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Quick! Change the channel!
After watching this, in mounting aghastment, I've now realized why it's so bad. It's because it's good. Unfortunately, what it's good at is being a movie of a computer game. If you've played your way through the TR games you'll realize that. The atmosphere of the locations, the way Lara runs and fires, the traps ... someone sat through all the games, taking notes. It's truer to the feel of the games than most novel-based movies are to the original novel. Time and care was spent on that. Then, since the games have no characterization, or any plot much above the level of "get all the bits", they pasted together an inconsistent load of old garbage in twenty minutes and hoped the SFX would carry it. They don't.
For whatever reason, video games and movies don't play well together. Every so often, someone with dollar signs in their eyes will try to make a movie based on a video game franchise, only to run into this unscalable wall: Video Game Movies Suck.
It's kind of hard to say why. Some would say that video games are essentially just movies that have showmanship sacrificed in favor of control, so sacrificing the control leaves you with a bad movie. Others would say that video game plots are just bad, existing just to give the player an excuse to go out and fight things.
The reality? Well, it tends to vary -- Platformers tend to not have enough plot within the games themselves (maybe a three-paragraph setup in the manual and a two-minute ending), so the writers need to improvise, resulting in either Adaptation Decay or Adaptation Distillation -- and so far, it's usually the former. Fighting Games tend to have a different, but flimsy plot and endings depending on the player's character, and the writers have to mishmash these various plot threads into a coherent whole. The only video game genre that pays much attention to plot -- RPGs -- tend to have far too much plot to squeeze into a two-hour flick without leaving a ton out.
Add to that the facts that too many plot changes risk alienating the carryover demographic, and that what plot less cerebral games do have tends to be on the level of, well, to quote the Doom comic:
"DYNAMITE! I'm cooking with gas! I've gotta handful of vertebrae and a headful of mad! Yeah, that's your spinal cord, baby! Dig it! Who's the man! I'm the man! I'm a bad man! How bad? Real bad! I'm a 12.0 on the 10.0 scale of badness!"
So far, no one's nominating video game movies for Oscars. If you hear new, exciting rumors about an upcoming film (like the rumored John Woo-directed Metroid movie), tread carefully, or you may be crushed beneath the Descending Ceiling of bad writing.
Sometimes the reverse is true, of course, which is The Problem With Licensed Games.
For some reason, Dating Sim movies seem exempt from this trope, although with anything, there are exceptions.
Note that all these entries are pretty subjective. If you object to one, you should probably mention it on the discussion page.
See also Uwe Boll.
Flat-out bad:
- Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Lives smack-dab in the middle of the Uncanny Valley. Probably single-handedly responsible for ending Square's existence as an independent company, as they lost so much money from it that they were forced to merge with Enix. No real relation to the games at all, except for a guy named Cid (And even then, they spelled it "Sid"), the names of the planets, and monsters that disappear into the aether when you kill them (plus, very loosely, the metaphysics of Final Fantasy VII). Add to that a frankly incomprehensible ending and lots of action film clichés and you have a recipe for failure.
- Interestingly, I hated the movie and have always been an avid Final Fantasy fan. A good friend, who does not play any video game whatsoever, loved it the first time he saw it. Coincidence? Probably.
- Probably not, actually. This has been the case with everyone I've talked to; people who love the games hate the movie, people who've never played the games love the movie.
- This troper, who has only played the sixth game (and if it counts, Kingdom Hearts), didn't find it too bad. Of course, after hearing all the horror stories about it, he expected MUCH worse, so that could be a factor.
- Count me in the latter group as well. I saw this movie before I had played any of the Final Fantasy games, and I thought the movie was really good. What I don't understand though is why fans of the games are so upset with the movie. If it's not based on the games, why can't you just accept the movie as a separate entity? (Also, in before "But it has Final Fantasy in the name! D:")
- An even worse example is the TV series Final Fantasy Unlimited. It stars Kaze, an expy of Vincent from Final Fantasy VII with a magic gun that shoots summons; Lisa, a Faux Action Girl version of Tifa; and two annoying kids. The worst part is that basically every episode was the same, with Lisa and the kids getting in trouble, at which point someone (usually Kaze) would appear and save them. The show was scheduled for 52 episodes, but Square ended it with Episode 26, quickly making an "improved ending" over the final 2 episodes.
