Looking back at the start of the studios’ ventures into getting the licensing rights to many iconic video games, the whole cliche of video game movies being bad was more concerning than we remember. Between martial arts movies and skimpily-clad action heroines, the early days of video game adaptations were a minefield of cringe.
There are many forgotten early adaptations of video games that were terrible, and, unfortunately, there are few movies that could be said to legitimately have had potential. However, a couple of them have continued to have a presence in pop culture and have been held in higher regard over the years, but that’s mostly due to nostalgia more than anything.
House Of The Dead (2003) - 2.0
House of the Dead came a year after Resident Evil, trying to get a slice of that video game horror audience, as Resident Evil performed surprisingly well at the box office. However, it didn’t go completely according to plan, as the movie was a box office bomb, but it was largely down to the movie’s quality because it’s one of the movies so bad it’s funny. Despite the movie being a massive failure, it still spawned a sequel a couple of years later, which somehow managed to be even worse.
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997) - 3.7
Being the sequel to Mortal Kombat which came two years earlier, Annihilation seemingly ignored critics and general audiences by doubling down on the shockingly bad CGI and barely having anything resembling a narrative whatsoever. However, it also doubles down on the great stuff from the original, which is the incredible fighting choreography. The failure of the movie led to the studio completely abandoning the development of the third film.
Double Dragon (1994) - 3.8
Double Dragon is a retro video game movie that most modern gamers have forgotten about, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Though the martial arts in the movie is often impressive, the movie had an absolutely ridiculous premise.
The problem is actually that the movie is too faithful to the source material, as the video game’s premise is just too absurd to be the narrative of a logical movie. Double Dragon is based thousands of years in the past but somehow has a 1980 punk aesthetic.
Street Fighter (1994) - 4.0
John Claude Vann Damme has had a lot of great fight scenes in his career, but the hand to hand combat found in Street Fighter isn’t one of them. The move is so bad it’s good, as Vann Damme is a cinematic treasure for these exact kind of schlocky movies. But, once viewers look past the goofy fighting and over the top acting from everyone involved, there’s nothing to see except for a narrative stretched criminally thin.
Super Mario Bros. (1993) - 4.1
Super Mario Bros. Is the first-ever blockbuster video game movie, and it started the worst trend in the movie industry, which has become a hurdle that no other adaptation of a video game has ever been able to jump over.
Video game movies are inherently bad, it seems, and it’s mostly due to the fact that they have all followed this movie’s example. However, there are still actually a lot of fun moments in the movie, including Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo’s portrayals of the main characters, which is one of the reasons the movie isn’t actually that bad.
Wing Commander (1999) - 4.3
Being about a war with an alien life form, unlike many of the other games on the list, Wing Commander is a series that is no longer being developed, and it may have something to do with the miserable movie adaptation. The movie has typically cheesy special effects and the most cringeworthy dialogue. It’s a little sad as the lead actors, Freddie Prince Jr. and Matthew Lilliard, were reportedly given an incredible script before production began, only for it to be traded out for one much worse during production.
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle Of Life (2003) 5.6
As Lara Croft: Tomb Raider might be a bad video-game movie, it has at least found its place in pop culture as a fun movie when looked at through nostalgia goggles. However, the same can’t be said for its sequel, The Cradle of Life, which is one of the worst video game movies of the 2000s.
It tries to repeat the entertaining and pulpy feeling of its predecessor, but it ended up being fairly joyless, and Angelina Jolie was used more as a piece of eye candy than an actual movie protagonist.
Mortal Kombat (1995) - 5.8
Mortal Kombat is a huge CGI mess, but, if Paul Anderson didn’t make this movie, Resident Evil probably wouldn’t be as good as it is, as this movie comes off like an experiment for a much better, different video game movie. The series is finally getting a reboot, and it’s actually one of the most-anticipated sci-if movies of 2021. Though there are plenty of reasons to be concerned, there are just as many reasons to be excited, and there’s no way it could be as bad as this.
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) - 5.8
With the sequel ruining what could have been an incredible third movie and making Angelina Jolie never wanting to return to the role ever again, the first Tomb Raider movie was not only a massive commercial success, but fans of the game genuinely enjoyed the adaptation, too. The female version of Indiana Jones may have been panned by critics, but it was still enjoyed by general audiences—well, as much as audiences can enjoy a video game audience, that is.
Resident Evil (2002) - 6.7
It’s almost depressing to say, but Resident Evil is the Creme de la Creme of video game movies. The movie is full of things that make no sense and is one of the worst zombie apocalypse movies, but it is still scary, full of intense action, and started a whole series of fascinating action-horror flicks. It currently stands as the Citizen Kane of the video game genre, and, though it never initially seemed that hard to be topped, it still remains the best 18 years later.