Sonic the Hedgehogis finally spinning into theaters this weekend after several months of visual effects tweaking to correct the ghoulish mistake that was the title character’s original design. The film will mark the latest video game adaptation to hit theaters, a dragon that Hollywood has been chasing for over a quarter century and still hasn’t managed to quite get right. Because unlike film adaptations of other “low” art such as comic books, we’ve still yet to see a video game movie that was really, actually good.
I have no idea why that is. Making a movie out of established brands is pretty hit-or-miss (for everyThe Lego Moviethere are around 30 ofTheEmoji Movie), so the temptation to just make a bland movie out of long-established tropes and slap aFInal Fantasylogo on it is probably hard to overcome. And in some cases, like 1993’sSuper Mario Bros., the problem seems to stem from a lack of any real film-able narrative in the source material, forcing the filmmakers to create their movies based on what they think the game is about and ending up with a movie that could best be described as secondhand reporting of a crime scene.
That said, while there may not be any truly good video game movies, there are definitely fun video game movies, and a few that have managed to become classics. I’ve done my best to rank every one from Worst to Greatest, with a view notable caveats, because as it turns out there are a shitload of them. My list excludes any animated movies (even though I genuinely likedRatchet & Clank), because if I start trying to rank all of thePokémonandStreet Fighteranimes I will simply turn to dust in my chair. I also excluded a few straight-to-DVD and international releases, most notably theTekkenfilms andDOA: Dead or Alive, because I’m never fucking watching those movies. But other than that, this list is fairly definitive, so read on to discover which are worth a rental and which should go the way of the Nintendo Cereal System.
25. Every Uwe Boll Movie
Uwe Bollhas made a career out of filming tax shelters masquerading as video game adaptations, and every single one of his films is bad in a uniquely baffling way.House of the Dead, which is one of the few Boll films to get a theatrical release in the U.S., might also be his best. It’s cheesy as hell and it has nothing to do with the video game series (which only ever had the barest bones of stories), but it has a weird charm that Boll never manages to recapture. I’ll be brief with the rest, because they’re all acidic trash heaps:Alone in the DarkfeaturesChristian Slater’s widow’s peak and an unintentionally hilarious chase scene set to a steel drum solo,BloodRayneis softcore nerd porn starring Oscar winnerBen Kingsley,Postalis an 8chan thread come to life,In the Name of the KingfeaturesRay Liottaas an evil medieval wizard dressed like a Johnny Cash roadie, andFar Cryhas a bizarre cameo byAnthony Bourdain. There, I’ve just saved you 7 ½ hours of eye-searing terribality.
24. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
Mortal Kombat: Annihilationtakes all of the good will of the previous film and pawns it for a collection of Pogs based on forgotten properties of the ‘90s, such asEek! The Cat, orThe Incredible Crash Test Dummies. The film recasts all but two of the lead actors from the original and appears to have been filmed in between takes on the set ofHercules: The Legendary Journeys with costumes stolen from Party City. Despite this movie coming out two years afterMortal Kombat, the visual effects are somehow worse, and they are used to create such memorable scenes as transformingThe X-Files’Brian Thompsoninto a dragon. There are more named characters inMortal Kombat: Annihilationthan in the entirety ofGame of Thrones, and most of them die just as quickly. Unless they simply disappear, which also happens!
23. Double Dragon
I can write approximately 100 words about 1994’sDouble Dragon, and most of them would be about the constellation of hair spread acrossRobert Patrick’s skull. He has a bleached-blond high top fade and a ‘90s coffee shop goatee. He looks like a police sketch artist’s interpretation of one of the Thundercats on their way to a job interview. He looks like an alternate head for a Vanilla Ice doll. He looks like he sued A Flock of Seagulls for defamation in 1983. Somehow, Patrick is the villain of this bizarrely kid-friendly yet weirdly grotesque adaptation of the gritty beat-em-up arcade series Double Dragon. Despite the presence of the gloriously delightfulMark Dacascos, this film is aggressively terrible, and should be avoided at all costs.
22. Wing Commander
Wing Commanderis a film that came out in 1999 in every possible way you can interpret that phrase. Its lead actors areFreddie Prinze, Jr.,Matthew Lillard, andDeep Blue Sea’sSaffron Burrows. Famously hated by fans of the game series despite the fact that it was written and directed by the game’s creator (who also grew to hate the film), the movie is like a terrible live-action version ofTitan A.E.with godawful special effects and boring characters. There’s virtually no conflict beyond the standard “we must defeat the evil aliens” trope, and considering we barely see the aforementioned aliens, it’s hard to really get invested in anything that’s going on. Prinze has a particularly embarrassing role to play as the special boy with one of the most ludicrous super powers in the history of science fiction and fantasy. Worst of all,Mark HamillandMalcolm McDowellare nowhere to be found.
21. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Liwill forever be remembered as the Street Fighter movie nobody had any idea existed. Quietly released in February of 2009 to theater-going audiences who wanted absolutely nothing to do with it, the film quickly faded into obscurity to such a degree that I usually have to provide photographic evidence to convince people I’m not making it up. It’s theJonah Hexof video game adaptations. It inexplicably features Oscar nomineeMichael Clarke Duncangetting impaled by a frozen pipe, and while that may sound like solid B movie action cheese, the film is so generic and boring that it takes a physical toll on you just to watch it. Imagine trading a portion of your immortal soul to watch the Street Fighter: The Movie arcade game in attract mode for 90 minutes, and you’ve essentially gained the experience of watchingThe Legend of Chun-Li.
20. Max Payne
Max Payneexists in the shadow realm of films made in the aughts that are destined to become bar trivia questions every team is too drunk to answer. I completely forgot this movie existed, and if we’re being totally honest, I also forgot about the game. The titular police detective is on a quest for vengeance after his wife and child are killed, which sees him blasting his way through corrupt politicians and business moguls to get to the truth. The game was a cool neo-noir action title with some interesting plot twists and a fun “bullet time” mechanic, but the film is a boring slog of confusion. For some inexplicable reason, the filmmakers altered or outright removed huge sections of the plot, leaving the movie a jumbled mess that not even fans of the game could decipher. Bewilderingly, the movie dipped its beak into the supernatural and added literal demons, which are 100% not in the game. Imagine someone rebootingChinatownand throwing in a couple of werewolves, and you’ll get an idea of how much of a tonal shift the movie was from the source material. It might actually be less harmful for you to burn theMax PayneDVD and breathe in the toxic fumes than to ever watch it.
19. Silent Hill: Revelation
Take all of the positive things you’ve ever felt about a film, wrap those things in an old Freddy Kruger t-shirt, then set the shirt on fire and throw it down a haunted mine shaft, shouting sentence fragments at it all the way down. That’s the gist ofSilent Hill: Revelation, a boring-ass kaleidoscope of played-out horror film tropes and varsity-level gibberish masquerading as dialogue. This sequel to the 2006 original is a terrible film with absolutely zero redeeming qualities, and it deserves nothing less than to never be watched by anyone.Sean Bean,reprising his role from the previous film, manages to defy the odds and survive once again, making him two-for-two in theSilent Hillseries, so I guess that’s notable. That said, he does wander off into mist at the end to find his missing family and we never got aSilent Hill 3, so maybe he did die.
18. Hitman: Agent 47
Hitman: Agent 47is the second Hitman film in a row to make the critical error of not castingJason Stathamas the titular bald assassin. Perhaps he felt the series was too similar to hisTransporterfranchise, perhaps the production couldn’t afford him, or perhaps the script was so bad he did a dazzling series of kicks to eject the producers from his office for even bringing him a copy. There is a slight possibility that the makers ofHitman: Agent 47never even approached Statham, but the very notion is so foolish I don’t want to consider it any further. Anyway, this sequel/reboot recasts the role vacated byTimothy OlyphantwithRupert Friend, and if you just said, “Who?”, please consider skipping this movie forever, because it has nothing to offer you.Zachary Quintoco-stars as a bulletproof villain who gets electrocuted into a weird ghost human in a post-credits sequence, which is almost certainly a reference to the game series but one that I do not understand. It is a remarkably bad film loaded with the type of CGI-augmented action that I find boring and lame.
17. Super Mario Bros.
1993’sSuper Mario Bros.has the distinction of being the first ever movie based on a video game, and the first movie in which Hollywood legendDennis Hopperis mutated into Nickelodeon slime by an underselling Nintendo peripheral. Helmed by two commercial directors who had also co-created the 1980s British television character Max Headroom, the production famously went through several rewrites before landing on the truly bizarre concept of “Blade RunnerBut With Dinosaurs”. The production design on the film is legitimately impressive and unique, which is a shame, because the movie itself is a rampaging dumpster fire. It’s boring and dense and doesn’t seem to have any idea of where any of this is going, which is probably the result of the script being revised on a daily basis. The most notable thing aboutSuper Mario Bros.is arguably the fact that the jump boots used by Mario and Luigi were later worn byNicolas Cagein the thrilling 1997 docudramaFace/Off.
16. Street Fighter
Listen. If you’re judging the quality of a film based on how well it stands the test of time, how much it contributes to the culture, and how hard it tries to convince you thatJean Claude Van Dammewas born in America,Street Fighterdeserves to be in the upper echelon. 1994’sStreet Fighteris simultaneously the greatest and most embarrassing film of that year, Shawshank be damned. Essentially taking the characters fromStreet Fighter IIand assigning them random roles in a family-friendly action plot, the film feels like a combination of G.I. Joe and American Gladiators. The crowning jewel of the film, and the reason it should be entered into the library of congress and protected at all costs, is Raúl Juliá’s hamboniest of hambone performances as the villainous M. Bison.Street Fighteris the dumbest thing in the whole entire universe, and I watch it every time it comes on TV. If for no other reason, it deserves respect for Juliá’s immortal line, “For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday."
