Video game movies have never been that good, but every once in a while one come along that’s actually worth watching. These are my 5 favorite videogame movies to garner a US box office debut.
5 Lara Croft Tomb Raider
Does the following statement describe the movie or the game? A beautiful woman with dual pistols hunts for treasure. Answer: It describes both equally. The movie was pretty shallow and cheesy, but so are the games.
4 Pokemon: the first movie
Every gamer under the age of 30 has played pokemon (we don’t all admit it, but we did). The games are basically about a kid who goes around trapping wild animals and making them fight. So are the show, and the movie. It’s a faithful adaptation, even if it is aimed at kids.
3 Postal
Now we’re starting to get somewhere. As I’ve said before, Ewe Boll makes crap. But thanks to the heavy involvement of the development team, Postal is good. It’s terribly black humor, and it’s worth your money if you’re into that sort of thing. Much like the game, it’s all just a spectacle, and it loses almost all of its charm if you try to take it at any other level than face value.
2 Mortal Kombat 1
One thing that always gets me about fighting games is the fact that there’s usually a staggering amount of lore given the games are usually just the word FIGHT followed by 2-4 minutes of brutal violence. This movie actually stayed pretty true to the source material. It kept the characters, moves, and violence that the games are known for. All while covering a decent amount of the game’s ridiculous plot.
1 Silent Hill
Every gamer & movie fan knows that Silent Hill is the crown jewel of good video game movies. It’s not the greatest horror movie in the world, but for an adaptation it’s as close as we’re going to get. It strayed about as much from the original games as some of the later games did, and for a movie that’s really saying something.
Notable mention (s):
Onechanbara: bikini slayer squad
I bought the game for the wii. Where it was named Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers, I paid $30 and got exactly what I expected, and some pretty decent Co-op game play. It’s perfect material for a B-movie and I’ll post a review as soon as I see it.
Street Fighter – The animated movie
The only reason this didn’t make the list is because it never got a US box office release. A pretty good adaptation of a video game to a film, and it’s not a bad anime either. It’s got all the characters, the special moves, and the back stories. Plus the plot actually works.