Jul
Street Fighter
Based on the ever-popular fight-em-up coin-op, this was always destined to please video game fans at the expense of any sort of decent plot. The film has every character possible from the original game, making for a confused storyline and lots of ad-hock fights. And I mean lots. Two things make this movie just about worth a watch are:
- Gomez out of the Adams Family fight Universal Soldier Jean Claude Van Damme.
- Kylie Minogue … oily (see above pic)
House of the Dead
The light gun version has always been a strong favourite of any arcade gamer. A lengthy co-operative stint was well worth a pocket of silver. But when German director Uwe Boll gets hold of a game-to-film, all hell breaks loose … or at least some tame zombies take over an island and chase a few teens. This man is the dark king of bad video game movies, and if you’re listening Boll, please don’t touch Gods of War or Pac-man Please.
Super Mario Bros
The highlight of Dennis Hopper playing a half man half lizard still doesn’t pull this one out from the trash can of the silver screen. A lacklustre storyline and the pairing of a Colombian (John Leguizamo) and a Brit (Bob Hoskins) playing two Italian plumbers from Brooklyn are only two of the things wrong with this picture. This was the first video game to become a movie and quite possibly should have been the last.
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
Like Indiana Jones, but not as good, starring the lovely Angelina Jolie and Red Dwarfs Arnold Rimmer. I can never remember what happened in the end. Did she die? Oh no, sequel.
It was great to see Lara Croft in the flesh bouncing around brandishing her massive … guns.
Max Payne
A detective story involving a pharmaceutical miracle drug and some winged creatures from another dimension – think The Constant Gardener after having a frontal lobotomy. Truly great game but the picture surely didn’t deserve the $85 million it grossed worldwide… unlike Sex & the City 2 which truly deserved every one of them $280 million dollars. For real.
Mortal Combat
Another fight-em-up-come-movie transformation. Casting Christopher Lambert as Lord Rayden was quite perfect, but little else was. The movie sets looked like a bunch of ten-year-olds had had crafted them at summer camp, the dialogue was full of cheesy one-liners and every character had to summersault off a wall at least twice. Please don’t make another one. Oh, wait … you have already.
Hitman
Timothy Olyphant showing his full range of two facial expressions on the run from a checkout lady shouting ‘Come back, I just need to scan you!’.Slick at times, but worked a hell of a lot better as a video game. Surprisingly, as most video games do.
Doom
Doom remains today as one of, if not the most, influential first-person shoot-em-ups ever. “So let’s make it into a movie!” echoed the hills of Hollywood. “Great idea! But first let’s make a list of essentials…”
- Pro-wrestler turned screen icon The Rock, check!
- Completely over the top guns and monsters, check!
- Nauseating stretches with a handheld camera to mimic the successful Blair Witch Project, check!
Double Dragon
You may have thought that after the success of Super Mario Bros that the movie executives would have gone back to making orange juice adverts and Seinfeld scripts. But no,
Double Dragon is a game featuring two Asian twin brothers that kick ass in a big way.
It got turned into a film featuring two American dudes that kick ass in an even bigger way. One of them is called Lee to give it an oriental twist. Do not watch this.
Alone in the Dark
From the picture above a keen eye could spot the difference between Christian Slater and an out of work Star Trek monster from 1994. Personally, I’m still torn. This film lacks any sort of plot or direction and Tara Reids acting is like …well, Tara Reid. It got a measly 1% from Rotten Tomatoes and rightly so. (Bullet-proof vests with muscles on them are damn cool however…)
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