Postby Roareye » Sat Jan 21, 2012 8:21 pm
There are bloody shed-loads. I'm building a Blu-Ray collection of video game adaptions (Such is why I cry when there is no SMB Blu-Ray).
BloodRayne II: Deliverance - By far the worst Video Game to film adaption I've seen. It's so bad, it's not even amusing or entertaining. The image is full of black crush meaning you can barely see anything (And the one black guy in it is practically invisible, poor bloke), the acting is shocking (Bar two inspired elements which are sorely added later and not expanded upon as side-characters) and the script is abysmal. There is nothing I can say to even claim this film as enjoyable.
Dead or Alive - Good for semi-clad ladies, yes. But outside of that? Crap acting, some of the ladies aren't all that, and the storyline is bullshit. What Japanese Princess keeps an automatic-release hang-glider backpack on under a kimono on what she originally thought to be an ordinary day? At least it starts of somewhat fun, but to be honest it fails to grab your interest after 30 minutes. SMB holds me all the way through, despite its shortcomings.
King of Fighters - Lovely cinematography (If cartoonish, but that fits the games) throughout is let down by below standard acting and a script that is so dreary and convoluted that I found myself questioning who was who, and then didn't give a shit about who lived or died. At least with Mortal Kombat I gave a damn about Liu Kang and Johnny Cage (Not Sonya though).
Final Fantasy: Advent Children Complete - Beautiful cinemtography, brilliant (At the time, slightly lower res now) graphics and adequate sound design (Sorry, just wasn't a fan of the missable soundtrack) is marred by atrocious direction overlaid upon a horrific script. True, Advent Children was originally only meant to be 30 minutes long (and was extended to meet fan demand for a feature length, straight-to-video affair) but if they were going to extend it then they should have filled it with something worth the extra time, not to mention there's a massive plothole throughout this crapathon in the first place. Action was sometimes hard to see thanks to an overly active moving camera, and this 'complete' edition takes the film up to just over 2 hours long - 1 hour of which is the final battle! I mean we all love a great final fight but over half the film? Overkill is an understatement.
Gamer - Ergh. I appreciate the story and sociopolitical message it was trying to get across but it failed to wrap that message around a story anyone could give a toss about. While not directly a game-specific conversion, it is most certainly a massive statement and homage to gaming, though whether it is for or against is hard to tell in the murky storytelling.
In The Name of the King - A Dragon's Seige Tale - Uwe Boll does, at least, improve on his previous efforts with a film that is often entertaining to watch just to see how crap it is. I mean for Christ's sake, the main character is a farmer called Farmer. How much more moronic does the script need to be? Acting is sterling grade amusing crap too, and the background music is often clearly taking the piss out of the film it's scored for. Enjoyable, but not good by any means, and certainly far from something special.
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation - While the original Mortal Kombat I put on a similar level of quality to SMB, Annihilation is something else. It's terrible, cheap and an evil attempt to continue the original's cliffhanger. Johnny Cage dies literally within 2 minutes of the film starting, Scoprion shouts "SUCKERS!", Nightwolf (Native Indian) talks like an American College Jock "Don't get cocky!", Rain appears just so he can fall in a hole and die instantly, Raiden begins each of his (at least 5) fights by going through a wall backwards (I'm not exaggurating that, either!) and Shao Khan is no taller than the other actors making him look less impressive. However apart from the 2 minute CGI dragon fightscene at the end (Which is just dire), the film is actually really funny in a "this is so crap" sort of way. I still adore Shao Khan's "Earth Realm is beginning to fall. AND IT! IS! GLORIOUS!" Not as good as SMB, but it's as funny as the bad bits in SMB.
Resident Evil - Sorry, the original was not that good. In fact, none of them really were. However I remember going to see Resident Evil I on my birthday and just laughing at the woman who gets killed in the lift shaft. I didn't care about any of the characters and the only cool nod was the Nemesis creation at the end, which was more of a forerunner to the next film. I've only seen 1 and 4, so I can't comment on 2 and 3.
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li - Not bad in film style, not bad in terms of trying to develop a workable script either. However the end result is a film that is majoritively dull, and any fighting film is reliant on it's fight scenes, and these were terrible. VERY obvious wirework through and through does not a good movie make. It's why I hated the shitfest of Hero, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon etc. No real skill, all flashy camera cuts and wirework. Boooring.
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within - Not a bad attempt at a film, however within the confines of a sci-fi the whole "Mother Earth" ideology becomes less intriguing and seems overly preachy, especially when wrapped around a story that is an overly basic action fare at it's best (And somewhat pedestrian at it's worst). Not a bad film, but certainly not great. It's got a similarity to SMB in that the style is very different to the games on which it was based, but lacks the depth of background that the SMB movie provided in it's backdrop scenery and design.
Resident Evil: Degeneration - It's alright. Zombies attack, Leon does shooting, Biohazard ends. This fits into the game storyline perfectly, it explains a little about WilPharma (From Resi 5) and introduces a new biohazard of it's own. But all the script elements are overly cliche and to be honest there's nothing here worthy of merit. Watching this doesn't enhance any backstory to the games to a degree that is of any interest to anybody (I'd include fans in that too) as it's too disconnected and it's not epic enough in dramatic scope to make an impact in it's own right. The graphics are better than Advent Children thankfully, but still aren't superb in every scene (The atrium/garden at WilPharma still uses an N64 trick to make 3D plantlife)
Yakuza: Like A Dragon - Love the Yakuza games. When I heard SEGA gave the okay for TAKESHI MIIKE (famous for Audition among many others) to make a Japanese movie based on the first game, I was expecting something great. Miike doesn't deliver. Firstly the direction is amateurish, very amateurish. The colour palette is childish and shows no sign of post-production work whatsoever. The actors are a mixed bag, with the lead actor (Kazuma) being far too young for the role and not particularly engaging and Majima being just right in his acting but let down by a script that makes him different to his more interesting game-persona (The issue isn't that it's different to the canon, it's that in the games he had a twisted logic which fit, in the movie he just commits random violence for no reason whatsoever and it doesn't work). Also Majima's facial hair is mostly drawn on with a black marker pen, seriously what in the hell? It utilises surround sound surprisingly well, but unfortunately the storyline falls short by having too many interruptions to the main storyline with pissy uninteresting side-ventures that mask what could have been a far better film. The fights aren't that inspired either unfortunately.
Tekken: Blood Vengeance - Amazing film. Truly amazing. Accurate to the game storylines (Unfortunately in this case, as the ending is dragged out and shit - bloody dragon-people!) so nobody can complain on that front, and well directed actually I must say. The issue with this is that it's amazing graphically and also because the script is so bad. A boy is having a shower in school, two girls spy on him and run off before he sees them, it then goes to the boy who is watching them on a TV/monitor so he knows they've spied on him, then he turns around and there is a FULLY DRESSED ARMY MAN in the shower with him who is never seen or heard of again! It makes no sense! Also, Sexual Harassment Panda makes a great CGI movie appearance. Absolutely terrible film, but so so fun and satisfying to watch for those reasons. But still not as interesting as SMB.
Those are the movies I would say are worse than SMB. There are several on a par (Doom, Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter <Live Action>) and few better (Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie, Tekken <Live Action>, Scott Pilgrim vs The World, Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, TMNT <CGI> and Mortal Kombat: Legacy). To be fair most of the remainder for my list are likely to be in the worse than SMB catagory but I'll keep my mind clear.
Any of you guys agree/disagree with any of the film choices in my list?
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