Mortal Kombat (1995) & 9 Other Video Game Movies So Bad They’re Good
One common joke among movie fans is that there has never been a good movie adaptation of a video game and that there never will be. From the first attempts at adapting the medium for the silver screen in the early 90s to modern-day box office bummers, movies based on games seem to be unable to impress either movie critics or even fans of the games on which they're based.
Paradoxically, some movies are received so terribly that they're actually a joy to watch. With video games typically having either a ridiculous over-the-top plot or no plot at all, filmmakers often take some hilarious liberties with the source material—or they just simply botch the CGI.
10 Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is easily one of the worst video game movies of the 2000s, as it follows the titular character, played by Angelina Jolie, as she haphazardly bounces around countries stealing artifacts. Though the movie is terribly made, it’s still insanely entertaining to watch, as Lara Croft is able to shoot robots with bullets without them ricocheting off and hitting someone else, and it features a ridiculously stereotypically British butler.
9 DOA: Dead Or Alive (2006)
It doesn’t come as a surprise in the slightest that DOA: Dead Or Alive is so good-bad, as the lead actor, Holly Valance, was known for her pop music more than her acting. Following four female martial artists, the marketing for the movie was based on showing as much of the half-naked women as possible, and the movie was just as transparent as the marketing. Not only that, but the movie is full of fake explosions and laughable “martial arts.”
8 Mortal Kombat (1995)
With a reboot of the movie being one of the most anticipated sci-fi movies of 2021, we can’t forget about the original, which was released more than 25 years ago.
Though the movie completely respects the games and tries its very hardest to deliver a movie that fans love, Mortal Kombat experiments with CGI in the strangest ways, has some of the wildest character designs, and there are weird locations strung together as characters jump between them through portals. The whole thing is a complete, typically mid-90s mess, which is what makes it thoroughly entertaining.
7 Doom (2005)
Though the movie stars Dwayne Johnson, who is arguably the most bankable actor working today, he wasn’t always the big box office draw he’s currently known as, and Doom is one of the biggest box office bombs of all time. It’s ironically borderline-hilarious how humorless the characters are and how poor the acting is.
What's more, the effects, which are both CGI and practical, aren’t the tiniest bit scary, and the first-person shooter scene, which makes audiences feel like they are playing the video game, is equal parts frustrating and entertaining as hell.
6 Prince Of Persia (2010)
Being one of the Jake Gyllenhaal movies you forgot about, the actor is probably happy that nobody remembers this one, as it takes the incredible and influential platformer and turns it into a schlocky, melodramatic action movie.
Prince of Persia had so much potential to be great, but most of the $200 million budget was spent on effects and unneeded set pieces instead of focusing on the source material. However, Gyllenhaal on a swashbuckling adventure with his long parted hair and Ben Kingsley hamming it up as Prince Nizam is impossible to turn off.
5 Street Fighter (1994)
John-Claude Vann Damme is a cult treasure, and the exact reasons he’s beloved is for trashy movies like this. As Street Fighter is based on the second game, Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, the movie is full of half-assed choreographed fight scenes full of “pow” sounds the don’t quite fit with the impact of the punches, and they’re connected by the thinnest of narratives. On top of that, it’s full of amazing quotes that are even more hilarious out of context.
4 Need For Speed (2014)
Being one of the worst action movies for car chases, Need For Speed can barely even be named an adaptation of the video game of the same name, as it carries over very little from the game and is very much an adaptation in name only.
The Need For Speed series became most famous for its street racing and souped-up cars, but the movie focuses only on supercars with the noises of gears shifting every couple of seconds for two whole hours. The chases are hilariously made up of the same few shots; the drivers’ serious faces, the drivers shifting gears, and the cars speeding past other cars, and it’s so hard to take Aaron Paul’s pouting seriously.
3 Hitman (2007)
In Hitman, Timothy Olyphant literally plays Agent 47 as if the character is a robot who can’t register human emotions, and, though that’s generally how an assassin would act, Olyphant just doesn’t sound human. What’s even worse is that, as the Hitman games are mostly stealth games in which Agent 47 has to hide in the shadows and wait for the right time to jump out, the 2007 movie sees the character literally wielding machetes and running around slashing people up. But, it’s only hilarious if viewers don’t have so much of a connection to the game.
2 The Angry Birds Movie (2016)
With the mobile games feature wafer-thin narratives about which most players will forget after clearing the first level, there was no doubt in anybody’s mind that The Angry Birds Movie would have the thinnest narrative ever.
The movie somehow made hundreds of millions of dollars, and it, of course, spawned a sequel. Though funnily enough, the movie comes off as a pale imitation of Inside Out, as the movie adaptation of the app explores anger, with the protagonist of the movie being Red.
1 Super Mario Bros. (1993)
Being the first video game movie ever made, Super Mario Bros started the never-ending trend of bad video game movies, but it’s also the funniest. Between turning Toad into a real-life person who is in a rock band, the dancing goombas, and the dystopian future world, the movie is truly captivating in the weirdest way possible.
However, the actual Super Mario Brothers are one of the reasons why the movie isn’t that bad, as Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo actually had great on-screen chemistry, and, despite knowing how bad the movie would be, they still gave it their all and put a lot of effort into it.