The Best And Worst Of Movies Based On Video Games (Only Minus The Best Of Part)

October 15th, 2008 by NextRound in Movies

Mark Wahlberg’s Max Payne opens this week. We’d like to pretend the only two reasons anyone would see it are A) to sit in wonderment at Mila Kunis’s ever evolving hotness or B) to brush up on their Wahlberg impersonation (is it “say hi to your mom for me” or “say hi to your mom for me”?), but we recognize that there’s a large contingent of lady-killing gamers out there who will be first in line because they’re compelled to compare the plotline of the movie to that of the video game. They’re even willing to put up with Wahlberg’s CGI enhanced flaring nostrils to do so.

That’s why Hollywood keeps making these flicks. They have a built in audience. The unfortunate part is that usually means they don’t have to be any good. Take these classics for example…

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

It’s quite the testament to the number of dudes who want to bang both Angelina Jolie AND the computer generated version of Lara Croft that this flick spawned a sequel. The real question is when was the last time you saw this photo? You’re welcome.

Street Fighter

A widely popular street fighting video game? Uber hero Jean-Claude Van Damme? Kylie Minogue in a stripper military outfit? The dude from The Addams Family? What’s not to like?

Thank god for the comedic genius that is Van Damme, otherwise this flick would have been a complete and utter disaster as opposed to just a complete disaster.

Hitman

Note to producers: Hiring an actor to play a bald assassin before you’ve actually see what he looks like bald is almost always a bad idea.

Mortal Kombat

Holy hell it’s been a long time since we’ve seen Mortal Kombat. Despite intuitively knowing how terrible this flick really is, we still have fond memories of Mrs. Pete Sampras in her Sonya outfit (yeah, we know the topless cheat code) and screaming “MORTAL KOMBAT!” right before jump kicking a friend of our mom’s love seat.

Doom

As good an idea as adapting a first person video game about space marines battling genetically mutated monsters on Mars and getting the Rock to star in it sounds, Doom did not turn out to be the masterpiece everyone involved anticipated.

Double Dragon

Scott Wolf and Brandon Lee’s evil twin are not exactly the Hammer and Spike we remember. Did you know IMDb made pages for gay porn?

Super Mario Bros.

How Super Mario Bros. doesn’t get tossed around with the likes of Gigli and Batman and Robin for worst movie ever made is quite astounding. And to think, John Leguizamo had such a bright future in front of him.

So here’s the moral of the story: ignoring these movies is not an option. With Castlevania, Spy Hunter, and Prince of Persia all in the works, it’s pretty obvious Hollywood intends to keep churning out video game adaptations, especially when they can get the likes of the Rock and a steroid-addled Jake Gyllenhaal to star in them.

Hell, we’re even pitching our screen adaptation of Kid Icarus to Warner Brothers next week. Wish us luck.

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