There is a recurring question when naming movies and video games in the same sentence:
Why are video game adaptations to the cinema so bad?
We can think of several answers, but surely many more escape us.
Both media accumulate decades of disagreements due to the
inability of the cinema to adapt the video game with guarantees
.
It could be because in Hollywood they do not understand the basic works in that medium so equal but at the same time so different, that they do not give it soul, that they are mere merchants looking to get a cut, but the projects that counted in their ranks have also failed with people from the interactive environment.
Adapting a video game to the cinema is complicated because when you do it you take away its main characteristic, the interaction.
By this we mean that
there are as many versions of a single video game as each user has had a particular experience with a controller in their hands
.
The version that reaches the cinema is the interpretation of only one of all those versions.
If you look at it, when we tell someone a movie we always talk about the protagonist doing this or that.
On the contrary, when it comes to a video game we turn to the first person: I came to such a place and I went to talk to such one.
It is something absolutely personal that, depending on which video game is brought to the big screen, we can feel the result as more or less alien to us.
But of course, what about the viewer who has no contact with this world?
There is no disappointment that can be given there directly related to the film in question.
They are just a few strokes of a huge abstract painting.
Authors must find meaning in the work and then know how to communicate its meaning to potential viewers.
There is a long road ahead, and we already know that the one already traveled is full of thorns.
We leave you with a list of the most important, for worse and for less, of what have been several decades of head-banging against a wall
.
Needless to say, we are going to take it with the greatest possible humor.
Bad adaptations
We start with the hardest part and then everything will be more bearable.
What follows is a duty court in most cases.
Some surprises are also waiting for you, for seeing a movie that you like included or for not finding the one that you think is most obvious.
Try to give it the importance it deserves, that the lists are loaded by the devil (or the comments that can be left after the article).
Double Dragon (1994)
The film based on the arcade classic that Taito brought us in '87 seems to have been produced in that year instead of 1994. Let alone what the 2007 in which it is set looks like.
Unpretentious and boasting of flea market digital effects
, there is very little to scratch here.
Maybe a laugh on a Sunday afternoon sharing movies, pizzas and soft drinks with friends.
Rotten Tomatoes: 8%
Wing Comander (1999)
The stupendous space franchise born in 1990 aimed at the cinema screens since it incorporated actors and the real image to tell its story.
In Wing Comander IV we had none other than Mark Hamill or Malcolm McDowel, in low hours, yes.
The fact is that its creator,
Chris Robert, must have thought that it was sewing and singing to make the leap to celluloid
, so he himself put himself behind the cameras to sign the adaptation as director, so as not to leave a mess in profane hands, ahem .
While digital effects, in vogue since Jurassic Park and Terminator 2, were more affordable in 1999, giving almost any production a half-decent patina, the result, including effect from the contemporary and avant-garde Matrix, did not measure up to everything. the rest.
Metacritic: 21
Tomb Raider (2001/2003)
The Lara Croft with the face and body of Angelina Jolie had its popularity and monetary repercussion at the beginning of this century.
They are indebted films, how could it be otherwise, of Indiana Jones, but also of the most abundant Bond cinema (I look at you, Roger Moore) and the inevitable Matrix.
Looking at the cocky and sensuality of the Jolie, the video game character seemed restrained and demure
.
Although it seems a very obvious appreciation, seen with the current perspective, those Tomb Raider films feel very alien, artificial and with too much posture, although it must be recognized that it is priceless to see Jolie blow down a huge shark with a punch .
Metacritic: 43
All Uwe Boll
This gentleman did a disservice to video games for the general public.
It is no surprise.
You all know that
we could have capped this category of the worst video game movies just with the filmography of Uwe Boll
.
His presentation to the gamer mass in 2003 with House of the Dead was unspeakable, with moments without any shame in which scenes directly taken from the video game of the same title were mixed with the images of the film.
Not to give credit.