- The Tomb Raider movies. Angelina Jolie vehicles. First one was bad. Second one was worse. Jolie wore big chest padding in the series. Thanks for making video games look mature, guys.
- The chest padding wasn't that big. Croft is supposedly 38D; at the time, Jolie was 36C; they split the difference and went with 36D. Or So I Heard.
- Wing Commander: Frankly, it's probably best you not think about this one at all. It ignored virtually everything about the popular video games except the most basic concepts, even changing the Kilrathi from feline humanoids into some sort of strange lizard creatures, with truly bad rubber masks, and added a ton of weird metaphysical junk never seen in the games to make the hero into some sort of piloting Uebermensch. Also, sonar in space.
- On the other hand, Maniac was as much an asshat in the movie as in the game. So it was true to one thing. Inevitably, one of the things everyone hates. Go figure.
- Strangely enough, Wing Commander III, IV and to a lesser extent, Prophesy were all notable games in that they depended on actors in full motion video sequences to move the plot along. Many fans argue that the games have more well-known and better quality actors (Mark Hamill, John Rhys-Davies, Malcolm McDowell) than whom got signed up to do the "big budget" movie.
- According to at least one interview, the Kilrathi costumes were actually accurately designed, and truly menacing in appearance -- but due to the sets' low ceilings, the costumes could not stand at full height.
- A lot of anime OVAs based on fighting games tend to land on the "bad" end of the scale, partially because the plot to most fighting games is pretty thin to begin with, making it hard to write a decent script. (A few major examples: Fatal Fury and Tekken: The Motion Picture)
- Actually this troper would disagree on Fatal Fury, and there were other good ones like the Darkstalkers Anime
- Everything and anything Uwe Boll has turned his hand to from House of the Dead (which shares one character name with its source, used clips from the games and featured no houses at all) onward. A running joke in the industry is that you've made it when Uwe Boll asks to make a movie of your game. Hideo Kojima refuses to speak to him. For any reason at all.
- Uwe Boll is particularly noteworthy -- and reviled -- because many gamers believe that the games he adapted could've made good movies if they'd been handled by the right people, rather than someone, who, despite his denials, seems to be out to make tax breaks for rich Germans rather than watchable films.
- One of Boll's more recent projects is Postal, a Dead Baby Comedy based on the darkly humorous shoot-em-up from Running With Scissors. From what this editor has heard, the film takes Refuge In Audacity just so it can Anviliciously snipe at the War on Terror and just about everything else that's wrong with 21st century America, as well as the hordes of angry video game nerds who despise Uwe Boll's existence. But since a few people seem to be entertained by the film, and not just in a So Bad Its Good way (it even won "Best of Festival" at the 2008 Hoboken Film Festival), Postal may be Boll's best film yet... which isn't saying much.
- This troper (and at least one other person
 ) find House of the Dead to be a comic masterpiece rather than merely awful.
- Double Dragon: Moved to a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles for no apparent reason, replaced the Big Bad with a Corrupt Corporate Executive, and generally kept nothing of the games' plot except "Brothers who use martial arts and wear red and blue". Alyssa Milano's arse in denim short-shorts makes a sterling effort to save this film, yet still fails.
- There are a few good things in the film, once you get past the jokey tone and ridiculous plot. Robert Patrick chews the scenery with gusto as the villain and gets all the best lines. Martial artist Marc Dacascos does his best in the action scenes. And of course, the aforementioned part of Alyssa Milano's anatomy. The dead weight in the film is definitely Scott Wolf, who can't act, fight, or evoke any emotion in the audience outside of annoyance.
- Devil May Cry: an anime series rather than a movie, but easygoing wiseguy Dante has apparently been replaced by Alucard from Hellsing wearing a silver wig, who prefers using his guns over his sword.
- Mocked endlessly with fake trailers for PacMan and Minesweeper.
- Parodied in a fan-made poster◊ for a Sonic The Hedgehog movie, starring Keanu Reeves with only a blue jacket as his "costume".
