Ever since "Space War!" and other titles entertained forward thinking minds and delightfully nerdy fingers over fifty years ago, video games have become a staple of modern entertainment. And over the past two decades, Hollywood has been trying to successfully translate the platform's biggest successes from arcade, television, and computer screens to the silver screen (and not just for gaming competitions).
With casual, MMOG, and social gaming expanding the audience of gamers today (we see you and your needy cows, Farmville players), there is no doubt that Hollywood will keep trying to bring the active experience of gaming to the passive comforts of your local multiplex. Critically, despite its best efforts, well, Hollywood appears to have a ways to go.
So without further ado, with the disclaimer that we chose adaptations that found a wide release domestically, we invite you to dim the lights, don your Power Glove, stock up on the Mountain Dew and Funyuns, and push the power button on our Best Video Game Adaptations countdown!
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One movie on list that was worth anything (I liked Silent Hill).
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Besides Final Fantasy which is great eye candy, every film on this list is terrible or worse.And look who's on the bottom, our old friend Uwe Boll
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Funny thing about Spirits Within, it was not supposed to have the Final Fantasy name attached. Sure the squaresoft(Now Square Enix) did the animation but Sony wanted to get more money out of it by attaching Final Fantasy. Of course it failed because it was nothing like the games. Still the best movie within the bunch.
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I'm surprised that FFVII: Advent Children isn't on this list (or did I miss it). I would rank that movie up there halfway decent and pretty good fanfare to boot.
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"with the disclaimer that we chose adaptations that found a wide release domestically"
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I just looked up the numbers and Final Fantasy: Advent Children made almost $2 million more than Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, which was able to make it onto this list. If that horrid movie made it on, I think Advent Children deserves a slot. Not that it's the greatest movie ever, but I liked it more than any of the other movies on the list.
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I strongly recommend ______ B l a c k W h i t e C u p i d * C o m ______ to you where I just found my interracial boyfriend! You know it is a great place to meet black men and beautiful women. What's kind of relationship do you want?
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Yup, Prince of Persia is the best one yet. It ain't sayin' much, but hopefully this movie proves once and for all that a video game movie doesn't HAVE to be total garbage. Hire a good director, talented actors, writers that can ACTUALLY WRITE, and give them the resources they need, and you'll get a good movie. Just like with any other kind of adaptation.
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wow somebody needs to step up and make a good video game movie...
every single movie is a splat.
Never noticed that before this list.
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okay ur pretty much a moron prince of Persia was like watching someone take a sponge bath with there mom, ever movie on this list is utter crap except pokemon
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have not seen prince of persia yet so cannot comment on that, but did think a few on the list were not complete crap. I cannot however take anyone seriously over the age of 8 who says that all the movies were crap except Pokemon.
I mean come on Seriously Pokemon?
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I enjoyed Silent Hill and Hitman. They were a lot of fun for me. Other than that, garbage.
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That's funny. Of all the awful movie adaptations, I actually liked these two movies too. Both movies are terrible from a technical standpoint (whether it's the bad acting, bad script, bad plot, etc.), I really liked the style of Silent Hill and the main character's acting in (and facial expressions) in Hitman was so over the top, that I liked them. A lot of times, it doesn't take a 'good' movie to like it.
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I must have seen Mortal Kombat a 100 times as a kid. Silent hill I enjoyed as a horror film not just a Video game to film.
Either way this list just seems like a shameless promotion of Prince of Persia.
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Agree fully.
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I have seen a lot of video game adaptations, frankly some good most bad. But really I have always find some of the criticism quite pretentious.
I think too many people have an idea of a 'proper' movie left over from the so called golden age and this genre simply does not fit in with that.
There is only one thing really that matters for a movie; is it entertaining?
