Off the top of your head, can you name your favorite video game movie? Not so easy, is it? Truth be told, movies based on video games have had a pretty bad track record over the decades, a trend that Jim Carey and Sonic the Hedgehog look to reverse this coming Valentine’s Day. Will it find the love it’s looking for?
Based on the success of the titles below, probably not. While video game movies tend to please general moviegoers more than they do critics, even casual fans know that movies adapted from video games need to increase in quality. Here are the 10 worst movies based on video games, according to IMDB.
10 Wing Commander (4.3/10)
Popular 90s stars Freddie Prinze Jr. and Matthew Lillard could not rescue Wing Commander from widespread mockery in the 1999 film adaptation. Then again, who could?
Written and directed by the game creator, Chris Roberts, the film proved too big an undertaking for such an amateur filmmaker. It was Roberts’s first and last movie as a director, which should give you an indication of how little worked in the film. Honestly, have you ever even heard of Wing Commander?
9 Super Mario Bros. (4.0/10)
Despite the excellent acting chops of Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo, fans couldn’t quite stomach the preponderance of campiness in the adaptation of quite possibly the most popular video game of all!
Indeed, the film was panned by critics and disliked by filmgoers when it was released in 1993. Not even the great Dennis Hopper as top villain King Koopa could save the movie from public ire. The biggest gripe is that the film in no way resembles the tableau of the game.
8 Street Fighter (3.9/10)
Ouch. Not even the “Muscles from Brussels” himself, Jean-Claude Van Damme, could save the inferior adaptation of arguably the biggest video arcade game ever in Street Fighter!
JCVD stars as Col. Guile, the sonic-booming soldier who leads an assorted team of martial artists toward the evil M. Bison (Raul Julia). With poor performances, clunky action sequences, and an underdeveloped script by writer/director Steven E. de Souza, it’s easy to see why the film is ranked #97 on IMDB’S Bottom 100.
7 In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (3.8/10)
As you’ll see below, Uwe Boll has cornered the market on bad video game movies. His best of the worst comes via the 2007 adaptation of the video game Dungeon Siege. Unfortunately, not even Jason Statham and Hellboy himself, Ron Perlman, could save the day!
The film finds a man named Farmer set out on a mission to avenge his son’s murder and save his kidnapped wife. To do so, he must negotiate an onslaught of animal-warriors with a taste for human blood. There’s nothing kingly about the proceedings!
6 Double Dragon (3.8/10)
Who didn’t love playing Double Dragon as a wee little kid? You can imagine the disappointment then when the movie version came out and played like a lame Saturday morning cartoon. Without the fun!
With the silliness played up to the nth degree, the film follows two brothers in possession of half of an ancient talisman. When the big-boss Koga Shuko sets out to obtain the talisman from the brothers, they must fight through a gauntlet of bad guys to survive. In the end, the movie is too light and breezy to make an impact.
5 Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (3.7/10)
Two years after the respectable Mortal Kombat adaptation, the franchise suffered the Annihilation of a near death-sentence!
Rated #74 on IMDB’s Bottom 100 Movies, the biggest mistake made in the sequel was taking the directorial reins from Paul W.S. Anderson and giving them to the unprepared John Leonetti. The poor result all but killed the franchise for two decades. Here’s hoping the new 2021 adaptation redeems the franchise!
4 Street Fighter: The Legend Of Chun Li (3.7/10)
Given the mega-popularity of the Street Fighter video games, it’s a bit unfortunate to find both big-screen adaptations of the property make this list. Oh well!
Starring Kristen Kreuk as Li, the film picks up after the Chinese national discovers that her father has been kidnapped. When she unearths the culprit, Li goes on a vengeful globe-trotting spree to defeat the supervillain M. Bison. Not even the technological advances made by 2009 could save the film from the critical doldrums.
3 BloodRayne (2.9/10)
This just in: Uwe Boll owns the bronze, silver, and gold medals for worst video game movies ever made. Let us start with the bronze!
In BloodRayne, Boll takes on a vampiric tale that revolves around a freak-show vampire who makes a daring escape from her troupe, recruits fellow bloodsuckers, and goes on to exact revenge on those who raped her mother years prior. With a sloppy lack of vision, chintzy FX, horrid dialogue, and bad acting, the movie is irredeemable!
2 Alone In The Dark (2.4/10)
Poor Christian Slater was sent to movie jail following his role in the incomprehensibly awful Alone in the Dark, a sentence for which he only recently completed before finding new life in Mr. Robot. Our condolences!
From the German director Uwe Boll comes the tale of Ed Carnby (Slater), a paranormal investigator who finds mysterious clues leading to “Shadow Island.” Stilted dialogue, awful camerawork, poor performances, and a lack of thrills sum up the movie’s major complaints.
1 House Of The Dead (2.0/10)
Throughout the early 2000s, German filmmaker Uwe Boll was in the running for the most inept director working in Hollywood. The chief reason why is the 2003 film adaptation of House of the Dead, easily the lowest-rated video game film to date.
The unthinkably poor production finds a gaggle of dimwitted teens summoned to an island for a rave, only to be hunted by a legion of flesh-starved zombies. How a sequel was made is anyone’s guess. As for Boll, he apparently quit moviemaking after voicing his contempt with the Rock’s Rampage.
