10 of the Worst Video Game Movie Adaptations of All Time – Destructoid

Unfortunately, video game movie adaptations are generally just awful, with some of them ranking among the worst movies of all time. Recent years have seen a bit of a change, with TV shows making great adaptations. However, if you’re looking for a ridiculously bad video game adaptation, grab something from this list.

Video Game Adaptations That Get It All Wrong

There are so many things that can go wrong when adapting something into a movie. For some reason, video games seem to have such a hard time. Books are often the source material for movies, and sometimes they can be masterpieces. However, due to the team not being familiar with the game or a studio just not understanding their material, there are a lot of terrible video game movie adaptations.

Alone in the Dark – 2005

Uwe Boll is a name you’ll be familiar with before this list is even complete. This director is responsible for a fair number of entries on this list of the worst video game adaptations. Honestly, after the disapproval each of his films receives, they still let him make more and even sign him for sequels because of the absolute visual abuse he produces.

Alone in The Dark is an important game and should have been treated with respect. The first iteration is considered one of the earliest survival horrors, pushing the genre into the mainstream. The many games are usually based on works by writers like Lovecraft, who drew inspiration from artists like Geiger. The movie, however, is dull and confusing, and has little to no atmosphere, let alone horror.

House of the Dead – 2003

Uwe Boll is back with another unmitigated disaster of a video game movie adaptation. Anyone who has ever set foot in film school has tried their hand at a bit of horror, and zombies are the obvious choice in the genre. Yet somehow this absolute hack manages to ruin one of the most iconic arcade zombie shooters of all time.

The shortcomings of this film go beyond just bad direction and script. Uwe likes to throw in effects and movie gimmicks. This horror game adaptation is one to watch simply because it’s so awful; it’ll make you cry after a few drinks. He even manages to squeeze in a few scenes from the arcade game, somehow.

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation – 1997

Not only is it one of the worst video game adaptations, it’s also one of the worst movies in general. However, if you’re a fan of sloppy acting, incomprehensible plots, and VFX that look like they were ripped off a PlayStation One demo disk, then this might be the movie for you. The movie lets you know from the get-go that it’s going to be nothing special, and that’s certainly true.

The acting is what really sets this apart from the wealth of the worst video game movie adaptations. It’s hard to find a line in the film that isn’t so poorly read that it’s hard to figure out what it’s implying. Thankfully, subtlety and nuance aren’t something this film particularly strives for. That said, the theme tune for the film is excellent.

Borderlands – 2024

If you haven’t heard, Borderlands was a complete flop, to no one’s surprise. I won’t lie and say I’m not disappointed, but I definitely saw this coming. As soon as I read that they were planning on hitting a 12A rating, I knew they were going to miss the mark. Borderlands is a no-holds-barred, gritty, bloody shoot-em-up, and when you take that away, it’s a clear sign that the production team has no idea what the fans are coming for.

Unfortunately, unlike a few others about the worst video game movie adaptations, you can’t even turn this one on in the background with some mates and enjoy the travesty; it’s just a bad, boring movie. How the team manages to take a game as breakneck and humorous as Borderlands and produce something as bland as they did takes a level of skill all its own. Everything from the casting to the plot was completely missed, resulting in something that was truly insulting to the fanbase and original games.

Tekken 2: Kazuya’s Revenge – 2014

So the studio bought the rights to Tekken and made the first film a success. However, for some reason, the second was planned as a prequel, following on from Kazuya’s story from the first. He’s not the most intriguing character, and the decision to delve into his past was already a bit of a left-field choice. The result is a film that’s not bad in a good way; it’s bad in a bad way. Tekken 2: Kazuya’s Revenge is boring.

The film is filled with dull, contemplative, and boring flashbacks as the mysterious “K” recounts his lost memories. These flashbacks barely tell a story, as many of them are from minutes earlier in the film. The terrible production is made worse by the seemingly endless slow-motion scenes. Shot without a flashback and at normal speed, this entire film could have fit into a still very boring YouTube short.

Hitman – 2007

This movie gave me the first migraine of my life. Immediately after, I started seeking out real assassins so one of them could shoot me in the face and I could forget about the messy, confusing, astronomically boring, worst video game movie adaptation ever. How do you take a video game that is so full of story, suspense, customization, and even humor and turn it into something so complicated and boring?

Sure, there’s violence and action, but it’s wrapped in a story that makes little sense and isn’t intriguing. I feel like Hitman, the game, allows for a little more suspension of disbelief because it’s just that: a game. The movie, however, doesn’t do a great job of explaining a lot of the little things that could have been swept under the rug in the original source material.

Max Payne – 2008

Ruining a Max Payne movie is a sin. The game is already a cinematic masterpiece, and even introduces cinematic camera techniques into the gameplay. It’s all there, complete with troubled antihero and gorgeous settings. And yet it’s still up there on many of the worst video game movie adaptations on the web.

I don’t know if I would have picked Mark Wahlberg of Marky Mark and Mila Kunis to play the two leads in this film, but there’s no denying that they’re big names. However, Wahlberg, especially when directed poorly, is a real chore to watch, and that’s the case here. The boredom doesn’t end there, though. Director John Moore somehow manages to eschew the action-packed scenes of the game in favor of the slower, far less interesting detective work that Payne is known for. The pacing is a far cry from the games, resulting in something remarkably devoid of entertainment or interest.

Bloody Rayne – 2005

Despite Boll being responsible for some of the worst video game movie adaptations ever, I think this is one of his better ones, but that’s not saying much. With a cast that includes Meatloaf, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Rodriguez, and Michael Madsen, it’s considerably more star-studded than many video game adaptations. It’s a shame that they all deliver their lines like they wish they were somewhere else.

The blood and gore in the film are a draw for some. The sheer amount of physical effects and blood splatter is unbelievable. The cleanup on set must have taken longer than the actual shooting. Also the way blood is sprayed is usually very anti-climatic. The action scenes in this film resemble the first seasons of Buffy, with very amateurish acrobatics and sword fighting. It is a fun film to watch, but still very much of the poor standard that we expect from Boll.

Need for Speed ​​– 2014

Fast cars, street races, pink slips, car customization, and police chases sound like the recipe for a hellishly wild ride in the cinema, and yet the video game adaptation is once again the worst it can be. Fortunately, the problem with this film isn’t that it doesn’t have great action. It does. I like the cars and the racing, which is pretty much what I’d expect from a movie based on a video game about racing.

The plot and script however are so nonsensical and boring. There are so many loopholes in the plot and strange aimless characters that it breaks the immersion in the world that is created. The racing in the film is fantastic and the director has done his best to avoid CGI but it is watered down by the lack of a recognizable plot or purpose.

Warcraft – 2016

I should preface this by saying that Travis Fimmel’s acting style gives me the creeps. But that aside, I still found this to be one of the worst ways they could have made a World of Warcraft video game adaptation. With the lore and a collection of quest stories dating back to 2004, you’d think the team could pull off something epic. What they deliver instead is a film that tries to please everyone, checks too many boxes, and fails on both counts.

Several times in the film I drifted off for a minute or two and came back to completely lost. I think the problem was mainly that many of the Orcs looked too similar to each other without any recognizable characters. The film also fails the Bechdel test, with the only female I can recall in the film being little more than a love interest, although whose love interest is still pretty unclear. The film felt disjointed and overly confusing for what was ultimately a very basic plot and an ultimately unsatisfying ending. Some pretty good CGI action scenes, though.