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I am sorry to have to tell you this but the criticism is not because of some bar set by the golden age of movies. The reason why people are so hard on these movies is because when you put the title of a game on a movie it should be a movie based off the game. It's as if someone advertised vanilla shakes and you went, bought the shake and instead got preylines and cream. Sometimes it's good anyway but you wouldn't care because you were expecting vanilla. You should never take the title of a game that everybody knows well and decide to put it on some unrecognizable alternate story. It's like that first Hulk movie. Where the hell did they get that story from. Why is it the anime's can make descent Street Fighter movies and TV episodes but Hollywood makes one crappy movie and then making an even worse one later. Personally it was the only one of these movies I could watch all the way through because it was so bad. I'm not saying most of the movies on the list were much better but I did see the rest the whole way through. You are right about one thing, if you leave your expectations out of the mix there are some entertaining movies here. This rule must also be applied to comic and book movie adaptations as well. Angels and Demons, XMEN 3, Jurassic Park, and Spiderman 3 are all examples of statement.
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Pralines, not preylines
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this guy is a spell check dik.....another one for ya
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Have only seen a few of these and most were absolutely wretched. That said, Resident Evil and especially Mortal Kombat are surefire guilty pleasures of mine. I mean, Christopher Lambert's Raiden is worth the ticket price alone.
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Probably the worst group of films in any list. Admittedly I've only seen 5, which included Street Fighter, Mario Bros, Hitman and Lara Croft. All terrible. The other was Resident Evil, which I wasn't aware was based on a video game. I couldn't understand why zombies and monsters appeared randomly. Only after viewing I found out and realised how the script had to incorporate such anomalies.
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Not sure why Prince of Persia is No.1, hasn't even come out yet.
For me it's Mortal Kombat, the Resident Evil movies, Silent Hill, and Doom; in no particular order.
The Final Fantasy: Spirits Within is good, but no were near as good as Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.
It deals directly with VII's storyline and recently came out on Blu Ray with a director's cut/special edition.
Looks fukcing great and has a good story, recommended if you've ever played any FF games.
End of Line
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i didn't know there was a GOOD video game movie maybe prince of persia is good after all
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This may sound kinda strange but i liked Postal dunno why maybe it had that charm in it.
But i disliked Resident Evil because i expected a game adaptation but they change the complete story and kept the names.
Silent Hill was Ok i guess i expected more from it but it was decent.
MK i hated, story was terrible in my opinion.
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I'm still waiting for that long-promised, big-budget, big-screen musical based on "Pong".
I heard Philip Seymour Hoffman has signed on to play the left paddle and Javier Bardem will play the right paddle.
They haven't cast the little square ball yet, but I've heard rumors about Katherine Heigl...
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The word "best" doesn´t fit here ... another list in the "Best movies based on a SNL Sketch" genre.
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The 1st Mortal Kombat movie was awesome in my opinion because I played the games and watched the movie tons of times (I really hope they go through with the R rated reboot of MK). Silent Hill was absolutely crazy and I thought they did a really great job with it. I was a little disappointed with the Resident Evil movies because I was really hoping that they would follow the story lines of the video games, but I still thought the 1st two movies were entertaining (3rd one was awful). Doom wasn't amazing, but again, I thought it was entertaining, especially the 5 minute 1st person POV scene when he took the extra chromosome; it was so bad ass I wish the games were more like that.
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I totally agree.
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Hey! I'm crying foul here! What's with all the Pokemon movies but no Digimon movie?! It originated from a video game and got better reviews than all the pokemon films!
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#17 there.
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The best one i have ever seen was Resident Evil: Degeneration. Its better then the 3 live action movies combined and its visually and audibly faithful to the videogames.
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But was quite disappointing.
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I like Super Mario Bros. in a "so bad it's good" kind of way. It's so over the top silly that it's fun. Seriously, how can you not at least crack a smile when they say "Sir, the goombas are dancing again."?
I stated this when they talked about the Mass Effect movie but I'll say it again, ANYTHING can be done with the RIGHT team. They made one of the most successful trilogies of movies out of a theme park ride that consists of riding in a boat through a cave and burning city. Bryan Singer made a movie that is #21 on IMDb's Top 250 originally based on the idea for the poster. Surely someone can make a good video game adaptation. It's just sad to see good potential movies like Gears of War and Halo get passed by because the history of the genre.
