Favorite Movie Based on a Video Game

[The Deadman]

Hit me with some of your video game movies. For me, some of the ones I can watch over and over are of course the Resident Evil series, the first Doom, Sonic and the original Mortal Kombat.

[Leo656]

Probably the first Mortal Kombat. The rest are all pretty terrible.

[sdp]

If you're into cyberpunk I'd recommend the Super Mario Bros live action movie (https://miscrave.com/articles/super-mario-bros-movie/) and live action Double Dragon (https://miscrave.com/articles/double-dragon-movie/). DOA was pretty damn good despite the actresses not having huge boobs like the source material Tekken was rather awful.

I remember hitman being ok. Doom is worth it alone for that 4 minute FPS scene. The first silent hill was surprisingly good as well. If you're into giant monsters kaiju like Godzila, the Rampage movie (http://miscrave.com/articles/rampage-movie) was pretty good. The original Mortal Kombat movies (https://miscrave.com/articles/mortal-kombat-movies/) are a bit dated but they're not bad.

If we're talking animated movies counting then we can add a bunch of anime movies to the list of great video game movies.

[frank_one]

Super Mario Bros. Yeah, it's a very interesting take on the game original story, kinda trippy. Not a great movie, but one you can actually enjoy if you come to it without prejudices. Obviously everyone on the net will tell you that it sucks and it's one of the worst movie ever made but that's just how the internet works. I recommend it.

[Slade]

I have to go with Sonic and the original MK film.

Super Mario Bros. Yeah, it's a very interesting take on the game original story, kinda trippy. Not a great movie, but one you can actually enjoy if you come to it without prejudices. Obviously everyone on the net will tell you that it sucks and it's one of the worst movie ever made but that's just how the internet works. I recommend it.

I had the vhs as a kid. I watched the hell out of it. Back then I didn't care if it wasn't anything like the games I played.
As an adult...yeah it really is terrible. I wouldn't call it the worst movie ever made though. It does have a pretty good cast and some crazy effects.

[Andrew NDB]

Probably the first Mortal Kombat. The rest are all pretty terrible.

You should rewatch it. It might not be what you remember... it's pretty terrible. And not just because they made a Mortal Kombat movie without Fatalities.

Hmm... I don't know, the 2nd attempt at a Hitman movie was OK.

[Wildcat]

Sonic
MK (haven’t seen the new one)
MK:A (unpopular opinion but always liked it)

Silent Hill: Revelation. I saw this not long ago just because and it was pretty good. Never played the games but I know a little bit about them. I don’t really remember the first but I think they’re in continuity so watch them in order.

I want to say Detective Pikachu but I still have not seen it. I’m behind on quite a few other movies. I’ve seen some of the animated ones.

I’ve seen other video game movies but did not think they were very good. The original Tomb Raiders were ok I guess. I should rewatch Mario. Haven’t seen it since the 90s.

[ZariusTwo]

1. Street Fighter II: The Anime Movie
2. Mortal Kombat
3. Street Fighter (Raul Julia)
4. Detective Pikachu
5. Sonic The Hedgehog

[Leo656]

You should rewatch it. It might not be what you remember... it's pretty terrible. And not just because they made a Mortal Kombat movie without Fatalities.

Hmm... I don't know, the 2nd attempt at a Hitman movie was OK.

Don't condescend to me, sailor; I promise you that I've watched that movie more often AND more recently than you probably have. :trazz:

Lest you forget that you're talking to the guy who's seen both Young Guns movies at least 200 times. :lol:

But yeah, I actually like the first Mortal Kombat movie, even without Fatalities. SO HUH.

I'd never say it was an amazing movie in and of itself, but it's ten miles ahead of its competition, at least. The "next-best" might be either the Super Mario Bros.* or original Street Fighter movies and those things are awful.

Feel free to put an asterisk next to my opinion, though, given that I have not seen Sonic, Assassin's Creed, World of Warcraft or the Tomb Raider reboot. One of those might actually be better than the original MK movie but I can't speak to things I haven't watched.

*The SMB movie is a fun kids' movie but an absolutely horrible "adaptation" of SMB, to the point where it really should have been called something else entirely. My "favorite" thing about it is that there's some pretty hot chicks in it, but I can live without the rest of it. Man, was that thing a huge disappointment to 11-year old Me.

[Allio]

Don’t know. Perhaps sonic and detective pikachu?


Silent Hill: Revelation. I saw this not long ago just because and it was pretty good. Never played the games but I know a little bit about them. I don’t really remember the first but I think they’re in continuity so watch them in order.
.

