It only seems logical as video games became more and more popular that someone would come up with the brain child of turning them into a movie. And why not it’s big business, if the movie is a success not only does the movie make money so to does the game or games that inspired it. It also opens up that game to a much wider audience of people that may never have played that game. The Resident Evil movies are a prime example of how to get it right.

Unfortunately this combination rarely works. Most of these video game inspired movies struggle to integrate the games story into a working storyline that doesn’t leave you scratching your heads and wondering WTF. These movies feel rushed, sometimes having sloppy effects, or too heavy a reliance on them to distract us. A list stars are no guarantee either, ( Look no further then Street Fighter for an example of that ) usually the acting is no better then a half - assed attempt because they would rather be anywhere else but there. You need not look any deeper then the pained look on the actors faces because just like the average joe at a job they despise, their only there to collect a pay check and get the hell out of there to hopefully something that could win them an Oscar.

Here’s a list of what I feel are some of the worst wastes of film that have been based on a video game.

I remember when Mortal Kombat the game originally came out on the Super Nintendo. After the massive commercial blitz to get all us kids hooked on the game before we ever got our first chance to use Johnny Cages patented move where he does the splits and punches his opponent right in the twig and berries. The game was truly ahead of its time being released in the early 90’s, with great graphics, cool characters, and the oh so fun finishing moves. ( Who doesn’t enjoy tearing out your enemy’s still beating heart I know I do) And who among us didn’t wonder if this would become a movie due to its popularity.

Well in 1995 that question was answered with the first Mortal Kombat movie. What the movie did right was follow loyally the original games main storyline. It included the majority of the games characters, with some fairly big names such as Christopher Lambert as Raiden ( He was in the Highlander movies ) and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as the evil soul stealing Shang Tsung, and that’s about where it ends. The acting felt forced as if someone was holding there kids hostage until they finished the film. The main character in particular ( Robin Shou as Liu Kang ) was especially annoying. The back story between Sonya Blade ( Bridgette Wilson ) a special forces operative, and Kano ( Trevor Goddard ) a criminal mastermind who killed her former partner felt out of place and almost unimportant. And the fight between Johnny Cage ( Linden Ashby ) and Goro a giant four armed monster was not only to short but on the verge of being unimportant. It was as if they needed to fill some time so they made this dinky little fight scene in the hopes of keeping or at least trying to gain our interest. Even though this was a flop its sequel Mortal Kombat Annihilation released in 1997 was even worse.

Of the handful of shooting games available on PC in the early 90’s Doom was one of the most popular. The story of the lone surviving space marine battling his way through legions of demons and imp’s sent through a portal from Hell kept me and my friends up in the wee hours of many a weekend. A completely re-created sequel was released in late 2004, though it felt as if the developers were going for cheap slasher movie like horror.( you walk down a dark corridor, the lights go out and suddenly a demon is right behind you fifty thousand times in a row. )

The following year Doom the movie hit theatres. It starred Dwayne ( The Rock ) Johnson as the commander of an elite unit of marines tasked to go to Mars to investigate a series of strange events at a remote research lab. After landing and some initial searching they discover that a genetic experiment is turning the survivors into monsters bent on killing. Though the movie has great special effect ( I love it when the one creatures gets caught in the nano wall ) The story was almost non-existent and fell flat on its face, which is mainly due to the fact that Doom is a shooter game and had very little story to begin with. The characters were two dimensial at best, spending the majority of the movie walking around in badly lit corridors using small talk as dialogue. Sure the movie has gore, guns and violence which is always good, but there gets to be a point when mindless entertainment becomes mind-numbingly boring.

Street Fighter, the game conjures up images of bright flashy cartoon like characters jumping all over the screen in a blaze of fists, kicks, and fireballs blasting from there hands. Since its original release in 1987 CAPCOM has released dozens of updated versions of the hit game for a number of game systems. Though the game has remained much the same now as its original, including most of the same characters, it continues to grow in popularity with old and new gamers alike.

The 90’s seem to be full of movies inspired from video games, perhaps due to ever increasing amount of gamers and the money they generated from the sales of games and related products. So its no wonder that in 1995 Street Fighter the movie was released. With stars such as Jean-Claude Van Damme, ( Guile ) Raul Julia ( General Bison ) and Kylie Minogue, ( Cammy ) the movie promised to be a high octane fight fest, I mean after all JCVD is starring in this how can it go wrong. Well wrong it did, it quickly became the mother of all video game to movie mess up’s in the history on that genre. The fight scenes were often choppy and cartoonish at best, ( best to leave cartoonish fights to cartoons ) and a story line that could have been written on the back of a Kraft dinner box. The final battle between Guile and General Bison was nothing more then a painfully slow train wreck of bad dialogue and even worse fighting scenes.

I should also mention a second movie released in early 2009 called Street Fighter The Legend of Chun-Li. I haven’t seen this one yet so I can’t really say all that much about it good or bad. But given that the first movie left a bad taste in my mouth ( I still can’t believe I paid money to see it when it was in theatres ) I probably won’t .

The first of the survival horror game genre and the first to use a 3D environment , Alone in the Dark was originally released on PC in 1992. Over the years several sequels were made, following the same basic story line. A private investigator ( you ) decide for one reason or another to investigate a haunted mansion and or town full of all sorts of nasty goodness in the form of the undead and other monsters. Though the game won a Guinness world record, ( First ever 3D survival horror game ) it has always been in the shadows of the more popular Resident Evil games. Even some of Alone in the Dark’s sequels draw heavy influence from the style and feel of Resident Evil.

In 2005 Alone in the dark jumped onto the big screen,. It starred Christian Slater as Edward Carnby who investigates the paranormal with his on again/off again girlfriend Aline Cedrac played by Tara Reid who is a archaeologist and museum curator . Together and with the help of Bureau 713 commander Richard Burke, played by Stephen Dorff they investigate a worsening series of unexplainable events. Upon its release into theatres it was slammed with negative reviews from the movie and gaming communities. It’s initial opening weekend, the movie only made about 2.8 million approximately. The movie was painful to watch all around. Not only was the acting bad, the characters history in regards to one another was confusing much like what they were chasing after. The plot was a mismatched patchwork of stories taken from the games of the same name, watching it and trying to put the pieces together leaves you with only a feeling of being confused and with a migraine. And a special nod goes out to Tara Reid for playing the most un-believable scientist, archaeologist or whatever the hell she was trying to play ( Glasses may make you look smarter……but they won’t actually make you smarter ). All in all the entire movie felt like it was made just to make a buck and failed horribly on the big screen. DVD sales it’s done much more respectably .