation is summarised as a
"Mediocre effort even by the standards of
video game adaptations, featuring weak characters
and an incomprehensible plot with a shortage
of scares.”
Still managed to make back nearly 3 times
its budget though, so hooray for that.
7.
Postal
From critical nightmare director Uwe (ooh-vuh)
Boll, comes Postal: a film that proudly boasts
about how far it goes and how cool and rad
that is.
Based on the controversial in its own right
Postal series – in which you literally go
postal inflicting mayhem and violence on everything
around you – the movie adaptation attempted
to ape such sensibilities, featuring scenes
of jihadists crashing a plane into the world
trade centre, large chested cult members dressed
as nazis, George w bush skipping through a
field with his best friend osama bin laden,
a shootout where lots of children die, verne
troyer being sexually assaulted by 1000 monkeys,
and china, Pakistan, and the united states
all launching nuclear missiles at one another.
Nice.
The thing is, it’s not about taste, decency,
or even what is or isn’t okay to joke about,
it’s about making a half decent film, and
Postal is certainly not that, being nominated
for 3 golden raspberry awards, and achieving
a 7% rating on rotten tomatoes.
6.
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
Oh poor street fighter.
The legend of chun-li isn’t the only time
street fighter has received the movie treatment,
with 1994’s campy attempt not faring much
better.
Attempting to reboot – if you can call it
that – the game series’ film franchise,
here we have a young chun li moving to hong
kong with her family, learning Chinese martial
art Wushu while also practicing to be a concert
pianist.
Good for her.
Unfortunately her father is abducted and a
few years later she has to track him down
and it’s only M. Bison who gone and done
it!
It concludes with chun li being shown a newspaper
ad for an upcoming street fighter tournament,
and a name drop for Ryu, hinting at the beginning
of some kind of expanded cinematic universe.
But it’s on this list, so... no.
The film did feature several streetfighter
mainstays however, including Charlie, barlog,
and vega, but everyone was wearing plane clothes
throughout which is crap.
"The combination of a shallow plot and miscast
performers renders Street Fighter: The Legend
of Chun Li a perfectly forgettable video game
adaptation" said rotten tomatoes, scoring
it 6% in the process.
5.
In the Name of the King
From critical nightmare director Uwe Boll,
comes In the name of the king: a film that
starred the likes of Jason Statham, Ron Perlman,
and Ray Liotta, but made just 13.1 million
of its 60 million budget back, and earned
a staggering 4% on rotten tomatoes.
For the uninitiated, despite not sharing a
name, the movie in question is an adaptation
of 2002 action role playing game, dungeon
siege.
Receiving high praise across the board and
winning multiple awards, Wikipedia does note
that critics were dismissive of the game’s
plot, so that surely makes it a prime candidate
for a movie, right?
Excellent.
‘Featuring wooden performances, laughable
dialogue, and shoddy production values, in
the name of the king fulfils all expectations
of a uwe boll film.’
Ouch.
Incredibly, and against all odds, they made
a bloody trilogy with Uwe Boll returning for
both sequels.
No idea if they were any better received however,
because their Wikipedia pages are a ghost
town.
4.
BloodRayne
From critical nightmare director Uwe Boll,
comes Bloodrayne: a film that threatens in
its trailer that the adventure is just beginning.
This is a threat that is actually realised
thanks to the two sequels it miraculously
received in the wake of a 4% rating on rotten
tomatoes, and an absolute box office thrashing.
The videogame series Bloodrayne upon which
the film is based is a survival horror series
created by terminal reality, and features
a half-vampire supernatural hunter doing her
good good work.
In the film, Rayne and her vampire hunting
buddies take the fight to her father: the
vampire king kagan.
He’s bad you see, and wants to take over
the world and destroy all the humans in it.
Kind of like Uwe Boll?
Maybe.
Laura Bailey – voice of Rayne in the game
series – said of the adaptation that ‘it
sucked, she couldn’t get through the first
20 minutes, and that the whole endeavour saddened
her because she liked the games’.
Oh dear.
3.
House of the Dead
From critical nightmare director Uwe Boll,
comes House of the dead: a film that just
about made its budget back.
Good job everyone.
If you’ve ever been to the bowling alley
in Banbury, north oxfordshire, you’ve played
house of the dead.
From the weird shotgun controller of 3 to
the micro smg of 4 that gave you blisters
when you had to shake it, sega really loves
getting you to kill those zombies.
Naturally, Uwe Boll wanted in, so, positioning
the film as a fun college rave weekend, our
group of unlikeable morons make their way
to isla del morte, or island of death.
Fun!
But when they get there, they find the site
abandoned and one by one they start getting
killed and eaten by zombies because it’s
just a paint by numbers zombie film apparently.
Scoring just 3% on rotten tomatoes, the site
describes the flick as ‘full of unintentional
laughs’.
Now, for a horror film, that’s not ideal,
but when you’ve got Boll at the helm, that’s
probably the best you can hope for.
2.
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
You can say a lot about Mortal Kombat and
how incredibly shonky it turned out, but it
at least gave us this line: too bad you will
die.
Poetry, that.
The sequel to 1995’s Mortal Kombat adaptation,
the world is once again plunged into chaos
as Shao Kahn kicks up a big old fuss about
something something bringing about the end
of the world.
You know, just shao kahn things.
However, with just two of the lead actors
from the first entry reprising their roles,
it was never going to go very well for poor
annihilation.
I mean, it made nearly twice its budget back,
but what’s money when you’ve made the
film equivalent of bull refuse.
Another 3% on rotten tomatoes here, although
the Austin chronicle did say it was "nothing
more than a perpetual chain of elaborately
choreographed fight sequences that ... are
linked together by the most flimsy and laughable
of plot elements” and honestly, doesn’t
that just sound like most fighting games?
1.
Alone in the Dark
From critical nightmare director Uwe Boll,
comes Alone in the dark: a film that really
doesn’t know what it wants to be.
Alone in the dark the video game is a survival
horror, but the film adaptation presents it
as national treasure mixed with expendables.
Explosions, big guns, a heavy metal soundtrack,
it’s another home run for boll then.
It has Christian slater in, and he’s a man
with a heightened ability to sense the paranormal,
yes.
Ancient artifacts on display in a local museum
allow an alien-demon invasion, and that means
its time for action and rock and roll, aww
yeah.
You know, just like the game!
Rubbish.
THIS.
FILM.
HAS. 1%.
ON.
ROTTEN.
TOMATOES.
Blair Erickson, who wrote the first drafts,
spoke of his disgust at the treatment he suffered
working with Boll, who completely changed
his lovecraft-inspired script in favour of
an action-heavy disaster.
It is Uwe Boll’s worst-reviewed film and
is regularly cited as the worst film ever
made.
And there we have it, the 10 stinkiest video
game movies of all time – well done Uwe
Boll.
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