This German invulnerable to criticism went ahead with Alone in the Dark (2005), the Bloodrayne saga (2005/2011), Postal (2007), In the name of the King (Dungeon Siege) (2007/2011), Far Cry (2008 ) ... Between series Z results and public calls in the ring to spank his critics (one Spanish, included), the only thing we can thank in all this is that he finally gave up on his adaptation of Metal Gear Solid.
The universe would have collapsed if something like this hit theaters.
Metacritic: you can imagine.
Doom (2005)
The case of Doom is also well known.
The mythical video game that revolutionized the medium in the early 90's was diluted in decaffeinated celluloid in the 21st century.
The only moment to remember is well known
, the direct transfer of the interactive language to the cinematographic one in a sequence that, this time, perfectly portrays the forcefulness and violence of the game (the third installment to be more exact, released two years ago before).
A few stimulating minutes that drew all the attention because they were immersed in tons of topics, the daily routine of the mediocre and the thousand times seen.
Metacritic: 34
DOA: Dead or Alive (2006)
It is true that, when it comes to DOA, in essence both film and video game have as much depth, depth and complexity as a blank sheet of paper.
But it is that, controversies aside, in the video game, where a refined mechanics can be everything, that works.
Little more can be said about a
by-product that should only have been useful for sweaty and horny teenagers.
Metacritic: 38
Hitman (2007/2015)
The casting was already backing down a bit.
We saw no trace of the ruthless Agent 47 on Timothy Olyphant
.
If above, as the footage progressed, we observed that he even had his little heart, turn off and let's go.
Both Hitman and its second part (worse even than the first, where you could scratch some little things despite everything) were a bucket of cold water on the heads, already more than wet, of the players who dared to go through the box.
Metacritic: 35 and 28
Max Payne (2008)
A video game myth like Max Payne didn't deserve to be diluted in this way.
The bases for an adaptation were clearer than in other cases.
It should have been relatively easy to carry over the strong influences of comics, movies, and black literature, but it wasn't
.
There is the premise that we all know as the protagonist's visceral motor, but this is wrapped in a fantastic component masked as a hallucinogenic drug that takes it away from the noir origin.
It does not help either a limited Mark Wahlberg who loses his little strength trying to imitate the rictus of Sam Lake.
Metacritic: 31
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li (2009)
You expected to find the movie that you all have in mind right now, right?
Well no, a surprise awaits you with that.
This by-product nowhere has the charm of the '94 version
.
It took five years for that woman to accumulate it based on reviews by the public, but here there is nothing to claim even in a hundred years.
Metacritic: 18
Need for Speed (2014)
The huge critical and popular success of the Breaking Bad series opened the doors of Hollywood to its protagonists ... Doors that were closed tightly after the disastrous results.
If Bryan Cranston derailed with Godzilla's failed lap, Aaron Paul crashed loudly with Need For Speed.
The only good thing in both cases were the great trailers that accompanied them, which were far from announcing the disaster that would come later.
Focusing on Need for Speed,
the adaptation of EA's long-running and mutable arcade speed series had little to do against a film franchise that had already taken that spot: Fast & Furious.
Metacritic: 39
Dead Rising: Watchtower (2015)
Overloaded with zombie content in film and television, a 2005 adaptation of the crazy and hilarious Dead Rising had little to offer.
Without a plot to defend because it is not necessary with a game of this type in hand, there was not much money with which to raise anything drinkable.
We have in Watchtower protagonists of Ali Express
, also a feeling of boredom when the force for amusement in the original medium, massacring zombies left and right pulling imagination, is only a projection recorded on the screen.
Undisguised digital image and the mindless humor of the video game exploited without grace.
Rotten Tomatoes: 30
Assassin's Creed (2016)
It hurts a lot to write these lines.
On paper everything shone brightly.
We had Justin Kurzel, Michael Fassbender, and Marion Cotillard, the director and stars of the highly rated penultimate film version of Macbeth.
Also, and this is very important, to Ubisoft itself in production.
It was also shot in English and Spanish (the historical part took place in Spain, with the Leap of Faith from the Giralda moment included), which meant a non-concession to commerciality.
Anyway, the hit that we got in the movies was an impression.
The film was suggestive at its start, but immediately the strangeness began.
