Video game movies have developed an infamous reputation for being terrible adaptations that seem to miss the entire point of the games they are based on. Rather than effectively translate the interactive experience of playing a video game to the passive film medium, most video game movies fail to capture the spirit, tone, characters, or gameplay that fans loved about the original titles.
Many of these ill-conceived adaptations strip away everything tun and special about the games, instead producing generic Hollywood schlock or cynical cash grass banking on name recognition alone. Here are 5 of the worst offenders that will make you want to scrub your corneas after viewing.
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Super Mario Bros. (1993)
The Super Mario Bros. movie took the bright, cartoony world of the Mario games and turned it into a dark, bizarre dystopian setting. This sci-fi take on Mario and Luigi in modern-day Brooklyn clashed harshly with the silly, lighthearted feel of the games. With weird creature designs, out-there plot elements, and unfaithful depictions of iconic characters, Super Mario Bros. is a classic example of how not to adapt a video game to a film.
The cringe-worthy interpretation of Bowser as a diminutive humanoid is forever seared into the minds of video game fans. This movie felt like it actively hated the source material. Mario fanatics would be better off pretending this mess doesn’t exist.
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Double Dragon (1994)
Double Dragon was a classic beat ’em-up arcade game all about over-the-top martial arts action. The movie adaptation neutered everything that made the games fun and turned it into a cheesy 90s adventure film. Gone was the brutal combat, replaced with lame wire-fu stunts and family-friendly humor.
By sanitizing the violence and making the tone exceedingly corny, Double Dragon showed a complete lack of understanding of why people enjoyed the games. It felt like watching a Saturday morning cartoon version of Double Dragon, minus anything that made it cool or exciting. This is a disappointment best left forgotten.
Street Fighter (1994)
Street Fighter II was a landmark fighting game, popularizing the genre. The 1994 Street Fighter movie infamously botched bringing the world of SF to life. Besides generally atrocious acting and writing, almost nothing resembled the games. Key characters like Ryu and Ken were relegated to minor roles while Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Guile took center stage.
Cheesy, hammy performances from stars like Raul Julia as M. Bison clashed with the serious martial arts action of Street Fighter. Rather than capture the competitive spirit of the games, the movie was an absurd action comedy that spectacularly missed the point. Street Fighter is best viewed as unintentional comedy rather than a sincere adaptation.
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Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)
While the first Mortal Kombat movie was a decent take on the hyper-violent fighting series, the sequel Annihilation took a flying leap off the quality cliff. Ditching coherent plotting and characters, Annihilation stuffed the movie with as many poorly-realized MK elements as possible. With new fighters being introduced every other minute only to get anticlimactically killed off, it was sensory overload in the worst way.
Annihilation eschewed all substance for superficial fanservice moments. Between the laughably atrocious special effects and acting straight out of a high school play, this entry seemed intent on murdering the Mortal Kombat franchise’s cinematic potential. Finish this heap with a Fatality and walk away.
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Max Payne (2008)
Max Payne was acclaimed for its slow-motion gunplay and noir-inspired storytelling. The movie reduced the stylistic shooting action to bland sequences while also stripping the neo-noir elements down to trite detective story cliches. Marketed as a hard-boiled action flick, what audiences got was a tame PG-13 bore-fest.
Mark Wahlberg sleepwalks the role of Max Payne, looking bored out of his mind. Critical characters like Mona Sax get bizarre changes for no reason. Even the comic panel cutscene visuals are abandoned. For a Max Payne adaptation, this movie lacked any of the panache or cleverness that defined the games. It wasn’t even bad enough to laugh at, just lifelessly mediocre. Fans of the franchise deserve better.
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In the decades since the initial wave of awful video game films, the quality has improved with more sincere efforts like Sonic the Hedgehog and Detective Pikachu. However, the road to this point was paved with misguided disasters like the aforementioned titles that utterly failed to translate interactive experiences into movies. The damage is already done for the fans subjected to those ill-conceived disasters. No amount of eye bleach will purge the memories of how bad video game movies can be when they are epically mishandled. Tread carefully in this genre, and never forget the lessons of the past.
