Taking something from one medium to another doesn’t always work. Despite being terrific source material, there are plenty of amazing books that don’t translate well to the screen. The same goes for video games. It can be really difficult to bring a video game to life the same way it’s done as a video game.
Think about all the hours you’ve spent playing a video game. You’re immersed in the world and have practiced for hours. Now take all of that time and try to cram the entire plot of the video game into two hours. Some of these movie adaptations are … not great, but the good news is you can always just boot up the game for some sweet redemption.
9
House of the Dead (2003)
The House of the Dead video game franchise was originally released for Sega Genesis in the mid-1990s. The original arcade game was a blast, as it had a light gun that you could use. If you were playing at home, you’d use the regular controls. The premise of the game is that a biochemist is trying to bring back the dead and unleashes a horde of zombies into the world. Government agents must go to his laboratory to try and stop them.
The movie House of the Dead is seen as a prequel to the series, as the plot has not much to do with the original video game storyline. The movie, directed by infamous director Uwe Boll, is about five young people traveling to an island for a rave. When they get there, they find the rave ransacked by zombies and have to try to get out alive. There are plenty of deaths, but none of them are gory enough to really make an impact. There’s a ton of shootouts and choreographed violence. Of course, because there are zombies, plenty of the dead come back to life in unsurprising fashions.
8
BloodRayne (2005)
Another Boll film that acts as a prequel to the video game series, but specifically the second game, BloodRayne, looks and feels cheap, which some people may like. The special effects are dated, and the storyline seems poorly put together. The movie gives a backstory for the game’s main character, Rayne (Kristanna Loken). She’s a dhampir, or half woman, half vampire. It tells the story of how she joined the Brimstone Society, a group of warriors who protect Earth from supernatural villains. Sebastian, Vladimir, and Katarin (Matthew Davis, Michael Madsen, and Michelle Rodriguez) recruit Rayne to join them as they want to take down Kagan (Ben Kingsley), who is Rayne’s father.
Kagan wants to annihilate the human race, as he is a vampire king. Kingsley’s hair is enough to laugh at in the film, but the action is filled with vampires, ancient swordplay, horses, and just a weird mix of close-ups and confusing direction. The video games follow Rayne’s pursuit of different enemies while working with the Brimstone Society. It all seems much cooler on PlayStation and Xbox.
7
Max Payne (2008)
Mark Wahlberg has played the role of a man trying to protect his family on numerous occasions. But in Max Payne, it feels a little bit different. His actions are driven by emotion, as he’s trying to figure out who killed his wife and daughter. For all intents and purposes, the film aligns with the first video game in the franchise. Max must work with Mona Sax (Mila Kunis), an assassin whose sister was also murdered, to uncover the mystery behind the killings, as they are connected.
There are allusions to mythology. Wahlberg is shirking his cop responsibilities to inflict pain. There are a lot of cool gun battles, though. The game goes from moment to moment, and you’re trying to follow the investigation along with who to trust. This just makes it feel like Wahlberg distrusts everyone, unless they are clad in leather like him.
Max Payne
- Release Date
-
October 17, 2008
- Runtime
-
100 minutes
- Director
-
John Moore
6
Super Mario Bros (1993)
The plot of a game where two plumbers have to save a Princess from a giant, tyrannical turtle seems silly. But people love Super Mario Bros. and rightfully so. It’s the most iconic of Nintendo’s properties and one of the biggest franchises in the history of video games. So, naturally, why wouldn’t Hollywood try to capitalize on it? It successfully did so in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, an animated tale that made over $1B at the box office.
But this was after the 1993 release of Super Mario Bros., a live-action take on the game series. Starring Bob Hoskins as Mario and John Leguizamo as Luigi, the brothers needed to save Princess Peach (Samantha Mathis) from the evil President Koopa (Dennis Hopper). The film was widely recognized as being so bad, it might be good, with absurd special effects, awful costuming, and ridiculous makeup. The dialogue was cheesy, and the effects they had for the creatures were laughable. It made less than $39M against a production budget of nearly $50M.
Super Mario Bros.
- Release Date
-
May 28, 1993
- Runtime
-
104 minutes
- Director
-
Annabel Jankel
5
Double Dragon (1994)
The video game Double Dragon follows brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee fighting their way to rescue Billy’s girlfriend, Marian, from a gang called The Black Warriors. It’s a straightforward game that was released in 1987 on the NES and featured martial arts moves and melee weapons as the main ways to defeat enemies. The brothers would work together to try to defeat all the enemies and save Marian. It was an arcade game that personified the beat ’em up genre.