The parts set in the Animus were very dark, in light, but also because of the smoke and dust that littered the screen.
It is possible that an improper budget for a production of this size would force the deficiencies to be hidden by ugly means
.
The trial and attempted execution of the protagonists before the Catholic Monarchs is striking, which instead of being something large and multitudinous is almost like a family reunion.
To top it off, the historical part, the one that reigns in the games, was in very small proportion compared to what happened in the future.
Anyway, the Assassin's Creed movie was a disaster that said goodbye at the end as a will continue that we doubt, will come one day.
You have to wait, crossing your fingers, for the turn towards the serial animation that is in preparation.
Metacritic: 36
Angry Byrds the Movie (2016)
The movie based on Rovio's blockbuster game
came late and badly
.
With no plot to bring to the screen, bad improvisation is good to get out of trouble.
This premiere lacked something that the video game on which it was based did very well: offer enormous fun.
Metacritic: 43
Monster Hunter (2020)
Here already, in our confusion, we stumble and roll down the stairs.
Monster Hunter could have been on the next list right now, there was potential for it, but it spoils everything out of sheer bewilderment.
La Jovovich and her hubby Anderson return to the fray, getting back into a classic Japanese video game.
The movie, despite its great CGI monsters,
feels very B-series, very local, small with its unique desert setting, and that wouldn't be a bad thing if it weren't about a video game series that is quite the opposite
.
It also puts American marines in an interactive world that has always been enough with its rich lore.
Just enough to piss off the fans, of course.
If it does cash in China despite controversies, we can still see it explode freely in a second installment in the orchard that is seen in its last minutes.
For now, it's just the decaffeinated tip of a colossal iceberg.
Metacritic: 45
The least bad adaptations
It has been very hard?
Relax, we reached a more comfortable area.
Here you will find movies that can be enjoyed very much.
You will not see them in any list of essentials in the History of Cinema, but they do not need to.
Surely what comes next has given you the odd good time.
Mortal Kombat (1995)
We believe that we are not wrong if we say that the first Mortal Kombat adaptation is very beloved among gamers.
It is a film that,
accepting its limitations, has only grown in everyone's memory
.
The basic premise of the game served as the perfect base for the parade of combats to the rhythm of great pounding music.
There was no more, but no less.
Director Paul WS Anderson would apply the same successful honesty to the first installment of a certain zombie franchise a few years later.
Out of decency we will not name the other films that were coming, but we will name the one that is to come.
We are looking forward to witnessing on screen the carnage that the new reboot advances in its trailer.
As a curious fact, comment that the Mortal Kombat of 95 is one of the very few films on this list that it approves in Metacritic.
Metacritic: 59
Final Fantasy Spirit Within (2001)
We broke a spear in favor of this film that brought so many financial problems to Square and did not find the favor of the fans at the time.
It was well ahead of its time
, fearlessly showing realistic human representations on screen when even today, with few exceptions, they are not common in the film industry (possibly for fear of the public's response to the unsettling valley).
Although we still do not understand what led Square to put aside the usual fantasy worlds in the franchise (they still thought it best to westernize it to reach more audiences), their audacity in showing such a depressing story in a hopeless world is not negligible. .
Metacritic: 33
Resident Evil 1 and 3 (2002/2007)
Paul WS Anderson started a film saga in 2002 that is a roller coaster ride when it comes to quality.
Looking at the fairground ride in perspective, his free adaptation of Resident Evil has one of its highest points in the first installment.
And it is that he gave us
a small work without pretense, humble and tremendously effective
.
Milla Jovovich became the protagonist of a string of six films that reached its last installment in 2016. The second part, Apocalypse, in 2004, sinned the opposite of the previous one due to its arrogance and cocky action, that's why it was be thankful that the third, Extinction, pulling the desert and ramshackle influence of Mad Max, turned out to be a breath of fresh air.
The rest of the deliveries include low points (but very low) and some remarkable elements worthy of study but within films that do not measure up or in the after-dinner programming on a Sunday afternoon.
Metacritic: 33 and 41 respectively.
