Kind of the opposite of my other thread.
The one that jumps to mind immediately is Mortal Kombat. That movie surprised me. It turned out to be watchable and had a cool soundtrack. The story wasn’t terrible and they stuck relatively close to the game story.
Resident Evil wasn’t bad but didn’t seem to match the game other than zombies.
Any others?
I haven’t seen Mortal Kombat since it came out (when I was like 10), but I do remember it being pretty faithful to the game series. I’m not saying it’s good, per se, but it’s not like there was untapped potential considering the source material…
Resident Evil 1, on the other hand, I thought was pretty bad. Plus the games had better CG.
I’m sorry, this thread seems to assume there are good or even watchable video game movies.
I’m sorry, but this will not happen until the risen spirit of Bill Hicks hosts the first season of “Let’s Hunt And Kill Uwe Boll”.
I saw this animated Street Fighter movie in Japanese that was pretty rockin’ or maybe it was Fatal Fury. I forget.
The Tomb Raider and Resident Evil movies don’t seem much worse than the Mortal Kombat movie, though they didn’t have that bangin’ techno theme song.
Street Fighter, for all the wrong reasons.
The Street Fighter II and first Mortal Kombat movie are both good enough that I rewatch them every now and again. I don’t think I was much impressed with Fatal Fury.
The live-action Street Fighter movie has some great parts, mainly due to M. Bison and Zangief, but not enough that I’d rewatch the rest of the movie. I also thought Prince of Persia was quite enjoyable, but haven’t rewatched it yet.
To me, the list of good video game movies is incredibly short. As in, non existent.
With the bar set so low, Mortal Kombat qualifies as “not sucking”. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within likewise wasn’t good, but still didn’t suck.
And that’s about it.
Bill Hicks isn’t funny by the way. I dare any of you fans to go watch his standup now. Hide the sharp objects.
Doom was awful, but not as abysmally awful as I would have predicted.
What are you guys talking about? Resident Evil rocked.
One of the main problems with video game movies is that video game plots are monumentally retarded. Like Silent Hill, for example, which was a trainwreck of awful.
Resident Evil, OTOH, is nice and straightforward: virus turns people into zombies. They make actual movies with that premise, so it’s no surprise the RE franchise is so much better than other video game adaptations.
Doom on Mars or the Moon or wherever the fuck they were…oofa.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure a good video game movie has never been made, which makes this topic pretty hard to answer. I did like Mortal Kombat when I saw it - but like the poster upthread I was just a little kid at the time. I can’t imagine what I’d think if I watched it now, and I don’t want to. Best not to ruin fond memories. 
I was 25 when it first hit hit premium cable and was not impressed.
WTF? Silent Hill was the BEST video game adaptation I’ve ever seen. Creepy as hell, atmospheric, and disturbing, just like the game. What didnt you like about it?
Personally, I thinkg most VG movies don’t work is because each director just has to put his own stamp on things and change it up.
People, VG movie audiences are the gamers and no one else. Gamers don’t want to see something changed, and changing it to be different isn’t going to attract the non-gamers. There needs to be a video game movie that sticks to the script of the game exactly. No new characters, no different spin on things, no different ending.
Second (or third or fourth) on Mortal Kombat. There was just enough plot to justify all the fightin. Christopher Lambert, Robin Shou, and especially Linden Ashby were all great in their roles. I thought Bridgett Wilson was the link, though. It was pretty obvious that she lacked any real fighting ability.
Another vote for Silent Hill. Maybe not the greatest horror movie ever filmed but surprisingly creepy, considering the usual video game movie drek.
I still watch Mortal Kombat on occasion. It’s not an award winning movie by any stretch, and it’s full of Grade A cheese, but everyone involved knows this and enjoys themselves. It’s one of those bad movies that works, because it really isn’t that bad.
But its sequel is a travesty against nature. I’m glad I never paid to see the sequel, because it’s one of those movies that they should pay you to watch. It really is a horrible movie.
Sign #1 your movie sequel is going to suck: Christopher Lambert reads the script and turns you down for reprising his role. (I actually felt bad for James Remar, the poor schlub they tapped to replace him.)
Sign #2 your movie sequel is going to suck: You decide to kill the comic relief/most interesting character from the first movie who survived (i.e. Johnny Cage) off in the first 5 minutes.
I don’t like how the Resident Evil movies are pretty much Alice: The Movie, parts 1-4. That stupid Mary Sue character isn’t even from the games.
I don’t expect a movie to be 100% the same as the source game, but sheesh, this is like making Lord of the Rings the story of how a badass female hobbit single handedly took on all of Mordor before casually chucking the Ring over her shoulder into the fires of Mt. Doom.
As horrible as Uwe is, I was rather shocked that Shooter was as interesting as it was.
I liked RE but I never played the game.
However, in terms of the mortal kombat movie vs the SF movie: imho, it depends a lot on how the original game was regarded. SF2 was a classic and beloved by millions No movie could possibly be considered “good” because it would have to be “better” than the game. MK was slow, cheesy, and only the losers who couldn’t survive in SF2 played it. Therefore, any movie with the MK name would nearly always be “better” than the game, even though it was a bad movie.
I kinda like the Max Payne movie…