Partial Exceptions / So Bad Its Good:
- Mortal Kombat. Sonja is a Faux Action Girl. Sub-Zero and Scorpion are mindless slaves of Shang Tsung. Kitana is a Distressed Damsel. And the movie ends on a cliffhanger. On the other hand, there was plenty of combat (much of it very well-choreographed), and much mortality. The plot, while not exactly Shakespeare, was serviceable and didn't get in the way of the action. Some feel Raiden's role as The Obi Wan makes more sense for a Physical God than the not-quite-first-string fighter he was in the games. And the movie ends on a cliffhanger! However, the sequel, the Animated Adaptation (just watch this montage and try to prove us wrong), and the Recycled The Series all fall squarely under the trope.
- Doom: On the one hand, the plot didn't make much sense, the "science" made even less, and the violence was silly and gratuitous. On the other hand, some would argue that that's exactly what a Doom movie should be like. The really good music probably saved the film. Thumbs-down for inexplicably changing the monsters from Demonic Invaders to genetic experiments, though. To be fair, this seems to be an irresistible pull for Derivative Works; the Novelization of the games deviated from the demonic nature of the monsters, as well.
- Pokemon. Being based on the Anime adaptation instead of directly deriving material from the games themselves helped the movie series avoid the pitfalls of needing to compress an entire game's worth of plot. Often considered the more watchable half of the anime series by some, despite being used as a vehicle to promote new Pokemon characters to be featured in upcoming game sequels.
- The Resident Evil movie was considered a great success. A lot of the credit can go to the fact that it wasn't adapted from the plot of the game; the writers took the premise and wrote another, more movie-friendly story to go with it. And Milla Jovovich. And Sienna Guillory in the sequel. Oh, my.
- I'm sorry, by WHOSE standards is this movie series a success? Mystery Science Theater's? I don't even care that the movies have nothing to do with the games, they're just terrible movies.
- They were financially successful enough to spawn two sequels.
- This troper finds it odd that someone FINALLY said the movies were good (besides himself). Everything heard is "it didn't follow the series properly, and therefore it sucks."
- There are several reviewers who hate the films for reasons besides changing details from the games.
- The biggest problem most people have with it is the drastic rewriting present, with most of the intact content from the game feeling like it somehow doesn't belong. All culminating in the third movie which could be marketed as a completely different universe and no one would notice.
- It's got Milla Jovovich fighting zombies. No director in the history of time could screw up that concept. Okay, maybe one.
- The Silent Hill film was also a success, visually beautiful and very fitting within the theme of the series, although it actually paid closer heed to the original game and used some members of the games' production teams. Whether or not it was as scary as the games, and whether the inclusion of Pyramid Head was a good thing, is still hotly contested. Note that Silent Hill, like Resident Evil, is in the Survival Horror genre, which is already pretty close in nature to the horror genre of films.
- The Hitman movie has a plot which will make less sense the more you think about it, but it will keep you entertained for 90 minutes.
- This troper agrees, although it seem like they entered "Action movie in Russia" into a scriptwriting machine and shot the result.
- That, and it at least tries to maintain 47's characterization as The Chessmaster, rather than make him a generic action thug.
- Dear readers, we humbly nominate The Super Mario Bros Movie as the single most boneheaded film adaptation of anything. It isn't just like the writers could never have played the game; it's more like they did play it but were experimenting with mind-altering substances at the time. Where to begin? Instead of the cheery Mushroom Kingdom, the film takes place in a dreary rain-soaked Cyberpunk-type environment. Instead of a dragon-turtle thing who has captured the Princess, Bowser is a half-dinosaur mob boss from an alternate dimension. Goombas are thugs stuffed into suits, Mario is married, Yoshi is a foot-high velociraptor, Toad is an anti-establishment rock star, and Princess Daisy is an Action Girl. (Who is also a pan-dimensional dinosaur-person. Who was smuggled to our world for safety and hatched out of an egg. In a Nunnery.) Worst of all, Bob Hoskins (who played Mario) hadn't even heard of the game prior to signing up for the role. Really. Even Nintendo mocks this one.
- Ahem...The Wizard. It's not even based on any video game (but has very blatantly obvious Product Placement), but somehow manages to be watchable through almost ninety straight minutes of cheese.
Full exceptions / genuinely good movies:
- The Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie was very accurate, putting all the characters in the right place, and with the right personalities. The animation is excellent, and ki attacks have never looked better. The character designs were excellent, and Bison's design was improved, giving him a huge muscular look that Capcom has used ever since. The storyline of the movie was brought over to Alpha simply replacing Ken with Ryu during the brainwashing scene, and replacing Guile with Charlie. The iconic grass scene is a stage in Alpha 2, and several other things where taken from the movie are shown in Alpha, such as Ken having long hair when he was younger and gave his bandana to Ryu. Did I forget to mention a nude Chun-Li scene and that she kicks Vega's ass in a REALLY well-done fighting scene?
