From Consoles To Hollywood - The Ugly
July 19th 2008 21:03
Category: C
Just when you thought we'd never have to hear about this bad movie again, I decide to think of a way to bring it back to haunt you all!
For the past few weeks I’ve taken a look at a bunch of video games that made their way to the big screen. We’ve seen our favourite video games taken from our living rooms and turned into big budget movies in Hollywood. It’s exciting when you hear that you’re favourite video game that you played as a children for hours on end is going to become a motion picture.
For some video games that became movies, the transition is pretty good and lives up to what the game fans were expecting. For some video games that became movies, the transition was bad but it was still decent enough for fans to enjoy – once. For some video games that became movies, the result was terrible and made fans outraged. I’ve said this in previous posts but it amazes me as to how someone can screw up something so simple as a video game when turning it into a movie. The story is there, the characters are there, everything is basically done.
You thought last week’s section for this topic was bad? Oh please you haven’t seen the worst. This week we look at the video game turned movies that I have listed approbaltely as “The Ugly.” These are the movies that sucked so bad, that were so loosely based on the video game itself, the only thing the video game and the movie had in common were title and character names. This isn’t going to be pretty but here we go – prepare to have some old wound reopened.
Alone in the Dark.
Everybody knows that I HATE Uwe Boll. The guy is a terrible director who couldn’t make a movie good enough to save the population of the Earth if our lives depended on it. Uwe loves video games and decides to make a bunch of terrible movies based on games he likes to play. Alone in the Dark has to be the worst movie based on a video game. How so you ask? You can check out my past review on this movie but I’ll break it down for you as quick as I can.
Basically the series of games follows a man called Edward Carnby who investigates the supernatural and ghostly haunting of a mansion or a town. Now the movie… I’m still trying to figure out what the hell it was about. The movie jumped all over the place asking a bunch of questions that had no answers. It lacked no plot and when you thought you had a plot going, Uwe decides to go down another path in order to get to another path.
The movie was infected with bad acting, bad effects, bad action scenes and terrible camera angles and lighting. The movie literally was filmed in the dark and throughout most of the movie I didn’t know what the hell was going on based on what I was looking at. It had nothing to do with the video game besides the title and the name of the character. Everything else was from the stupid, cheese-like brain of Uwe Boll. Don’t worry, this isn’t the only video game that he ruined by turning into a movie…
Uwe Boll couldn't direct, the actors couldn't act, the movie was nothing like the video game... could it get anymore worse? Yes, Boll made a sequel...
Bloodrayne.
Oh boy… this was the first Uwe Boll movie I ever watched and it was really, really bad. It’s another case where the only thing that the game and the movie had in common was the character and the title. Where do we begin?
The game was about a half vampire/half human female called Rayne who hunts down Vampires during World War II – with help from the organization she is in known as the Brimstone Society. As the game continues she must stop the Nazis collecting powerful artifacts that will grant Hitler powers. Yeah it sounds crappy but let me tell you, it makes a lot more sense than the movie.
The movie was set in Medieval times and involved Rayne trying to find her father so she can kill him – mind you she just decided this out of the blue. Along the way she gets tangled up in a race between the Brimstone Society (whom she isn’t part of), a power hungry king and Rayne’s father to gain the artifacts. The movie becomes tangled up in a heap of rubbish as the camera bounces all over the place from character to character to scene to scene. This movie is just as confusing as any Uwe Boll movie and just as terrible.
If you ever want to see a train wreck of a movie that was once a popular video game, this is it!
Street Fighter.
Now Street Fighter – THAT was an awesome video game. It was one of the first ever fighting games to come out and it sparked a MASSIVE line of clone games each one different in their own way. I am still a massive fan of the game and I’m looking forward for the release of Street Fighter 4. When I was a kid, I was SO freaking excited about the movie when it was announced I knew it had to be awesome.
The game was about a world tournament hosted by M. Bison – the mysterious and powerful leader of a massive criminal organization. He hosts this tournament basically to find himself a host for his “demonic powers”. Some people join up for fame, others for fortune, and some have more personal reasons to join up. It was a great game and the sequels / prequels that followed added new and exciting characters.
So what did Hollywood to the game? The only thing Hollywood managed to do was get the characters right. Wait, I’ll correct myself. The only thing Hollywood managed to do was get the character’s names AND looks right. The only three characters in this movie that were done semi-right were Guile (a marine who is leading the operation against M. Bison), Chun-Li (a Chinese agent looking to kill Bison for killing her father) and M. Bison himself. Ryu was the main character and the face of the Street Fighter series but in this movie he was just some random punk. You had bad guys who were good and good guys who were bad.
I could go on all day about this but I think a review on this movie is LONG overdue. You can all look forward to a brutal assault on this movie in the future.
At least the graphics were awesome. The movie in general on the other hand...
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.
Here is a movie that was hyped so much it failed to live up to any of its expectations. Everyone knows about the chain of video games that fall under the Final Fantasy series. Every single game in the series is completely different to the next. There’s different worlds, different characters and of course different storylines. Basically the company who is responsible for Final Fantasy didn’t have a clue of what to call the game so they got lazy – which isn’t a problem at all. I’ll take a wild guess with this movie and say that the same company, who made the game, wanted to make a CGI animated movie and had no idea of what to call it.