Silent Hill (2006)
The film that always occupies the top in the lists of best adaptations
undoubtedly makes the cut when it comes to showing the sick universe of the
Silent Hill
franchise
.
Another thing is the script, which annoys from so rickety coming from none other than Roger Avary, who has an Oscar for that work in Pulp Fiction (a modern classic that was also Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1994).
The director, producer and screenwriter had to be hungover or short of money (or both) when he hit the keys on this occasion.
It is also true that Silent Hill was so faithful to the games that it included long passages of walking alone, something that in American cinema has to be completed with words.
Remember Ethan's memes calling over and over for his son lost in the mall at the beginning of Heavy Rain?
Well that.
In spite of everything, we believe that the general computation is good, something that was revalued when in 2012 it could be compared with that thing called Silent Hill: Revelation (Metacritic: 16).
Metacritic: 31
Prince of Persia the Sands of Time (2010)
We defend here, not without a certain modesty, the incarnation on celluloid of the famous Prince of Persia.
This is a production where every dollar invested is seen, which is seen in The Forgotten Sands and in the classic games in the form, but which takes on the appearance of the 2008 installment in its protagonist. A cash and talkative Jake Gyllenhaal creates bridges between franchises (The prince and his bastard children, the Assassins) with
jumps and pranks in debt to the best classic adventure films
.
Of course, the irritating sexual duel between the leading couple, full of situations and phrases that are pure and worn-out topic, have made us doubt on more than one occasion whether or not to include the film in this friendly section.
Metacritic: 50
Tomb Raider (2018)
If Angelina Jolie's Tomb Raider inflated the classic games to the absurd, Alicia Vikander's
sincerely reflected the fantastic and physical
reboot of 2013. At some moments in the film, copies of the video game, we could surprise ourselves squeezing into the armchair of the cinema imaginary buttons and joysticks.
Vikander had just come from collecting the Oscar for The Danish Girl, and his slim and not very athletic physique made the fans doubt, aware of the demanding physical work that awaited him on his adventure.
He was the size to spare, and while the film is far from perfect, it radiates good intentions that in some cases materialize perfectly before our eyes.
We hope that the formula can be polished in a continuation.
Metacritic: 48
Warcraft (2016)
Let's be honest, the movie has very fat buts, but we think that the general calculation is (by hair) positive.
Its casting was very questionable,
never forget
that magician traced to David Guetta), its script works at times, its rhythm is pure arrhythmia and its duration is capable of sleeping on the rocks, but
the fight of its director is visible at all times, Duncan Jones, for making a product worthy and faithful to the mythical video game
.
A WoW fan, his hard confrontation with the producers is known to avoid putting the Horde as the bad guys of the show (his reasoning was overwhelmingly logical: we can't put as antagonists a faction that thousands of players choose as theirs).
Its failure at the North American box office was compensated, which comeback, with the premiere of the film in China.
We do not know if it will be enough for the lords in gray to give their approval to a continuation.
Duncan Jones wants it, so do we.
Metacritic: 32
Detective Pikachu (2019)
A dream come true, to see the huge screen of a cinema full of spectacular pokemon in CGI.
It was strange that a spinof like Detective Pikachu was chosen to be adapted instead of the parent franchise.
It is possible that it was due to wanting to unload weight and responsibility on the film, due to what could happen, given the disastrous career of video games in the cinema and the slab that that martian from Super Mario Bros. represented for years. What has come to fruition is that
the result is enjoyable by adults and children, by regulars of the famous franchise and by people totally unrelated to it
.
And beware, this is another of the very rare cases on this list in which critics approved the invention.
Metacritic: 53
Sonic the Movie (2020)
Now that we can celebrate the arrival of Zack Snyder's Justice League, it should be remembered that the fans have been decisive on other occasions as well.
You know what happened to Sonic, the movie, his teaser horrified the fans of the porcupine because of how unpleasantly realistic he looked.
Delay and injection of dollars through, what reached theaters did fit perfectly with the canon.
