Its Sunday, and the plan was to fully sit in front of the television like a zombie using just slightly less brainpower than it takes to dream while asleep. For most of the day, this plan was going smoothly thanks to the line-up of movies on FX network (Hitman, Wanted, Max Payne). Then it hit me, what are the best video game adaptions ever?So much for being braindead for a day.
Now before we consider what makes the list of good adaptations/conversions let’s consider what is the norm. Video game movies are generally crap. They consistently ignore, or actively delete and rewrite, critical plots and motivations that caused the popularity of the videogame in the first place. Often the movie versions of the films contain characters, scenarios, motivations, plots and environments never even touch upon in the video game.
Consequently, due to movie studios constant drive to create entertainment content that is firmly entrenched in the realm of the lowest common denominator to widen appeal, these film serve to anger fans, and alienate movie-goers. These films live and die by first weekend openings, pushed by slick movie trailers and actor/actress star power, hoping to generate as much money as possible BEFORE word of mouth circulates and audiences abandon the film altogether.
Such a reality is dysmal, with the quality of the films only equal to such a failure. This begs the question if fans would be better served playing the video games and imagining a movie version than the actual movie itself.
Given the reality, here are some stats:
The top 30 video game adaptaion/conversion films since 1993 (the start of the genre being Super Mario Bros.) have made a total of $1.04 billion, averaging $34.9 million per film.
The most revenues ever made was Lara Croft: Tomb Raider with $131.1 million so far.
The most successful series was the Resident Evil series, also leading with the most films made.
Rating the films on the basis of closest to original source and quality of movie we get the following list (scale of 0 – 10, with 10 being the actual video game and 0 being Super Mario Bros.):
Prince of Persia – 7.5/9
Resident Evil: Apocalypse – 8.5/7
Hitman – 7.5/8
Mortal Kombat – 8.5/6.5
Resident Evil – 8/7
Silent Hill – 7/8
Laura Croft: Tomb Raider – 6/9
Doom – 7.5/7
Max Payne – 6.5/7.5
Wing Commander – 6/7
Resident Evil: Afterlife – 4/8.5
Street Fighter – 7.5/3.5
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life – 3/8
Double Dragon – 6/4.5
BloodRayne – 6/4
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation – 4/5
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within – 3/5.5
DOA: Dead or Alive – 4/2
Super Mario Bros. – 0/1
There are of course several video game adaptation/conversion films that we have not rated. But we believe any movie left out (for the sake of brevity) will not alter the top of the list, and only marginal difference to the bottom – effectively adding to the worst films made.