Hoping Against Hope: Why Video Game Movies Suck

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Video game movies are notoriously bad and no one seems to have the ability to make a good one or get the good ones made. :(

Movies based on video games have stunk up the multiplex worse than any bad batch of popcorn ever could. None of the nearly 30 films-based-on-games released since 1980 - not a single one! - has reached 50 percent% on Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer aggregate rating. Think about that. Even mediocrity seems unattainable for game-based movies.
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mass effect, my prediction... bigger then iron man :p
 
I think they would have far more success if they made a movie that was based loosely on a game - such as a 'prequel' movie that explained some of the events of the game or a side story. Right now, they're trying to hard to make direct adaptations. Why watch when we can play?

Of course, that's assuming the video game has good movie material to begin with otherwise an atrocity like Super Mario Bros is an inevitability.
 
I think the real reason is because they alter the story And take artistic liberties. Not to mention often using B-llisted actors. In Doom they made them aliens instead of demons from hell. Double Dragon was a joke with no recognizable actors except Michael Anthony hall a B-rated 80's movies actor. Sure many movie games are not true to the stories of the game. Then again many games have terrible plots and stories. And we play them becuase of the game-play, fun, multiplayer, and replay value and not because of the story or crappy voice acting. Domr games have excellent stories such as metal gear. And sure if you can get Kurt Russel to be in it and have some game humor in the movie I am sure it would work. But the movie games need to stop with being untrue tot eh game and hiring B-listed actors. And treat the movie as if its a work of art so that people will buy it and love it rather than trying to make something crappy to get a quick buck by using the name of a popular franchise.:D
 
Most of these movies were more entertaining than the alternative, “artistic” crap Hollywood produces.
 
Wonder if Prince of Persia is any good. Seems like they're not really going for the same crowd that played the game.
 
pxc said:
The prophecy has been fullfilled. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/prince_of_persia_sands_of_time/ (41%, rotten)

Related, according to lore, tomorrow the Earth will continue revolving around the Sun.
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Awesome, that means its probably a pretty good movie. Critics typically give movies I like shitty reviews, and movies I don't like get good reviews. For example, one of my all time favorite movies is the Boondock Saints, which got a 20% on rotten tomatoes. I recently saw Babel, which I though was boring as hell, and it got a 68%.

Critics are ridiculously out of touch IMO.
 
Resident Evil and its PC ports are horrible but I quite like the flick. Even the Lara Croft flicks aint that bad.
 
You should be using IMDB, not Rotten Tomatoes, as IMDB is user based reviews on a 1 to 10 system.
 
kllrnohj said:
Awesome, that means its probably a pretty good movie. Critics typically give movies I like shitty reviews, and movies I don't like get good reviews. For example, one of my all time favorite movies is the Boondock Saints, which got a 20% on rotten tomatoes. I recently saw Babel, which I though was boring as hell, and it got a 68%.

Critics are ridiculously out of touch IMO.
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I agree completely. Boondock Saints was the best movie ever. While I won't go as far as to say I am right and they are all wrong, this definitely means that I give no value to their opinions.

Silent Hill I thought was pretty good. Doom was destroyed by being changed from hell.

They should make a F.E.A.R movie, but get director of the Ring to do it. Hell, call it Ring 3, I don't care.
 
Darn no edit...

While I am probably in the minority here, I really enjoyed Max Payne. They captured the story and the film noir feeling of the original game.
 
kllrnohj said:
Awesome, that means its probably a pretty good movie. Critics typically give movies I like shitty reviews, and movies I don't like get good reviews. For example, one of my all time favorite movies is the Boondock Saints, which got a 20% on rotten tomatoes. I recently saw Babel, which I though was boring as hell, and it got a 68%.

Critics are ridiculously out of touch IMO.
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What if I think Boondock Saints AND Babel were both good movies? Boondock Saints was soooo quotable, just a lot of fun. Babel was interesting in that you got to see a little slice of life from many different perspectives, not a popcorn film though.
 
DocFaustus said:
Darn no edit...

While I am probably in the minority here, I really enjoyed Max Payne. They captured the story and the film noir feeling of the original game.
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I agree, other than the "actual" valkyries in the movie, it was pretty good. Dark and gritty, though I would have liked to see a little more Sin City story board style feel to it, like the games.
 
FLECOM said:
yet they gave iron man a 74?
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No, an aggregate of a bunch of professional reviews added up to a 74% average score.

