Video gamesmake loads of money, so it is unsurprising that leaders in other media realms, such as film, have tried to make an easy profit by replicating our favorite gaming experiences on the big screen.
Sure, TV and movie video game adaptations have a reputation for their lackluster quality, but hits likeThe Last of UsandFallouthave shown thatgames have the potential to be TV and film starlets,if in the right hands.
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Sometimes, it’s a good move, and other times, it ends up likeBorderlands, a recent adaptation flopthat grossed less than $10 millionon its opening weekend,barely recouping any of its $100 million budget.
This recent IP tanking on the big screen got us wondering: Is this the worst video game adaptation we’ve ever seen? To which we answered, no, as these attempts are much worse.
Some movies on this list may still be more fun to watch thanBorderlandsin a ‘It’s so bad, it’s good’ sort of way. That said, we still think that each of these films' quality is somewhat lower than that ofBorderlands.
8Assassin’s Creed
Why So Serious?
Rotten Tomatoes Score:
Assassin’s Creedtries to be a fun, action-filled adventure but takes its story way too seriously. If we are being completely fair, so do the AC games, but these violent,stealth-filled Ubisoft titles, more often than not,at least have engaging gameplay and mechanics to keep a player in tow.
TheAssassin’s Creedmovie leans heavily on the source material to the point that there’s little substance here that will feel new and interesting to fans. And even if you’re a newbie to the AC franchise, the rubbish editing, directing, and acting will undoubtedly put you off anyway.
Michael Fassbender has shined brightest in his more dramatic roles, but we still hope that if hetakes a stab at an Assassin’s Creed adaptation again, it will instead be a lively celebration of this franchise, not a dull and flawed one.
7Double Dragon
Putting The ‘Drag’ In Dragon
Double Dragon scrapes the bottom of the barrel regarding cheesy ’90s movies marketed to kids. In our heads, a family-focused martial arts adventure geared towards families sounds enjoyable, butDouble Dragon misses the mark in so many ways.
The pacing ofDouble Dragonnever quite works.It often jumps instantly from emotionally pivotal scenes to random fights with unnamed bad guys. The fight scenes fail to build excitement, filled with Looney Tune-esque setups where foes practically knock themselves out.
Double Dragoncould have been a lot better if it had explored its “New Angelos” setting a lot further or delved deeper into the source material of its video game, which, aside from a few similar names, it barely does.
We Don’t Like What The Rock Was Cooking
Doomis one of those game movies thatcould have been named something entirely different, and no one would notice. Not only is ita failed adaptation of the game series, but its overall quality is terrible.
Doomhas a horror-infused, monster-hunting plot that often feels like a cheap ripoff of theAlienfranchise, which sucks because the premise of the games could have been used to make a much more unique movie.
Starring the Rock alongside Karl Urban, this movie had a cast that on paper seemed sure to be able to deliver a fun, tense-filled thriller, butDoom’splot and acting leave much to be desired. When the action tries to replicate the first-person perspective of the games,it just feels like you’re watching your little brother play on easy mode.
Funny enough, the Rock didn’t learn his lesson from this heinous video game flick, as he later also starred in the awful2018 adaptation of Rampage.
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5Street Fighter (1994)
Even Borderlands Wasn’t This Cheesy
Street Fightercould easily be labeled one of the campiest movies ever made. It doesn’t take itself seriously, which unfortunately causes its plot, editing, acting, and overall production tofail onmany levels.
Sure, this movie has its cult following, but it still fails to deliver an authenticStreet Fighterexperience.It poorly represents many of its fighters and their backstories, and the action is pretty drab and poorly executed,which is a real shame as 90% of what’s on offer here is action.
The best we can say aboutStreet Fighter’smovie adaptation is that the casting of the diverse characters is pretty well done, and the fact that this movie did have so many fighters from the franchisegives it at least some lasting merit. Not enough to make it in any way watchable, but still.
4Hitman: Agent 47
Here, Agent 47 Is The Least Silent Assassin
Hitman: Agent 47should have tried to mirror itsstealth game counterpart, which centers around theundercover operations of a secret organization. Instead,it’s a careless action moviethat took more inspiration from every other hit low-budget action flick of the early 2000s.
Sure, there must be some energy-filled moments to push a movie along; they can’t just have Agent 47 disguised in a corner for half the film. Nonetheless, unlike other heavy-action entourage movies like, let’s say, theJames BondorKingsmanfranchises,there’s almost no replication of that stealth spy assassin feel that was needed for aHitmanMovie.
This isn’t the only Hitman movie that could have easily been on this list, but we choseAgent 47because of its more apparent flaws. The acting is pretty bad, and the cinematography feels so basic thatHitmanfans can easily disavow this movie as one of the worst game adaptations.
The final three movies on this list—yes, all three—were made by the scandalous German filmmaker Uwe Boll, who used beneficial German film tax laws to make a litany of bad adaptations. While practically all of his game adaptations could go on these lower slots, here are the standouts we find particularly egregious.
Making Non-stop Action Totally Forgettable
Rotten Tomatoes Score: (audience)
The core plot ofFar Cry’s film adaptation is easier to forget than your average bad action movie. Even if you dislikeBorderlands, you may still remember Claptrap, Lilith, and Tiny Tina. But it is difficult to remember a single individual character from thedumpster fire of Far Cry.
Far Cryhas cheap, B-movie-feeling acting and writing, making it hard to take anything seriously. When everything around gunfights feels so bad, it’s hard, even marginally, to invest when characters get in danger.
Serving as the first of our final three Uwe Boll films, this movie has everything an action movie should have: action, a hero, and some semblance of a plot, but it fails to nail any of these.We’ve barely heard anyone talking about this pathetic game adaptation, and that is for good reason.
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2Alone In The Dark
Uwe Boll At His Worst
Acting, directing, editing, writing. All these core componentsneeded to make up a movie are botched in Alone in the Dark. All the movies on this list are, in some way, bad adaptations or films, but Alone in the Dark is not just a bad and unfaithful adaption. It’s just a genuinely awful film, regardless of the name attached to this sorry excuse for a flick.
Uwe Boll fails once again to write a plot that grabs the audience, and the production value here is pretty much non-existent as it feels cheap, withaction scenes that are an incoherent mess.
And with easily the worst,most passionless acting on this list, this movie makes you feel dumb for even bothering to watch it.
Alone in the Darkends up just being a cheesy rip-off of every movie in the horror-thriller genre, but with the added caveat that, even if you just wanted to watch a bad film and laugh at its expense, you would still have a terrible time enduring this mess.
Postal, like the games, is seemingly made to be the worst thing ever, and althoughit’s seriously much worse thanBorderlands, its inherent and seemingly intentional awfulness makes it hard to avert our eyes.
Unlike a film likeSuper Mario Bros, which, while bad, has some fans,Postal is only fun because it’s a film that you’ll love to hate.
This movie oddly reflects thePostalgames,known for their nonsensical and immoral nature. The Postal Dude in the movie, played by Zack Ward, is such a good representation of this role thatthe developers brought him back as an alternate voice for the games.
On a more personal note, one of my favorite movies isFreddy Got Fingered—yes, that terrible comedy that won a Razzie in 2001 for worst picture. So when I watchPostal, a lousy movie by an even more awful director, I weirdly enjoy it because,unlike almost anything else on this list, it knows it’s terrible and relishes it.
So, if this list has proved anything, it’s thateven the worst video game adaptation, technically even worse thanBorderlands, could still be more relevant and enjoyable.
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