The film is light and funny, although
what we have to thank the most is having brought back a Jim Carrey who had not been behind the cameras for four years because of a depression
(with a terrible sentimental tragedy in between).
Sonic is notable for his wonderful (albeit somewhat burdensome) protagonist with red sneakers, but also for his antagonist, who we are no longer able to imagine with a face other than Carrey's.
Metacritic: 47
Adaptations that are so bad that they are good
We know it, we fall here in the topics that we have criticized on several occasions throughout the text.
The heading of this section is a phrase that we do not like too much because it is worn and because it is false, but after hours of documentation and writing the report to make you as happy as possible even if it is only for a while, do not ask us for more.
Super Mario Bros (1993)
At this point we believe that the ineffable Super Mario Bros has turned the tables.
Its usual position on the podium of the worst adaptations together with its pioneering character relegated it for years to the dark shelves of the most seedy cinema.
It is still an impossible and unthinkable project, one of those that does not fit in anyone's head, but you have to admit that it has gained a certain cult.
It is such a radically rare thing that it is even attractive
.
Either not, or yes.
Well, here it stays.
IMDB: 40
Street Fighter: The Last Stand (1994)
And here we have another of the usual in the worst of the worst.
Well, nothing, we also get it from the bottom of the basket of rot.
The film adaptation of the legendary fighting arcade is so crazy, so crazy, so absurd, that the years have gradually made it win over a small legion of fans.
The information that has become known over the years has also helped.
It turned out that the filming was even more out of the pot than the film itself, with that out of
control Van Damme that would have exploded the drug analysis at a Civil Guard checkpoint
.
IMDB: 39
Do not know, no answer
We put here films that baffle us, which could be in any of the previous categories.
You choose where to place them and that way we avoid the tomatazos.
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (2005)
Do not be fooled by its media in Metacritic, it only indicates something that we already knew: video game criticism is infinitely more forgiving than film criticism (the film appears in Metacritic analyzed by pages of our medium as it is classified as a PSP product).
Advent Children is a strange film, inbred in the FFVII universe, that gives everything to the fans of the game and leaves out everyone else (something that the film prequel to FFXV also falls into a bit).
Depressing and gray, it features a very remarkable vertical fight choreographed in a confusing and anarchic way.
A rarity that could almost be called an author
.
Metacritic: 88
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (2012)
Another madness, this time from the hand of off-road director Takashi Miike, who surprised everyone with a movie that is not for everyone.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is
excessive to the blush
in acting, wardrobe, script, execution ... Nothing goes at half throttle here, on the contrary, the film runs at full speed safely and carefree on a highway in the opposite direction.
At all times it seems that there is going to be a misfortune, but the public continually turns away to the right and left to keep moving.
Filmaffinity: 54
Ratchet And Clank (2016)
The film version of the reboot of the first Ratchet and Clank offers exactly the same as the video game.
The problem is exactly that, that there is no more, which means that it gives much less.
The film,
when compared to the video game, something inevitable because it shares animation, history, key scenes ... inevitably loses out because it lacks the magic that interaction implies
.
We cannot say that it is bad because at its base, the video game, is great, although precisely because of what has been said it is bland,
Metacritic: 29
Rampage Project (2018)
We would have had no problem if this movie had been called Kong's son goes on a spree, but it takes the name Rampage to get going.
The fact is that it is better than the video game on which it is based, which was impacted at the time by the size of the sprites and the destructible elements but for little more.
More than a solvent adventure film, it appears in this report as an exception: it
is the only case in which the film is better than the video game on which it is based
.
Metacritic: 45
We bid you farewell with a vow of hope.
We have already said it sometime around here:
Video games have not needed cinema for a long time, but today cinema needs video games more than ever
.
In the interactive medium, there are thousands of stories already written that would give life to a Hollywood stagnant and lacking in ideas.
Rest assured that they will keep trying until they hit the key.
Superheroes have been filling the rooms for years, telling the same thing over and over again, but a relay is needed for when the current goose that lays the golden eggs is exhausted.
And in video games there is no chicken, they have a whole chicken coop.
For the sake of our sanity, good luck.