Reviews Counted:241
Fresh:179
Rotten:62

If you think 241 reviewers with various opinions are all whacked, there's always the user scores, with many who didn't even bother to watch the movie giving it ratings (i.e. auto 10 or 0 because they're fanboys or haters):

Average Rating:6.5/10 and rising rapidly: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/iron_man_2/reviews_users.php

user ratings are more Internet-like. :p

The funniest scene to me is at Citywalk or somewhere with a lot of people and a group is talking excitedly about buying tickets to some horribly bad movie without a hint of irony.
 
video games and movies are two different experiences, two different ways of telling a story. What works for one will not work for the other.

That being said, district 9 could have been a video-game turned into a movie, it was very reminiscent of a video game with the character growth, weapons and so forth.
 
Well, concerning the upcoming Warcraft movie, they got director Sam Raimi (Spider-man movies). One thing I read that they made him do before accepting him was that he had to spend some time playing the game and reading the Warcraft novels to get a feel for the lore of Warcraft which I believe was an excellent idea.

For if Warcraft the movie fails, that will certainly affect the game and may shun away potential customers of the game. However, if it is a success, then their are numerous other stories in the Warcraft universe that could become great movies (War of the Ancients, Reign of Chaos, Frozen Throne and more)
 
Tron was a movie before it was a game. It is just confusing because the movie is about the game.

If you include that, you may want to include The Last Starfighter.
 
Like some others have mentioned the resident evil movies and mortal kombat were pretty good.


Boondock saints was epic.
 
Hitman is one of my favorite movies actually, I've watch it upwards of 20+ times.
Resident Evil was great as well.
Sure there are some duds, but the good ones are ones I'd watch again again.
 
Boondock Saints is waaay overrated by people on the internet. *Get's flame suite on* :p

I think we can all take a note from the Big Lebowski (which I also think is way over rated and this coming from a big Cohen Bros. fan) "Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man."

Critics who actually have a job making money watching and reviewing movies must have enough people listening to them to warrant continuing their job.

While for me some (very few) video game movies can be fun, I would definitely not call them good movies. IMO
 
What ever...some are good, I even thought Doom was pretty good.
 
anthrex said:
Boondock Saints is waaay overrated by people on the internet. *Get's flame suite on* :p
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lol. I have a Boondock Saints t-shirt, and I swear every time I wear it and go somewhere *someone* comes up to me and says something along the lines of "that was an awesome movie". And I don't just mean guys in their 20s and 30s. I've had women in their 50s and 60s come up to me and say that.
 
#1 For the past 10 years 99% of movies suck balls. The chances of a good video game movie is like asking for god to appear at your window, with a burrito for you.

#2 The producers who make these movies have never played a video game, until they got the contract for making a movie based on one.

#3 Video game movies are based on the idea that only people who've played the game will go watch it. Knowing this, they only make the movie to get the fans to watch it once. Joe six pack isn't going to walk into the theater to watch a movie with a title called "Max Payne". Therefore, they can make the movie as shitty as they want too, and they'll still make oodles of money.

#4 Hollywood never sticks to the original story of anything. Doesn't matter if it's a game movie like Doom, or a comic book movie like Wolverine. They'll change it for no reason what so ever. If they made a movie of Zelda, Link would be a woman who fights modern day corporate America, while caring for her child Zelda. A single mom would be the premise of Zelda the movie, if Hollywood had their way.
 
You guys are crazy, Hitman was a shitty movie, the acting was cheesier than a cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory. You guys are absolutely nuts. That dumbass inspector kept acting amazed and said that the hitman had never been caught at least 50 times throughout the movie, the only redeeming part of the movie was looking at Olga Kurylenko's lips. God....
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Boondock Saints was decent except the cheesyness was if you were supposed to take the doing good part seriously... btw Boondock Saints 2 was VERY VERY good for a sequel if you guys haven't seen it yet (and noticeably lacks the cheesyness I was attempting to describe that was in the first one).

And am I missing something? Boondock Saints was a video game?

I want the Witcher CGI movie now damnit
 
pxc said:
If you think 241 reviewers with various opinions are all whacked, there's always the user scores, with many who didn't even bother to watch the movie giving it ratings (i.e. auto 10 or 0 because they're fanboys or haters):
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yep, I think the average of 241 reviewers is crap, and internet fanboys/haters are idiots that screw up averages
 
awww.. Super Mario Bros was sooo much better than the 14% shown at rottentomatoes.com.. should be at least a 15% just for having Yoshi in it!!
super_mario_bros_ver2.jpg
 
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