You probably always hear people saying “video game movies are terrible!” – but are they really? Reader Eric C. asked the Daily Reaction team of Seb and Dan what our thoughts were on game films, so we’ve compiled a list of the some of the biggest game movies, along with an added commentary to help those that haven’t seen the films.
Classics:
Double Dragon
Seb: I just want to watch that trailer again. Awful movie, but whoever made that trailer is a genius.
Dan: (Too busy watching the trailer to comment.)
Street Fighter
Dan: In one of the best casting decisions I have EVER seen, this movie has our all American hero Guile being played by Jean Claude Van Damme, a name so American it bleeds waffles and chocolate. On top of that, this fine masterpiece was also the final theatrical film by the beloved actor Raul Julia, who we can see Supermaning it with light up boots, classy.
Seb: A surreal trip through the mind of Van Damme, at least its campiness makes it better than Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, which is essentially as enjoyable as stirring broken glass into your chocolate milk and then glugging it.
Mortal Kombat
Seb: Made up of as much cheese as a Guinness World Record pizza, MK marked Paul W. S. Anderson’s entry into the video games film market, with the fabled director of such treasures as Alien vs. Predator and Death Race later going on to make the Resident Evil series.
Dan: This epitomizes what I miss about the 90s: movie soundtracks that are beautifully written, containing amazing lines that are made up of character names and the movie title itself. It is a wonder that we haven’t seen this more often, but maybe it’s just because our names aren’t as cool as Goro anymore.
Super Mario Bros.
Dan: I knew this movie was a trainwreck even as a kid, and now that I am an adult, I fully understand why Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo were actually drunk through most of filming. Sadly, something that could have been a wonderful parody of just how stupid or simple video games stories are, ended up being a train wreck by people who just wanted to ride the growing success of video games – luckily we aren’t seeing that still happen. (see Resident Evil Movie)
This movie made millions of kids want to grow up to be plumbers only to have them realize that job almost contains almost as much shit as this movie.
Seb: Making a movie about super plumbers is pretty easy, considering the natural fit, but they messed it up completely. Watching this is about as fun as buying a WiiU.
It did win an award for best makeup, though.
Hollywood shit:
Dead or Alive
Seb: It looks like a poor man’s Charlie’s Angels.
Dan: Charlie’s Angels is a poor man’s poor movie.
Hitman
Dan: This movie is a triumph of acting ability, as it shows just how good you have to be to poorly portray a main character who barely speaks, but at least it has boobs.
Seb: It’s such a shame, Timothy Olyphant is totally hawt in Justified, a real smoking fox of a man. But all bald and egg-shaped like Dan is a complete turn off, meaning he couldn’t distract from such a mindnumbingly average movie.
Max Payne
Seb: Why is Mark Wahlberg always frowning? What’s wrong Mark? What happened? Did you realize your movies are terrible?
This is an uninspired PG-13 action flick that is about as closely related to the Max Payne franchise as Max Payne 3 is.
Dan: This only reason this trailer looks so cool is that they managed to edit out all of Mark Wahlberg’s bad acting. The only good thing about casting Mark as Max was that they both have names that start with ‘M’ and that was easy for him to remember.
Resident Evil 1 too many
Seb: Resident Evil 1,2,3-infinity stars Milla Jovovich on her never ending quest to ‘act’ in roles given to her by her husband, Paul. Alcoholics Anonymous have patented the Resident Evil film drinking game, where contestants get to drink when they notice anything in the movies that is even remotely like the games… so far, it has be a foolproof sobering method.
Dan: Sadly, I’ve only seen about the first 15 minutes of the last one that came out, because I stopped watching when I learned that they didn’t use my idea of The Umbrella Corporation being invaded by their Mexican counterpart, The Poncho Collective.
Prince of Persia
Dan: Once I was able to get passed the idea of Dastan, our Persian prince, being played by the same white emo kid from Donnie Darko, and that movie script writers don’t understand the difference between a strong female lead and a bitchy one, I was actually able to enjoy this movie. Also, I like movies being 90% Sepia.
Seb: Jerry Bruckheimer said he wanted PoP to be the next Pirates of the Caribbean. He was right – it was just as bland, the accents clashed just as much, and the characters were just a bland.
Good job, Brucky.
Doom
Seb: Can you smell what The Rock is cooking? Because I can’t, everything smells of shit.
It’s impossible to catalog any game movies without mentioning this abomination that needs to be shipped off back to Mars.
Dan: This is the perfect example of why the movie industry cannot grasp what is cool about video games and first person shooters. Setting fast paced rock music while having our FPS view wall jumping over a demon will grab the Fast and the Furious crowd, but so does pointing a laser pointer at the ground.
Lara Croft
Dan: Given that I am a huge Game of Thrones nut, I am just going to talk about that – Jorah Mormont, played by Ian Glen, stars in this now-worth watching movie. Have you guys been keeping up on GoT? Those dragons are totally awesome now…
Seb: What’s good about this movie is that it hastened the franchise’s death, allowing for a more mature rebirth that doesn’t make the character look like it was dreamed up by a 13yr old who has just discovered the invention of silicon implants.
Uwe Boll Shit:
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
Dan: Needs more Game of Thrones, and less of everything that isn’t Game of Thrones.
Seb: It look like a movie made by blind drunk man trying to recreate The Lord of The Rings. Jason Statham is a farmer who uses a boomerang. Ray Liotta is in it. The action scenes are awful. Ray Liotta is in it.
Good thing no one else let Uwe near their games…
Postal
Seb: Much like an episode of Bad Gamers, Uwe mistakes offensiveness for being funny.
Dan: Boobs.
Far Cry
Dan: Any movie that has a guy speaking with a foreign accent you know is going to be evil. (Looks at Seb).
Seb: I would have done a better evil voice. Plus, I would have made the Far Cry movie about Far Cry.
BloodRayne (Full movie attached, Rated R)
Seb: Skip to 52mins. The rest is awful.
Dan: I didn’t know you could wear out the playback function on YouTube.
Alone in the Dark
Dan: I have a feeling the movie pitch went like this: What can we make that is scary? How about a penis with teeth? What about a penis with teeth that has a predator’s head on it? Boom – movie.
Seb: This is genuinely what Dan’s penis looks like.
Actually decent:
Silent Hill
Seb: This film shouldn’t be in the actually decent section. It wasn’t scary, and there was no hill.
Dan: As far as movie adaptations go, this was a decent attempt at keeping true to the lore as well as finding a way to appeal to non-gamers. Trying to seek Oscar level acting in any movie that has gaming roots is naive at best, but given the source material and risk surrounding a title like this I think it was a step in the right direction.
Final Fantasy Advent Children
Dan: This I think was one of the best video game adaptations for film I have seen, besides the fact that the english voice work really does highlight just how absurd the storyline is in FF7, it is still among my favorites.
Seb: The children always suffer first when Dan is involved.
Oh god, did you make it this far? Congratulations, we’re so sorry you had to go through this. Go watch the Double Dragon trailer again to cheer yourself up.
Done? Great! Now keep scrolling down to that there comment box, let us know which of these movies you watched, and how many of them are secretly your favorite films of all time. Be sure to send in your own game films to [email protected] and follow Seb and Dan for inspiration when writing about characters with tortured souls.