Revelation tried too hard to make the movies fit more like the vide games that it fell apart. It tried hard to fix the mistakes of the first. Granted revelation had the pyramidhead fight scene that was cheesy and stupid, making it the best part of both film.

[Powder]

Super Mario Bros. Best dystopian cyberpunk movie ever. Then, probably Mortal Kombat, the original, followed by Detective Pikachu.

This requires a big shout-out:

4vUIPjIu2pM

[IMJ]

The first Silent Hill.
First video game movie ever that not only honored the game but could've stood on it's own as a great genre flick.

Have no idea why the sequel turned into a B-Grade cash grab, but the first one is still a great movie to this day.

[Allio]

I’d say the first two acts of the first film was fine. But the third act didn’t work for me.

[Leo656]

The first Silent Hill.
First video game movie ever that not only honored the game but could've stood on it's own as a great genre flick.

Have no idea why the sequel turned into a B-Grade cash grab, but the first one is still a great movie to this day.

I retract my original answer. You're totally right.

I'd seen it once before I'd played any of the games and didn't really "get it". Then I re-watched it right after playing SH2 and was like "Holy SH*T!" They totally nailed it to the Nth degree, aside from the "We ran out of money so let's just shoot some bullsh*t" ending sequence. And even that wasn't exactly all that bad. I doubt there will ever be another video game movie that's as faithful in all the IMPORTANT ways as that movie was.

And yeah, as much as I liked the first one I f*cking HATED the second one in equal measure. That was such a huge step back. They really needed the original director or otherwise not bothered making the sequel. When you read about the Making Of the first one, it becomes crystal clear that it was only his specific vision that made the first movie as good as it was. Playing the games on-set so they could accurately mimic things they were shooting so they'd be accurate to the games, all that stuff. Nobody else has EVER put as much work in to make sure their movie was faithful to the games they were adapting, and they probably never will. The closest anyone's ever come would probably be Snyder using the actual Watchmen comic as storyboards for his Watchmen movie. More people should do this.

I'm embarrassed that I forgot about the first "Silent Hill". Please trust that I am hanging my head in shame, and I thank you for correcting me.

[Allio]

Silent hill film, for the most part I liked. It’s basically a shorter version of the first game with the iconic monsters of Silent Hill 2 (though the children of the first appears). It helps that the film has Akira yamaoka on the score

[Leo656]

I still don't know if the movie swapping the protagonist from the Dad to the Mom was entirely necessary, but points to them in that it honestly didn't hurt my enjoyment of the film at all. Normally that kinda thing bothers me a lot, but not so much in this case.

[Andrew NDB]

"Warcraft" might be a contender. Did anyone see that?

[Wildcat]

Ok I need to see the first Silent Hill again. I really don’t remember it. Well I should play the game first. I still enjoyed Revelation though.

Weirdly I’ve never gotten into any of the major horror games even though I like horror movies. I’ve tried out a couple Resident Evils and even tried the original Silent Hill on PlayStation that a friend had.

I keep wanting to get the newer HD remakes but I end up waiting or getting something else. Usually Sonic.

[Leo656]

A lot of the brilliance of the first Silent Hill only really jumps out at a person if they're very familiar with the games. They put a TON of work into making everything as authentic as possible.

Second one is just a bad and generic horror movie. Could've been called anything. There was nothing connecting it to the Silent Hill franchise aside from the character names.

They both did poorly and got bad reviews, but even the critics reviewing the first one knew nothing of the games, and admitted as much. So while I do think it's good, I think it only really "works" to its full potential if you're a big fan of the source material. There's things you just won't see, notice or "get" if you don't know the games.

[Wildcat]

Ya it’s definitely better if you know the source material first for any adaptations. You understand and appreciate it more.

I don’t usually see something based on a game until I play at least one but they looked good so I gave them a watch. I still recognized some things.

Apparently there’s still no port of the first except for download. I know the disc is super rare and expensive. You’d think it’d be HD remastered already.

[Leo656]

Apparently there’s still no port of the first except for download. I know the disc is super rare and expensive. You’d think it’d be HD remastered already.

DUDE, you don't know how much that pisses me off. To this day I've never played the first Silent Hill.

And what's worse, about 5-6 years ago people were practically giving PS1 games away. I keep detailed lists of all the games I need to buy for each console, and I update those lists frequently including occasionally updating the average online asking prices. A few years ago, you could get that game (and a ton of other PS1 games) for about $20-30; NOW, those same exact games are around $100, minimum. The pandemic also jacked up prices on ALL games across the board and continues to do so; a few N64 games I was looking at before Christmas have doubled in price since then. It's insane.

