Best of the Worst

TopHat asked me the other day which video game movie was my favorite. In honor of him, of my brother who just returned from his mission (and loves video games) and of my love of making lists, here are my favorite video game movies. Keep in mind that switching from one medium to another is often a horrible mistake, with rare exceptions such as the Goldeneye video game or the Myst books. But for the most part, these adaptations are destined to be horrible. But some are enjoyably horrible.

1. Super Mario Brothers This one is awesomely bad. They tried to shoehorn so many ridiculous elements of the videogame into the movie. Truly a great watch.
2. Silent Hill I don’t play these games (mostly because I don’t play any video games any more) but this was a pretty good movie. Not great, but good. It’s a horror movie that’s not scary, but creepy and ominous for the full length of the movie.
3. Dead or Alive We're back to another awesomely bad one. Fighting games actually do pretty well translated into movies since fighting movies don’t have to have a plot to be successful. This one has a plot, that’s completely ridiculous. But it has some fun fighting, lots of girls, and it’s from a game I’ve actually played. The trailer is a pretty accurate representation of the movie. Thoroughly bad, and thoroughly enjoyable.
4. Mortal Kombat Annihilation - Many people would list Mortal Kombat as the best video game movie, in that it was actually a watchable movie. But I have to put MK2 above it because it’s mostly like MK1, but as an entirely random and unnecessary, and thus hilarious, mud wrestling scene.
5. Mortal Kombat - Watchable. Sad that being watchable gets it into the top 5, but that’s the nature of video game movies.
6. Final Fantasy: Advent Children - I never played the game (blasphemy among gamers) and I watched this movie in Chinese (I was in China) but I had a good time.
7. Resident Evil - These games are great, but the movies aren’t. But a bad zombie movie is better than a good . . . documentary about lint.
8. Fatal Fury/Street Fighter/Tekken - Every fighting game ever has an anime movie. They’re all the same. Adequately drawn characters having adequate fights.
9. Max Payne - Some cool effects, but I kind of stopped paying attention half way through. Not a good sign for a movie.
10. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within - Doesn’t really relate to Final Fantasy at all, but it looks pretty.
11. Tom Raider - I’m really surprised I don’t like these movies more. They have Ms Jolie, which usually is all I require in a film. Guess they’re that bad.
12. Doom - The FPS (first person shooter) sequences are entertaining, but the rest isn’t.
13. Street Fighter - Bad, but not really awesomely bad. Just painfully bad.
14. BloodRayne - Beyond bad. In the right mood it can be awesomely bad, but most of the time just a waste of everyone’s time. It’s the kind of movie that makes you feel really bad for the editors and catering people and everyone that had to spend time on it.

Honorable mentions

King of Kong - Not really a video game movie, just a movie about video games. But a great one of those.
Red Vs Blue - Funny web series, based of Halo.
Sonic the Hedgehog - This tv show was pretty sweet because it was Sonic, but in a post-apocalyptic future. Don’t confuse it with The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, which is Sonic in a boring cartoon world.
Captain N: The Game Master - A guy get sucked into his Nintendo and has to fight video game characters. It was awesome. At least when I was 8 it was awesome.
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? I don’t need to explain why this was great.