These Movies About Video Games Got It All Wrong

Video games are great for those days you need a mental health break, you feel like getting some aggression out, or just for a lazy day. We all have our favorites to play whether they involve platforming plumbers, crashing cars, or the like. Every so often, Hollywood decides to try and capitalize on some of the gaming franchises with a decent fan base behind them to try and bring in some extra money. Sometimes it works, but sometimes these movies about video games go horribly wrong. Cheers to the ones that, for lack of a better term, totally suck.

1. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)

The special effects in this movie aren’t great at all, but that can sometimes be forgiven (especially seeing as this movie is about 20 years old). However, with not much else working for it, it’s hard to forgive it for anything. Plot wise, the writers failed to encapsulate the charm that makes the game series special. While the first movie of the duo hit all the right marks, it seems this one was just a senseless hodgepodge of every character they could possibly throw into it just to capitalize on the success of the original.

2. Super Mario Bros. (1993)

First off, why would you even try to make one of the most beloved game franchises to ever exist into a live-action film? They could’ve made a charming movie if they had kept this in its original cartoonish design, but they chose not to for reasons unbeknownst to pretty much everyone. With cheap writing and an unnecessary swap to live-action, this one is disappointing on all levels. And I’m not even going to touch on the goombas…

3. Street Fighter (1994)

With a movie starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, I expected a lot more from this one. The levels of cheesy emitting from the Street Fighter movie are off the charts. This could have been a gritty, action-filled blockbuster, but they stuck to their silly outfits, poses, and writing. Not to mention, for some weird reason they made a video game based off this movie, which was based off a video game! For goodness’ sake, stop trying to kill this awesome series.

4. Alone in the Dark (2005)

From director Uwe Boll, notorious for bad video-game-to-movie-adaptations, comes his latest smash failure: alone in the dark. They sacrifice good writing and exposition for tons of heavy but meaningless action. There’s pretty much no discernible plot. I mean c’mon movies about video games should be entertaining, but with a 1% on Rotten Tomatoes, this one is just simply bad.

5. Tekken (2009)

Another fighting game. For some reason, these types just cannot translate well to film, so I think they need to stop trying. This one has horrible audience engagement and is a really bad attempt at re-creating quintessential fighting elements. The camera work is sad, and, just barely inching out Alone in the Dark with a STUNNING 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, the Tekken movie should just stop trying.

Do you agree that these movies about video games got it all wrong? Let us know in the comments below!

This is a sponsored post. All opinions are my own.