And I'm over here kicking myself in the dick because I should've just bought Silent Hill when it was $20 but I kept forgetting or otherwise putting it off. I mean NORMALLY when you see a ton of listings for something at dirt-cheap prices, you could be forgiven for thinking that it's not exactly a "hot item", no? How the hell was I supposed to know? I've never seen such inflation on games in my life. Stuff always went up and down but not like this. Hundreds of dollars for a PS1 copy of FF7; I remember when they literally had copies of that game holding up broken shelving units at Electronics Boutique, and you could get a copy for $10 because they were everywhere.

Gamecube sh*t, too. There's games I watched sit around and collect dust for years at $5-10 and now they go for $50, or in some cases $100. What the hell is going on out there?

Part of me "blames" all the YouTubers. A ton of what I see and watch is game-related content, so I assume that millions of people watch these videos and suddenly they all want these old games that nobody wanted before, so prices skyrocket overnight automatically. That's probably what it is. Sega Lord X has even mentioned and apologized for that very phenomenon in a couple of his videos; like "This one goes for pretty cheap, but now that I'm doing this video that might change." It makes sense, and technically it's not the "fault" of the content-creators... but it's still a huge pain in the ass.

[Wildcat]

Ya it’s not worth the money now. Discs can be damaged and you just know they’ll remake it at some point now given it’s status.

There’s other old games I want too. It makes me mad that some Nintendo games (as in first party) are still full price even though they’re from last gen.

I’m not against used games but I don’t really like used discs because I’ve had some with scratches that were unplayable.

Another great example, that was GameCube, is Luigi’s Mansion. I know it doesn’t matter much but I feel like I’d enjoy the sequels more seeing how it improved. Plus I just wanna play it.

I don’t have a 3DS so I can only get part 3 for for now. I should probably get it soon just in case.

[Andrew NDB]

*looks on eBay*

Sh**. You're right. Looks like I'm going to be liquidating my PS1, PS2 and Gamecube collection this week to eBay.

[Leo656]

I'm not holding my breath. Konami is a real ass company. They don't seem to care much about the first Silent Hill because only 2 and 3 were ever all that acclaimed, so those are the only two they've ever pushed since then. They did an "HD remake" of those two a few years ago and supposedly it wasn't that good. I'm not counting on them to put any more work into revisiting the franchise anytime soon. There's always a chance they could do a compilation of the first three or even four games, but again, I'm not holding my breath just based on how they operate and what their priorities with that franchise have been.

Scratched discs can be an inconvenience but I've so far never had one where the repair kit didn't fix it. I think I can count on one hand the times I even bought a used disc that wouldn't play. Which is why the repair kit I bought about 10 years ago still has fluid in the bottle.

*looks on eBay*

Sh**. You're right. Looks like I'm going to be liquidating my PS1, PS2 and Gamecube collection this week to eBay.

God dammit you could at least ask me if I want anything first. Chances are, I do. :tgrumble:

[frank_one]

Why was that Kojima directed "Silent Hills" project cancelled? The one with that creepy demo and Norman Reedus. I'm not sure I've ever understood why it was discarded.

[Wildcat]

I’ve only had a couple of bad discs but it still makes me hesitant. If new copies are available I prefer those. Within reason. Not way over release price.

I don’t know much about Konami but I would not be surprised if/when they remaster Silent Hill. They did remake it but quite differently after reading about it. Might be good but I still want to play the original.

[Leo656]

Why was that Kojima directed "Silent Hills" project cancelled? The one with that creepy demo and Norman Reedus. I'm not sure I've ever understood why it was discarded.

Kojima and Konami had a huge messy "divorce" and so the entire project got abandoned. There simply wasn't really any point in doing it without him.

[Allio]

Ya it’s definitely better if you know the source material first for any adaptations. You understand and appreciate it more.

I don’t usually see something based on a game until I play at least one but they looked good so I gave them a watch. I still recognized some things.

Apparently there’s still no port of the first except for download. I know the disc is super rare and expensive. You’d think it’d be HD remastered already.

I was lucky to find a brand new copy a few years ago for $30

[Wildcat]

Wow that really is lucky.

My rarest PlayStation game is Einhander. A 2D shooter. I really wanted it after playing a demo. I found it at a KayBee toy store. New behind glass...but down below the counter stacked with other games. I just saw the side label.

[Andrew NDB]

Inspired by the other video game thread, I watched the 2018 Tomb Raider movie for the first time. Pretty good! Aside from the last 2-3 minutes, when it did a full stop on the movie and suddenly, quickly made it about setting up The Trilogy or whatever they're planning. Better than the Jolie movie, which I hated.