So basically the way a Final Fantasy game works is that you play as a party of characters where there is something special about the main character. You might be a clone solider, someone with hidden powers or whatever. It features the main story of a powerful force coming to take over or destroy the world. You and your friends travel all over the place using your weapons and magic to fight your enemies. It’s a great series of games with awesome game play and beautiful graphics.
The movie… well the graphics were awesome but that was about it. The movie takes place in a world destroyed by some a force from another planet. I really can’t remember what else happened in this movie, besides a massive cannon that some General was going to use on the planet to destroy the aliens. It turns out that the aliens are a product of something on Earth blah blah blah, the movie sucked. The storyline was confusing which is bizarre since in the games when the storyline becomes confusing, it just wraps itself up and explains everything. This movie just left a bunch of questions open and I still can’t get my head around it today. Like I said, it seems like the video game company couldn’t think of a suitable title for the movie, so they just slapped “Final Fantasy” onto it.
I could sit here all day and just talk about the amount of ugly video game movies out there. I haven’t even begun to touch the other ones. There’s Doom, House of the Dead, Bloodrayne 2, Dungeon Siege, Wing Commander and a whole bunch more. I’m not going to bore everyone by sitting here shooting each movie one by one so I decided to pick the top ones that I felt worthy of deserving a beating.
It’s bad when a director manages to get 50% of the video game right, but it’s a tragedy when they screw up 99% of the video game. With roughly 10% of all video game turned movies out there being the only good movies of this genre, what does the future hold for video game movies? Come back next week when we finish off this special series by looking at some up coming video games about to hit our big screens… and some suggestions for Hollywood that I am going to give them.
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Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Agree with your other choices completly!
Comment by Wayne F
Bucket Movies
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I didn't like the Final Fantasy movie at all I think if they had named it something else instead of Final Fantasy I wouldn't have been so disappointed with the film. I think the graphics made the movie what it was and the storyline/dialog got a bit corny for me at times.
Cheers dude!
Comment by Bethany
Movies like Bloodrayne (well, anything Uwe Boll did) and Streetfighter were poorly made on top of being poorly written and poorly acted. Final Fantasy: Spirit Within had a storyline that made sense and, in a very real technical sense, was well-done- even if it didn't actually relate to the video games for you.
I do think you're spot-on with your other choices, though.
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
I got 13 free tickets for that once. I stood in line with my kids twice. So guess what happened next? I was in charge of 12 screaming school kids to go and see FF. It looked great but my god it was the biggest load of New Age crud twisted around a silly concept I had ever watched. It made The Trial of Billy Jack look positively middle of the road. Who gives a crap about Gia and wounded Earth crying out to be heeled? No me, that was for sure. I wanted to see stuff blowing up and dead aliens.
I hate when a film becomes a love in instead of a shoot out.
Comment by Wayne F
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It had nothing to do with the game and as Damo said, it was all about the wounded planet. If I wanted to watch something that gives the whole "Humans are the planet's worst enemy" message I'll re-watch Captain Planet. Being a huge fan of the video game I was extremely disappointed that there was nothing special about the aliens or anything. It was just flat out boring for me and it did extremely poor at the box office.
I won't attack you because you liked the movie Beth everyone entitled what they like. In terms of being a good video game turned movie, it failed terribly. I'm not sure if you've played any Final Fantasy games before but this movie lacked that magical feeling the game had.
Damo, this movie couldn't have been any worst than watching it with 12 kids. My heart bleeds for you sir.
Comment by Ahmed
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
Cinema Three
You might want to look into anime movies since the story itself was apparently very much inspired by that particular brand of japanese animation.
I personally didn't get it XD
Comment by Wayne F
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Comment by Ahmed
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
Cinema Three
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
Comment by Bethany
Oh I see what you mean- I was very, very tired when I got on the other night. I still think Final Fantasy is better in actual movie quality than the other movies you listed, but it doesn't seem quite so much like the odd one out from that perspective. I was just tired and easily confused.
Oh, and it's no big deal, but I really prefer Bethany.
Cheers.
Comment by Wayne F
Bucket Movies
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And Damo, you should have just smacked those kids over the back of the head then they would have been angry about something.
Comment by Cibbuano
20/20 Filmsight
Science News
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
Comment by Wayne F
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Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
They were cannibals.
When the drumming stops they attack.
Comment by Wayne F
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Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
13 tickets and only 4 kids of my own old enough to see it so rather than waste it my wife suggested that we share the joy of giving. Meaning I give of my time to a bunch of ankle biters whilst their parents rediscover (due to the lack of distraction) why they still love each other. After being gnawed, bitten, escorted to the bathroom, forcing myself to laugh at the unfunniest jokes on the planet, acting as the bathroom body guard I was served up Final Phantasy as a reward.
The little natives watched, the little faces contorted, the little faces yawned. The drumming stopped and I was put in a pot then eaten.
Their parent on the otherhand looked ten years younger when they came to collect the kids.
Comment by Wayne F
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Comment by Bethany
Comment by Wayne F
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Comment by Bethany