The 20 worst video game adaptations, ranked
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This year marks the 30th anniversary of 1993's Super Mario Bros., the first live-action feature adapted from a video game. Since then, dozens of game adaptations have leapt, Mario-like, from console to screen, mostly to poor box office returns and middling reviews.
There's been a few hits: 2016's Warcraft and 2019's Detective Pikachu scored big at the box office, while 2021's Werewolves Within and the Sonic the Hedgehog movies defied the odds to (mostly) win over critics. And the tide seems to be turning: With this year's Super Mario Bros. Movie swiftly establishing itself as a box office juggernaut, the animated feature is clearing a pixelated path for the slew of game adaptations currently in development, like the upcoming Five Nights at Freddy's and Borderlands.
Still, as Carl Sagan said, "You have to know the past to understand the present," so let's warp to the not-so-distant past to pinpoint the 20 worst video game movies to come out of Hollywood.
20. <i>Super Mario Bros.</i> (1993)
Easily one of the most polarizing films on this list, 1993's Super Mario Bros. is, depending on who you ask, either the best or worst video game movie of all time. The reality is that it sits somewhere in between, being a film that was derided with such a ferocity upon its release that it was basically primed for cult status.
On the plus side, the movie's genuine oddness and sci-fi edge helps it stand out from its contemporaries. Its subterranean, punk-inspired world was clearly crafted with care by directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, even if its story of plumbers tasked with saving a princess from the spiky-headed tyrant of a parallel universe doesn't make a lick of sense.
On the other hand, it felt like a far cry from the video game series in both tone and style — and that pissed off a lot of gamers. Yoshi, a friendly dinosaur companion in the game, is changed from a chubby-cheeked lizard into a raptor. The villainous goombas, meanwhile, are now massive, fanged brutes with tiny reptile heads. EW bashed the film back in '93, calling its setting "Blade Runner as imagined by a 2-year-old."
But, if watched with an open mind, the movie has a demented appeal. Just don't go into it thinking you're going to see a recreation of the classic Nintendo game. Instead, imagine someone threw a Super Mario Bros. Nintendo cartridge, a VHS copy of Ghostbusters, some magic mushrooms, and a Komodo dragon into the molecular transporter in The Fly and you're watching the abomination that came stumbling out.
19. <i>Street Fighter</i> (1994)
Based on the popular fighting game, Street Fighter centers around a group of military heavies and martial arts masters who work to take down M. Bison (Raul Julia), a drug kingpin turned dictator in a fictitious Southeast Asian nation. The film's famously troubled production likely contributed to its wobbly tone, sloppy storytelling, and strange performances. Jean-Claude Van Damme, the film's ostensible lead, has since admitted to having a drug problem at the time of filming. Throw a scandalous on-set affair with costar Kylie Minogue onto the pile, and his meandering turn begins to make a bit more sense.
That said, it still has the potential to be a good time. Filled with unintentionally funny lines and poorly edited fight scenes, Street Fighter is an absolute treasure trove of cringeworthy moments that are best viewed with a few glasses of wine and the company of good friends.
18. <i>Rampage</i> (2018)
Based on the iconic arcade game of the same name, Rampage sees a group of giant mutated animals (a rat, an alligator, and a gorilla) scale the skyscrapers of Chicago. It has everything you'd think to want in an action film: explosions, mayhem, orchestral flourishes, and, of course, Dwayne Johnson.
Sadly, it lacks in just about everything else. If you were hoping for a movie with a compelling plot, interesting characters, or vivid cinematography, then Rampage will surely disappoint. But, if you're interested in a CGI torture chamber with the Rock delivering deadpan lines like, "Well, that sucks," then this might be the movie for you.
17. <i>Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City</i> (2021)
This movie can best be described with a long, drawn-out sigh. By now, almost anyone who's ever picked up a controller knows the story of Resident Evil. A viral outbreak hits a small town, turning its residents into flesh-hungry zombies, and a shadowy corporation is to blame. It's all pretty old hat at this point, which is why it's frustrating that this film — which adheres closer to the lore of the games than the popular (and unrelated) Milla Jovovich films that preceded it — fails to capture what's so eerie and exhilarating about the franchise.
Part of the problem is that it's overstuffed. Welcome to Raccoon City tries to cram the events of the first and second games into one movie. This results is too much story, too many characters, and a slew of slimy, gore-flecked creatures that never feel like more than the subpar CGI that animates them. Hey, at least it was better than Netflix's dreary TV adaptation.