- Then there was Wing Commander Academy, an animated series which was quite loyal to the games, including the ship designs and voice actors for Blair, Maniac and Tolwyn.
- The Darkstalkers/Fatal Fury Anime OVA's
- It's a little early to call, but the Max Payne movie slated for release later this year might just stand a chance of being okay, since the game it is based on is almost a film in its own right. The entire point of the game series is an attempt at combining film-noire with computer games and then using the Rule Of Cool to fill in the gaps. The Maltese Falcon meets The Matrix sounds like an cool/intriguing film if not necessarily a good one.
- While not neccessarily perfect, the animated movie adaptation of Animal Crossing (released only in Japan) does a far better job maintaining the spirit of the material than one would think possible and is a pretty decent watch to boot, if a little simple in its plot.
Contested (this is a subjective trope for a reason, you know):
- The Dead Or Alive movie has widely divergent opinions. The game is a cheesy fighter, focused around a not-quite believable conspiracy theory to build the ultimate fighter that's really just an excuse to show off cool moves and hot women. The movie, on the same hand, is a cheesy fight-flick, focused around a not-quite believable conspiracy theory to build the ultimate fighter that's really just an excuse to show off hot women and cool moves. The fight scenes were well done and managed to encorporate some of the cooler moves without being obvious about it and some of Kevin Nash's scenes with Jaime Pressly were hilarious.
- Except, last this troper checked, one of the basic tenets of character interaction in the games was that quite a few of the girls expressed animosity toward one another to the point of Ayane wanting to kill Kasumi. Of course, it's also implied that Lei Fang and Hitomi are Schoolgirl Lesbians.
- Well it is a fighting game...
- Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is either loved or hated, depending on who you ask. It, too, wasn't a straight adaptation, actually being a sequel to the game.
- This troper believes that Advent Children was an action flick, and should therefore be judged by the quality of its fight scenes and explosions. At which point, the fact that it has sword-wielding motorcyclists blows away virtually every other action flick ever.
- The common theory here seems to be that the movie was very well done, it just didn't make sense. Which it does. Sort of. If you pay attention. But as a stand-alone movie, not even a little bit. People who never played Final Fantasy VII came out of the movie entirely confused, and rightfully so.
- According to That Other Wiki, the creators of the movie didn't know how to make a movie, so they fell back on what they knew...cutscenes! Which makes the whole thing make more sense, strangely enough...
- Street Fighter. Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle. A film that couldn't decide if it was a comedy or an action movie. Bison has a god complex, but then goes around making Bison dollars. Ken and Ryu are money-grubbing con-artists. Dee Jay and Dhalsim are bad guys (the latter being a scientist!). Balrog (based on Mike Tyson!) is a good guy, E. Honda is some Hawaiian guy, and they work with Chun Li as reporter, and camera crew. T. Hawk and Cammy work for the A.N (the last was excusable). Guile is an American commander with an East European accent. His mentor Charlie gets turned into Blanka (although, to be fair, this was accepted as fact by fans until the Street Fighter Alpha series said otherwise). Almost no flashy moves, just a Hadoken at point blank range and Bison's various Psycho powers. Whether or not it manages to be So Bad Its Good or not depends on the individual viewer.
- It's hard to say whether 2000's Si N: The Movie, based off the 1998 FPS video game of the same name, is good or bad. It's a reimagining of the original game's storyline, with police captain John Blade pursuing a dangerous biochemist/scientist named Elexis Sinclaire, who wants to destroy mankind with bioengineered mutated monsters. It has many of the same characters as the video game, has a sizable amount of violence (in copious detail), and actually works quite well for the first half. However, the film has J.C., the hacker/prominent supporting character from the video game, killed off in the first five minutes, and replaced by his sister, who has all the same skills as him. The last half of the movie is one long fight sequence as Blade and J.C.'s sister (who is also nicknamed J.C.) running up through the levels of the Sin TEK building killing anything that moves. There isn't really an ending, and the film is only an hour long. Not only that, but the English and Japanese voice tracks for the film have different dialog, making their plots slightly different.
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