The movie Double Dragon was a completely dramatized version of the video game series. It stars Scott Wolf as Billy and Mark Dacascos (who?!) as Jimmy. Mark is a world-renowned martial artist who would go on to be a presenter on Iron Chef America. Scott was on Party of Five. That tells you all you really need to know about the skills portrayed in the film. Robert Patrick plays the villain, Koga Shuko. The plot is that he wants to rule the area of Los Angeles, which, after an earthquake, is dubbed New Angeles. To do so, he must have both sides of the magic Double Dragon medallion. He gets one side and has to fight the brothers for control of the other. When they have their half, they are better at martial arts. While it’s a flat-out stinker, it does have some decent martial arts.
4
Alone in the Dark (2005)
Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare was released in 2001 and follows Edward Carnby’s quest to find three mythical tablets and uncover the mysteries that they hold. It’s a unique game because you can choose to play the game in different ways, as there are two characters to choose from. You can either be Carnby and battle the enemies in fights, or you can be Aline, his girlfriend, and get through the game solving puzzles. Ultimately, the place where the game takes place reveals creatures living in the center of the Earth and their being freed.
Uwe Boll directed the film version of Alone in the Dark, which stars Christian Slater as Carnby, Tara Reid as Aline, and Stephen Dorff as Commander Richard Burke, who used to work with Carnby. In the movie, Carnby is a paranormal investigator and is tasked with looking into ancient artifacts that open up portals into the center of the Earth, where monsters are unleashed. The special effects of the monsters are laughable, especially for something that came out in the early 2000s. The smoke and ash that are used to symbolize the monsters, as well as the scaly design to make them more menacing, never land. The game is great, though.
3
Assassin’s Creed (2016)
Assassin’s Creed is a mega blockbuster video game franchise that has 14 entries. The premise of the games boils down to two factions, the Order of Assassins and the Knights Templar, battling one another throughout history. The Assassins are trying to stop the Templars from getting the Pieces of Eden, artifacts created to control humanity. In the present day, the Templars have created a corporation with technology that allows people to use the memories of their ancestors to go back in time and find Pieces of Eden. The gameplay is well-known and the storylines iconic as Assassin’s Creed is beloved by millions.
The same can’t be said for Justin Kurzel’s 2016 adaptation featuring Michael Fassbender. He plays a man who is sent back to the Spanish Inquisition, as one of his ancestors might know where one of the relics is located. The best thing about the movie is that it recreates the “Leap of Faith” move known from the game. There’s just too much plot thrown into one movie, and it’s hard to wrap your head around. The game better paces out the unraveling of information, while the audience is as confused as Fassbender is trying to learn all the info. It’s a CGI-heavy film that makes you yearn for the controls of the video game.
2
Tekken (2009)
Tekken means Iron Fist in Japanese, which is fitting because the game follows a tournament called the “Iron Fist” tournament where fighters must enter with a chance to prove their power. One man, Heihachi Mishima, hosts the tournament to prove he and the Tekken Corporation are the most powerful in the world. The game is a fighter game where players can choose one of eight characters to battle with. They have control of the character’s limbs and can choose fighting combinations depending on buttons.
The film takes that same premise, with a little added backstory, and highlights the fighting. It follows a revenge plot against Mishima by a man named Jin, compared to the protagonist Kazuya in the game. Kazuya is an antagonist in the film. The movie was panned by critics because the plot was all over the place and the fighting wasn’t as good visually as an audience would have expected in 2009. It made only $1.6M at the box office.
1
Need for Speed (2014)
Aaron Paul had a ton of street cred in 2014 from his role on Breaking Bad. He took up the mantle as the lead in the Need for Speed film adaptation. The video game series is all racing games set in different locations, with illegal street races taking center stage. It’s a straightforward racing game at the end of the day and features some fantastically sharp-looking cars and fun maneuvers you can do as the driver.
The movie created a story where Paul plays a street racer who must battle his enemy and seek revenge against him for killing his friend. To do so, he must race him across the country. The plot is thin, at best, and the performances by everyone other than Paul are forgettable. If you saw the movie, I bet you didn’t even remember Dominic Cooper was the bad guy, or that his character’s name was Dino Brewster.
It’s never easy to adapt a video game into a movie. Fans have such a passion for the game, having spent hours on them, that it can rarely be adapted to mass appeal. But there are some lessons to be learned from this list: If you don’t like the film, you’ve always got the video games to fall back on.