Unless Warcraft is something amazing, I might have to give the "best video game to movie" title to this one. Kind of by default, but it's a pretty good movie.

[IMJ]

Wow that really is lucky.

My rarest PlayStation game is Einhander. A 2D shooter. I really wanted it after playing a demo. I found it at a KayBee toy store. New behind glass...but down below the counter stacked with other games. I just saw the side label.

That game is a great grab.

I've got a nice copy of Misadventures of Tron Bonne I've considered selling. I'm on the fence though. I love that game, don't know if I'll ever play it again though. I wouldn't let it go for less than 325 lmao, but under some indirect light I'm sure there's a surface mark. So it plays perfectly, but it's one of those if I sell it on ebay some clown is going to hit me for a partial when in fact that game is fine.

That's why selling PS games drives me nuts.

My copy of Super Puzzle Fighter is the same. Scuff under the light plays perfectly. Ugh.

I think most of my Working Design stuff is in great shape... Elemental Gearbolt, baby. :)

[oldmanwinters]

Bob Hoskins makes the Mario Bros. movie genuinely watchable, in spite of almost everything else.

[sdp]

I saw warcraft, I didn't like it much but I give it props for not dumbing down the source material for casuals, it went full fantasy and gave no ****s, story didn't feel very warcraft to me but I never played WoW only the RTS games so perhaps that's why.

[Leo656]

Bob Hoskins makes the Mario Bros. movie genuinely watchable, in spite of almost everything else.

Yeah, he was always pretty great in everything. Knowing that he's drunk in almost every scene in SMB makes it a bit more interesting.

[Wildcat]

That game is a great grab.

I've got a nice copy of Misadventures of Tron Bonne I've considered selling. I'm on the fence though. I love that game, don't know if I'll ever play it again though. I wouldn't let it go for less than 325 lmao, but under some indirect light I'm sure there's a surface mark. So it plays perfectly, but it's one of those if I sell it on ebay some clown is going to hit me for a partial when in fact that game is fine.

That's why selling PS games drives me nuts.

My copy of Super Puzzle Fighter is the same. Scuff under the light plays perfectly. Ugh.

I think most of my Working Design stuff is in great shape... Elemental Gearbolt, baby. :)Ya the funny thing is I’m not really into shooters but I loved everything about it when I tried it. The futuristic setting, the robots and background music. I was lucky to find it new because I discovered it kind of late. Haven’t played it in awhile but I never want to sell it.

Never played Tron Bonne but I remember it. I wouldn’t sell it if you liked it that much. I know I always get the urge to play my old favorites now and then.

[Andrew NDB]

I think I'll give Warcraft a watch tonight and see if that tips the scale. I'm sure it's competently made, and I did play Warcraft 1-3 as a kid... but I dunno. Something just turned me off about the marketing of it. Like these movies that are marketed as "The start of a trilogy!" it seemed like it was being pushed as "The next LotR MEGAfranchise!"

[MsMarvelDuckie]

My fave game adaptation would have to be Silent Hill or the original MK, but I agree that SMB was a fun, if weird adaptation of the games. And Yoshi as a realistic if oddly small Trex was cute!

One that I really WISH would get a movie is Parasite Eve, because- DAAAYUM, those morph scenes! Not to mention the concept.

[TurtleTitan97]

Detective Pikachu was pretty good.

[Andrew NDB]

Saw Warcraft. Impressive! Well casted and laid out and even a nice music score. Definitely too "trilogy minded" but super competent.

I'd venture this is the best video game movie now.

[NeonTurtledude]

The Mission to Save Princess Peach Mario movie was good, I liked the classic art style and I found peach tricking bowser to be quite funny.

what I've seen of the 1993 Mario film is enjoyable and I quite liked Sonic 2,

I've yet to see the 90s sonic ova movie but it's on my to watch list

[Cowabung-Gal]

Sonic The Hedgehog. Of course, if they had kept the Ugly Sonic design, it wouldn’t have made on this list for me.

[Leo656]

I got to talk about the Mortal Kombat movie for a podcast the other day. That was fun.

[DarkFell]

^ And, if you provided some decent feedback on MK (both good and bad ..but mostly good), then you did God's Work.

Otherwise, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation still remains a sequel that I choose to avoid, and those are probably fighting words to someone on here. :tconfuse:

If I choose to do so, the two Sonic The Hedgehog movies might get a watch from me. Detective Pikachu was alright.

Rampage didn't feel like Rampage at all.

Street Fighter might be doable. Unfortunately, I have to find it and it's on a VHS cassette.