The problem with past video game adaptations (besides the abomination that is Uwe Boll) is that studios don't take them seriously. Most of the consensus for these movies talk about low budgets and production values. They just see games as geeks having fun. They don't realize that Mario is more than just stomping on Goombas, that Halo is more than sticking a grenade on a Grunt, and Gears of War is more than chainsawing a Locust. The executives in charge never grew up with games and don't realize that video games are as much a creative medium as music, comic books, television, and novels.
Video games are no longer running from ghosts while eating dots or jumping over barrels. They are now about telling a story. Gears of War is about the extinction of humanity and how we deal with it. Mass Effect is about how we choose to do what is right. Prey is about a man rediscovering his heritage. BioShock is about how humans act without rules and organization. Even a game like Dead or Alive have rich stories involving runaway shinobis, overbearing fathers, revenge, love, etc. There is much to explore in the way of storytelling if they would just look for it.
Roger Ebert famously said that games could never be art. But art is a creative expression used to stimulate human feelings. Are we not shocked in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic when we find out we are the very person we have been hunting for? Are we not horrified in Call of Duty 4 when our character dies in a nuclear explosion? Are we not disgusted in BioShock when we have no control over killing Andrew Ryan?
Studios need to realize that games are more than graphics and explosions. I play 95% single-player campaign and 5% online. I don't play games just for the fun gameplay. I play games for story. I love Mass Effect because of how detailed everything is. I love Halo because there is so much to explore. I love Gears of War because there's so much mystery to the universe. Gameplay and graphics help keep it fun (afterall I did quit The Force Unleashed despite liking the story because I hated the gameplay) but it's not everything. Halo is a shooter and, honestly, not that different from other FPSs. But it's become a cultural phenomenon because of the world it presents. Film studios need to look at why a game is popular with fans, not just what the game itself does. Then maybe we can get a video game adaptation that is actually Fresh on this site.
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Well said comrade. Well said.
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I completely agree with everything except for "Gears of War is more than chainsawing a Locust..." Honestly, as much fun as the game is, you don't play gears for the story.
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Chainsawing gets you into the game. But the story is what keeps you there and brings you back for the sequel. Otherwise you'd just play the first couple of levels and multiplayer over and over.
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From my experience, that's what people do. GoW2's story is laughably bad.
"IT'S A GIANT WORM!!!!"
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JRPGS are like novel video games. That's why I play them. Their stories are amazing. Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross. The Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series. The Shenmue and the Sword of Mana series. I mean the list just goes on.
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My God, man, you're so right with this statements that could never thought before (nor better); and those are (in quotations):
1° "The abomination that is Uwe Boll."
2° "The executives in charge never grew up with games and don't realize that video games are as much a creative medium as music, comic books, television, and novels."
3° "BioShock is about how humans act without rules and organization." And you'd to add the sequel that in some aspects, is an achievement. "Are we not disgusted in BioShock when we have no control over killing Andrew Ryan?"
4° "I play 95% single-player campaign and 5% online. I don't play games just for the fun gameplay. I play games for story." OK, I agree that; but, where you'll put the multi-player games or "Conker's Bad Fur Day" (the N64's)?
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Halo is a kind of game which seriously need a film adaption.
It's story is fantastic for a movie. The project is still pending but it's a big budget movie still.
it's jus like a dream to see this movie on big screen.
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First of all, I want to point out that the comments on this list are far numerous to many other lists on Rotten Tomatoes (because video games are the new entertainment for our WORLD!) From the Wii to the 360, or the PS3. I don't have a dang person I know who doesn't have ONE of them! XBox Live is a prime contributor to the new era of video games and, going off-topic, Roger Ebert is no longer some one I will listen to for his ridiculous comment about vide games not being art.
ARTaylor, yeah, seriously. Well said. If you guys search the Halo Short on U-Toob (spelled for legality) there's a 10 minute video of a Live Action Halo demo. It's pretty legitimate for almost no budget at ALL!