16. <i>Double Dragon</i> (1994)
This ridiculous adaptation of the beat-'em-up game Double Dragon finds two totally radical L.A. teens each granted half of a Double Dragon medallion, which gives them special abilities as it places them right in the path of a blond, villainous Robert Patrick, fresh off his career-defining role of T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Sloppy pacing and hammy performances make it nearly unwatchable, but there's an ingenuity to its practical effects and setting, being a dystopian, earthquake-ravaged version of Los Angeles called New Angeles. In an alternate world where John Carpenter directed it, Double Dragon could have emerged as a genre classic.
15. <i>Postal</i> (2007)
Uwe Boll's Postal is a loose adaptation of the bloody, tongue-in-cheek video game of the same name, which encourages players to "go postal" in a world afflicted by a "hate plague." It's less an adaptation, though, than a sandbox where Boll can troll his audience with off-color jokes about every taboo topic he can pluck from the cultural consciousness. There's gags about American politics, nuclear war, mass shootings, bestiality, racism, and, most famously, 9/11. It's spirited in its efforts to offend, but it's also exhausting.
Boll seemed to enjoy discussing the film's controversial aspects in interviews. "If comedy cannot be in a way insulting for some, but other people have a blast out of it, where are we? It's freedom of speech," he said specifically of the 9/11 sequence to EW following the film's release. A few years later, he'd admit that the "humor in Postal is not always, let's say, hitting the target," but, he adds, "some scenes are the best in comedy I saw in the last 15 years."
14. <i>Wing Commander</i> (1999)
In the early '90s, Wing Commander was a popular spaceship combat game that took on a cinematic quality thanks to Mark Hamill lending his voice to the action. By the third and fourth games, there were even full-motion video cutscenes starring Hamill, which really brought Wing Commander to life in a way most gamers had never seen before.
Hamill also lent his voice to the 1999 film adaptation, which found Matthew Lillard and Freddie Prinze Jr. (pre-live-action Scooby Doo) manning the ship. The film didn't just receive pans from critics, it was also derided by its cast. In a 2000 interview with Movieline, Prinze Jr. admitted that he "can't stand" Wing Commander.
He went on to say that both he and Lillard signed on after reading a script they loved. When they arrived on set, however, they were given an entirely new script that was, in his words, "a piece of s---."
On the bright side, the costumes for the movie's villains, the Kilrathi, are laughably adorable. In the games, they were a race of refined, feline-like aliens, but in the film, they're hairless, blubbery, clunky blobs. Still, they were created using practical effects instead of CGI, so there's something oddly endearing about them.
13. <i>DOA: Dead or Alive</i> (2006)
Based on the sexed-up fighting series, the DOA movie was ambitious in its way. Trying to craft a movie out of a mostly-plotless game that prioritizes titillation over all else? That's a challenge in itself.
Director Corey Yuen and the trio of scribes behind the script gave it their best shot, surrounding its ensemble of female martial artists with assassins, espionage, hidden vaults, and a futuristic pair of sunglasses that turns anyone who wears them into an expert fighter. Sadly, these disparate plot elements fail to cohere in a meaningful way, and the choreography simply can't stack up to the martial arts films it's attempting to emulate.
Fun fact: In the book Lights, Camera, Game Over!: How Video Game Movies Get Made, author Luke Owen reveals that the movie was filmed in rural China, where the cast and crew, already impacted by the heat and humidity, also suffered from food poisoning for a majority of filming. Sadly, you can see that discomfort on screen.
12. <i>Doom</i> (2005)
Doom is one of the most influential games of all time. It arrived in the early '90s and, along with Wolfenstein 3D, is often credited with popularizing the first-person shooter genre that has gone on to dominate the gaming world. Doom plants you in the combat boots of a soldier who must fight off demonic creatures in space (and, um, hell) using an arsenal of bloody weapons.
Despite the game's blockbuster reputation, the 2005 movie adaptation lacks its bludgeoning impact. There's a perfunctory feel to it, from the dull, cliche-ridden script to the lifeless performances. In an interview with Collider, actress Rosamund Pike admitted that she made no efforts to research Doom before filming. Granted, there wasn't much to learn that would've meaningfully contributed to her character, but it's emblematic of the general sense of disinterest that pervades the film. Doom can go back to hell and stay there.
11. <i>Monster Hunter</i> (2020)
Monster Hunter, a 2020 adaptation from Resident Evil director Paul W. S. Anderson, is based on the popular RPG fantasy franchise that takes place in an alternate world where humans aren't always at the top of the food chain, and hunters are celebrated for defeating giant monsters. It has all the elements of a quality action epic — just look at those giant bone blades! — but, unfortunately, the film's world is as barren as its desert landscapes.
