Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/08/20/video-game-movies-that-didnt.html
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Angry Birds. (The first one. Haven’t seen the second one.) Took the kids expecting an hour and a half of boring facile rubbish, was pleasantly surprised.
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Silent Hill?
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Come on. Minesweeper.
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Not a movie per se, but the Castlevania netflix series was “pretty good,” making it the best video game adaptation on screen ever made
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Really now, if Pixels is being included, this whole exercise is surely only in jest.
Anyway, the answer (as previously noted) is Gyakuten Saiban, the Japanese Phoenix Wright movie.
As for the new Mortal Kombat movie that people seem to be getting fussed over for some strange reason, it appears Mr. Lawrence Kasanoff is involved – and after the absolute disaster of Foodfight!, I reckon he should not be trusted with anything again.
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Mortal Kombat is only one member of the Unholy Trinity of 90’s action movies based on a fighting video game. The other two are of course Double Dragon and Street Fighter
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I cannot speak for the other two but I really like the Resident Evil series
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What exactly is a “Street Fighter?”
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So… Pixels doesn’t completely suck? I’ve avoided it so far.
I’ve seen the other two and I’ll agree they don’t suck as bad as the Super Mario Bros. movie. I would call them watchable.
The thing that bothered me most about Silent Hill was its inability to reach its potential after doing a good job establishing the look. I haven’t watched it since it was in theaters, so I can no longer pinpoint why I felt that way. I just left the theater irked. Maybe it was the kid. It was probably the kid.
Have you ever seen the Hong Kong movie Bio-Zombie? While not a video game movie, it went for a video game vibe that was pretty entertaining. And if you haven’t seen it, I recommend subtitles over dubbed.
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1, 3, 5 were good I thought.
The remainder were kinda hot garbage. Some watchable with beer, others less so.
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I was quarterless during pre-teen years so I couldn’t play myself, but got dropped off at the mall on occasion while mom shopped. I spent sooooo much time watching other kids play Mortal Kombat and I loved it. I especially liked it when FINISH HIM came up and the dude knew the right buttons to press.
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Qix
Mullet Combat looks like a perfect candidate for a MST 3000 episode.
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I never would have pegged this movie as being good to trip to. Kooyanisqatsi? Yes. Naked Lunch? Maybe. Mortal Kombat? Never.
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Good video game movies?
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Mortal Kombat is dumb, but actually entertaining.
As far as Street Fighter goes, just skip the entire movie and only watch this scene:
Raul Julia’s scenery chewing is just amazing. It’s a real shame everything else in this movie is terrible.
I wouldn’t say I loved the Silent Hill film but I did enjoy it. If nothing else it did a good job capturing the atmosphere of the games, but it was entirely too coherent. Needed some more of that Kojima WTFness.
I will say, Need for Speed ended up being a pretty entertaining movie. I love just about anything Aaron Paul is in, and they definitely tried to do an homage to the car chase films of the 1970s – complete with tons of practical effects. Is it high entertainment? Absolutely not. But it’s dumb fun.
But in general, I will say there are no good video game films.
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The metacritic scores for most of these are not kind. None fall under the category of “generally favorable reviews.”
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Latest Tomb Raider movie doesn’t totally suck. The first one with AJ was actually OK, too. I have low expectations when it comes to these things, though.
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The second Angry Birds is a lot better. I’m not a big studio animation guy but Thurop Van Orman (Creator of “The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack”) directed and he added a lot in the way of “physical” comedy. Most of the stuff I laughed at wasn’t even the jokes but the reactions and body language.
It’s currently the highest rated “video game” movie on Rotten Tomatoes.
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