12 Worst Movies Based on Video Games

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 30 May 2016

Play video games and watch movies – those are my two favorite ways to have fun. On their own, these are two very enjoyable activities, and you might be tempted to think that you’d get something even more enjoyable if you mixed the two, if you came up with a game-inspired movie.

Sadly though, most movies that are based on video games are rubbish. Time and time again, Hollywood has shown that it can’t come up with a good game-inspired movie. Here are some of the worst offenders (in chronological order).

1. Super Mario Bros (1993)

Apart from the fact that Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo wear the iconic red and green overalls, this movie has nothing in common with the game. Which would be okay, I guess, if they had come up with an interesting story. But they didn’t. This movie was such a mess that Hoskins said it was "the worst thing I ever did."



Super Mario Bros has a 4.0 rating on IMDb and a 15% score on Rotten Tomatoes.


2. Double Dragon (1994)

Special effects alone cannot compensate for cheesy dialogue and an overly simplistic storyline. That certainly applies to Double Dragon, a mess of a movie starring Mark Dacascos, Scott Wolf, Alyssa Milano and Robert Patrick – who looks like Vanilla Ice. If that wasn’t enough, there’s also an Andy Dick cameo, because who doesn’t like Andy Dick?



Double Dragon has a 3.6 rating on IMDb and an 8% score on Rotten Tomatoes.


3. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)

The first Mortal Kombat movie, the one from 1995, was bad. But at least it had a fairly enjoyable story and a fairly decent cast (Christopher Lambert, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Bridgette Wilson). The second movie, 1997’s Mortal Kombat Annihilation, had a cast of nobodies, horrible CGI effects and costumes, laughable dialog, and a terrible story.



Mortal Kombat: Annihilation has a 3.7 rating on IMDb and a 3% score on Rotten Tomatoes.


4. House of the Dead (2003)

The House of the Dead game from 1996 was a first-person, light gun arcade game. Why does that matter? Because the light gun arcade genre doesn’t have that much to offer. There’s no story that can be turned into a movie, and 2003’s House of the Dead movie certainly proves that. This movie's plot is incredibly thin, featuring a bunch of annoying teens that are either running away from zombies or shooting them in the head, which gets boring really fast.



House of the Dead has a 2.0 rating on IMDb and a 4% score on Rotten Tomatoes.


5. Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)

Did you know that 5 Resident Evil movies have already been released, and a 6th is scheduled to be released in 2017? While none of them are particularly good, the first one, 2002’s Resident Evil, was okay. But starting with the second movie, Resident Evil Apocalypse, things started to go downhill, with each release getting worse and worse. Nobody had high expectations for this movie, and it still managed to disappoint (and so did all the following movies).



Resident Evil: Apocalypse has a 6.2 rating on IMDb and a 21% score on Rotten Tomatoes


6. BloodRayne (2005)

Worst Picture, Worst Actress, Worst Supporting Actor, Worst Supporting Actress, Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay. BloodRayne managed to get a total of six Golden Raspberry Awards, that’s how awful it is. The only reason why you would ever want to watch this movie is to see Kristanna Loken’s breasts. But you don’t have to sit through the whole movie for that, you can just Google it. So do yourself a favor and stay away from this movie.



BloodRayne has a 2.9 rating on IMDb and a 4% score on Rotten Tomatoes.


7. Doom (2005)

Doom, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Karl Urban, and Rosamund Pike, has all the things you don’t won’t from a movie: bad lighting, impossible to follow action sequences, poor acting, and a cast of extremely unlikable characters. But the worst thing about it is that it ends with a fist fight. A movie based on a shooter ends with a god damn fist fight!



Doom has a 5.2 rating on IMDb and a 19% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Had it not been for Rob Schneider and "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo", Dwayne Johnson might have won a Worst Actor Razzie for his performance in Doom. Speaking about Johnson, he admitted in an interview that Doom is an example of what "not to do."


8. Alone in the Dark (2005)

Alone in the Dark is supposed to be horror movie, seeing that it is based on a survival horror video game. But there’s nothing horrifying about it. Well, nothing apart from casting Tara Reid as a scientist.



Alone in the Dark has a 2.3 rating on IMDb and a 1% score on Rotten Tomatoes.


9. Max Payne (2008)

As a video game, Max Payne was amazing. As a movie, it was a big disappointment. When the game came out, bullet-time gameplay was something new and interesting. By the time the movie came out, bullet-time gameplay had already been used by so many that it just felt annoying. And the fact that the protagonist, played by Mark Wahlberg, comes off as very unlikable, doesn’t help the movie either.



Max Payne has a 5.4 rating on IMDb and a 16% score on Rotten Tomatoes.


10. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)

1994’s Street Fighter starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Raul Julia and Kylie Minogue, was bad – really bad. 2009’s Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, was even worse. Kristin Kreuk isn’t believable as Chun Li, the story is dull, and Bison, the game’s villain, would-be dictator and megalomaniac, is a property developer. What the hell, movie!



Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li has a 3.7 rating on IMDb and a 17% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Giant Bomb even described it as a "reinvisioning by people who can't see."


11. Hitman Agent 47 (2015)

Mess it up the first time and you’ll learn your lesson, and do better the next time around, right? Not when it comes to game-based movies! While 2007’s Hitman failed to impress and scored lousy reviews, 2015’s Hitman Agent 47 did even worse. I saw both of these movies and the only thing I can remember about them is a feeling of having wasted my time.



Hitman Agent 47 has a 5.7 rating on IMDb and an 8% score on Rotten Tomatoes.


12. The Angry Birds Movie (2016)

Aren’t 16 Angry Birds apps enough? Do we really need a movie as well?



The Angry Birds Movie has a 6.4 rating on IMDb and a 43% score on Rotten Tomatoes, which is a whole lot more than any other game-based movie on this list. Still, that's not going to be enough to make me want to watch a movie based on Angry Birds.



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