I know Resident Evil: Afterlife is going to have Wesker in it, but it's too late. Little miss "I have super powers" has ruined the feeling of helplessness in Resident Evil games (such as RE4 where you just barely clear levels with ample ammunition, for the average game.) It's a HORROR genre. I mean, besides RE:5 (which was still fun.) Even in 5, though, Chris Redfield gets smacked around by Wesker. None of the characters you play as are superhuman.
What else is there to say? So much....
Some games with potential, besides Gears, Halo, and CoD could be: Splinter Cell (Sam Fisher's character is one of a kind,) Assassin's Creed (can we agree the ending of the 2nd one was EPIC?!,) The Legend of Zelda (Ocarina of Time's story was ridiculous,) a Live Action Final Fantasy flick based off the games (after all, 300 was fully CGI'd,) Metroid (the mystery of Samus and Adam can be explored in numerous ways, so long as Other M doesn't destroy the series,) KOTOR ('nuff said,) Fallout (because The Road made me fall asleep,) Fable I (the music mixed with the coloring effects gave me goosebumps; THAT's art!) and the list goes ooooonnnnn.
Mixing video with sound, music, epic stories, and lovable characters and allowing the player to interact with this new world does what movies can't. You aren't just an observer, you are a participant. From the controller vibrations to the shaking of your screen, video games have come a long way from the super nintendo or even the N64. Now, PLEASE, someone who likes video games. Go become a producer or director! Give video games what they deserve, budget and all.
Also, I admittedly enjoyed RE, Silent Hill, Spirits Within, and Mortal Kombat (because the fight scenes with Scorpion, Reptile, and Sub Zero were defining for me.)
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The first "Tomb Raider" because it has some nifty action sequences and the "Hitman"!! I really care for anything else on that list!!
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What I meant to say is that I really DON'T care for anything else on that list!!
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Silent Hill was the most incoherant piece of crap, I don't know how any of you could be defending it. The only parts that had actual acting in them was the 'cameo' scenes by Sean Bean.
Actually, everyone of these movies sucked. Mortal Kombat was almost passable as a movie, as was the first Tomb Raider, but.that's.about.it.
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Silent Hill was a mess in terms of script and acting. Visually, however, it was incredible.
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True Mark
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+1, man.
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Most original movies don't have very good storylines, let alone movies based on video-games, which generally are more concerned about gameplay than story. Even the one's that are concerned with story aren't good "literature," though many gamers wouldn't know that due to their lack of exposure to actual great books that have been written though-out history.
Though basically all the movies on there suck, some are just funny to watch. Seriously, Mario Bros, Street Fighter, and Mortal Kombat are laugh riots.
I think "The Wizard" with Fred Savage should get an honorable mention on this list, even though it wasn't originally a video-game, it was one long Nintendo commercial.
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Gamers don't read literature.
British have bad teeth.
Asians can't drive.
Blacks are lazy.
Southerners are inbred, gun-totten hillbillies.
Muslims are terrorists.
Jews are greedy.
Any other incorrect antagonistic generalizations you'd like to put out there?
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Agreed, it's as if some folks refer to their Troller's handbook before commenting.
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Latins are immigrants.
Blonds are air-headed.
Catholics have a fake face.
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Actually, these stereotypes are all true.
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And this, lady and gentlemen, is a bigot.
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"Most original movies don't have very good storylines"
No.
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Only a relatively small percentage of any movies have what I would consider good story lines and these are the ones that people watch again and again decades later. most are moderately entertaining and forgotten by the time you watch the next. And even some of the best are remakes and adaptations of movies that have gone before. Way back in the 1940's "His Girl Friday" was a remake of a movie done less than a decade earlier called "Front Page". Almost any story you can think of in movies or literature owes something to its predecessors.
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"Most original movies don't have very good storylines"
So which movies *do* have original storylines? The unoriginal, derivative ones?
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Silent Hill was a good adaptation.
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