"It certainly feels like an old-fashioned video game: Plot doesn't really matter, there's not much character development to speak of, but there is a lot of fighting against an endless swarm of enemies," reads EW's review. That might be a harsh critique of "old-fashioned video games," but it's an accurate one of this movie.
10. <i>Tekken</i> (2009)
Tekken is one of the most beloved fighting franchises in gaming history, but director Dwight Little's decision to excise the game's supernatural elements — such as character mutations and non-human fighters — resulted in the film failing to capture the peculiarities of the franchise. There's some impressive fight choreography thanks to Little's inclusion of decorated martial artists and kickboxers, but the storytelling can't match the intensity of the action.
The film's biggest critic is Katsuhiro Harada, the director of the game series, who took to Twitter to declare, "That Hollywood movie is terrible. We were not able to supervise that movie. (It was [a] cruel contract.)"
9. <i>Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time</i> (2010)
That Jake Gyllenhaal and not an actor of Iranian descent is the star of this 2010 adaptation of the Prince of Persia, a video game series set in the Middle East, is just the first of its many problems. The cacophonous clash of swords and distracting use of CGI — our review calls The Sands of Time "vacant" and "visually junky-looking" — becomes overbearing after a while, crowding out what little story there actually is for audiences to hold onto.
Mike Newell's stab at a swords-and-sandals fantasy was meant to be the start of a franchise, but poor reviews and a middling run at the box office dashed those plans. That's probably for the best, as Gyllenhaal himself has subtly implied that his heart wasn't in it: "I think I learned a lot from that movie in that I spend a lot of time trying to be very thoughtful about the roles that I pick and why I'm picking them," he said in 2019.
8. <i>Max Payne</i> (2008)
Like everyone else, the developers of Max Payne were impressed by The Matrix's popularization of "bullet time," a visual effect that offers the impression of time slowing down to help facilitate a multitude of perspectives. They were so impressed by it that they made the device one of the central gameplay components of the popular 2001 shooter, which went on to spawn a pair of sequels.
In 2008, a film adaptation starring Mark Wahlberg hit theaters, carrying over the game's story about a rogue cop in search of his wife and child's murderers. In his review, EW's critic described movies based on video games as "hollow, hyperactive FX-laden blowouts," adding that Max Payne "has the hollow part down pat, but there's nothing active about it." He's right in that the film is less an assault on the senses than a sleeping pill, with a series of "glum interrogation scenes" subbing in for the game's relentless gunplay.
Wahlberg's stiff and unconvincing performance scored him a Razzie, forcing the actor to compete against himself, as he was also nominated for his turn in M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening.
7. <i>In the Name of the King</i> (2007)
In the Name of the King was the fourth video game adaptation in five years from Uwe Boll, whose Postal reared its snickering, gore-flecked face earlier on this list. It's also one of the more interesting, if only for its $60 million budget and bizarre assemblage of reliable character actors. Jason Statham, Matthew Lillard, Burt Reynolds, Ron Perlman, Leelee Sobieski, and Ray Liotta all appear in Boll's swords-and-sorcery tale, which was loosely adapted from the 2002 high fantasy RPG Dungeon Siege. The cast isn't so much a who's who as it is a wait, who?
Despite its oddball star power, the film was reviled by critics, who compared it (unfavorably) to fantasy sagas like Lord of the Rings. Boll, who would go on to make two sequels to the movie, defended it in an interview with EW. ''When you always get compared to the best of the best of course you look bad," he said. "Of course it is not Lord of the Rings. Why did nobody compare it to The Golden Compass? I hope people agree with what I just said and see these movies more in the right context.''
6. <i>Far Cry</i> (2008)
Far Cry is a wildly popular first-person shooter series with millions of fans. But did you know there's also a Far Cry movie? No? Well, you're not alone. In fact, the movie, which had a reported budget of $30 million, made less than $800,000 globally.
Far Cry, which is also directed by Uwe Boll and follows a German ex-special forces soldier played by Til Schweiger as he investigates a secret research facility, is not an entertaining movie. Those who surrender to its 95 minutes, however, will get to see a cameo from late chef and TV personality Anthony Bourdain, an old friend of Boll's. Bourdain, who plays a bit role as a scientist in the movie, chronicled his work on the film in an episode of his No Reservations travel show. Watch the episode, skip the movie.
5. <i>Silent Hill: Revelation</i> (2012)
Silent Hill, a twisted and thematically dense horror franchise best remembered for its first four titles, received a pair of film adaptations that went from boring to downright miserable. The worse of the two is 2012's Silent Hill: Revelation.
Trying to watch Revelation is a grueling task that only the most die-hard genre fans could enjoy. Coming on the heels of horror's "torture porn" era — epitomized by gory, aesthetically unpleasant titles like Saw and Hostel — the movie adopts the rusty, sweaty look of those films but can't replicate the gut-churning carnage that captivated their bloodthirsty fans.
EW's critic described the sequel as an "ugly, assaultive collection of jump-scares," adding that it's horrors "never get more complex than the fake-out snake-in-a-peanut-canister variety." That alone should tell you that this is a poor adaptation of Silent Hill, a series defined more by its pervasive sense of dread than its shocks.
4. <i>BloodRayne</i> (2005)
It's time for another Uwe Boll monstrosity. This time around, Boll decided to adapt BloodRayne, a perfectly fine vampire action game from 2002. His film follows Rayne, a vampire-human hybrid on a mission to defeat her blood-sucking father (an unfortunate turn for Ben Kingsley).
"As you might expect from any movie that begins with the promise of a 'special appearance by Billy Zane' and features Meat Loaf Aday decked out in a Spinal Tap wig and writhing around with naked women, BloodRayne is ghastly bad,'' EW's reviewer wrote upon the film's release.
In an interview with EW, Boll defended the film — which has two Boll-directed sequels — by saying that "if you like blood and guts, BloodRayne is better than Underworld," referring to Len Wiseman's lucrative 2003 vampire movie.
"I think BloodRayne is a good vampire movie," he said. "Very bloody. Very sexy. I was more influenced by the old Christopher Lee-Dracula movies. I said, 'We need a castle, we need an evil guy, we need bloodsucking on screen, we need f---ing on screen, we need tits and blood and gore.' It made a lot of money on DVD."
3. <i>Mortal Kombat: Annihilation</i> (1997)
An exception in a genre primarily known for terrible movies, 1995's Mortal Kombat adaptation was a (relatively) fun film that became a box office hit. Unfortunately, its sequel, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, was not so successful. A new director, John R. Leonetti, stepped in for the departing Paul W.S. Anderson, and the majority of the cast was overhauled with something lost in all that turnover.
In his D- review, EW's critic derided the "abysmal, incoherent" film for its "hyperactive mayhem," "gravity-defying illogic," and "gee-whiz bland" performances. The best part, he says, is the "relentless techno soundtrack," which he lauds as the "perfect accompaniment to a blood-lust action fantasy spun off from a nihilistic video game." Give it a listen for yourself. It holds up much better than the movie.
2. <i>Alone in the Dark</i> (2005)
The Alone in the Dark video game franchise, which launched in 1992, is considered a forerunner in the realm of survival horror, the subgenre that counts Resident Evil and Silent Hill among its ranks. Uwe Boll's 2005 movie also holds a reputation for being one of the worst movies ever made.
Boll's film loosely adapts the fourth game in the franchise, with Christian Slater and Tara Reid playing a detective and an archeologist investigating paranormal activity inside a museum.
In a scorching F review of the film, EW wrote, "People with anything resembling eyes or ears should avoid this breathtakingly bad Christian Slater horror catastrophe." He added that "the film on your teeth after a three-day drunk possesses more cinematic value."
Boll isn't even interested in defending this one. "Okay, Alone in the Dark was not good, I agree," he told EW.
1. <i>House of the Dead</i> (2003)
If you've been in an arcade, you've probably played a House of the Dead game. The horror series is one of the most popular light gun shooters, tasking players with picking off an endless horde of zombies as if they were targets in a shooting gallery. In the film (directed by — you guessed it — Uwe Boll), a gaggle of trendy youths attends a rave on an island near Seattle, only to discover that everyone's already been killed or turned into a zombie.
Upon its release, an EW critic wrote, "To properly convey the jaw-dropping shoddiness of this video game-based 'horror' 'movie,' one must approach what scientists call Absolute Stupid, a state previously thought to exist only under highly controlled laboratory conditions or at the highest levels of government."
As with Alone in the Dark, Boll will readily admit House of the Dead's faults. "Yeah, it is stupid," he told EW. "But what were they expecting from House of the Dead? I came very close to a video game in the filmmaking process, and I got toasted for it."
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