| Movies That Suck Some time ago a few idiots felt that making movies based on video games would be a good idea but, of course, it is now known that that was stupid. It is now common knowledge that any movie based on a video game, much like one based on a book, could never truly capture the style, excitement or story of the original work. Yet, these pieces of refuse still pull in some cash. Why? Most likely because people want to see how well the masterpiece that they had experienced would be interpreted on the big screen. Unfortunately, it’s usually crap. One of the first of these video game movies (that I can remember anyway) was the horrendous debacle known as Street Fighter: The Movie. First of all, the story was a load of crap. Many parts were totally made up and made no sense, like Ryu and Ken being some sort of hustlers and Sagat owned an illegal battle arena. Also, Vega did not live in Thailand nor did he fight in matches at an illegal battle arena for Sagat. Another altered plot element was the fact that Dhalisim was not a scientist and Blanka was not his test subject; he was some type of mutant boy that was in search of his mother. And, Chun Li, E. Honda and Balrog were not reporters. Hell, in the game, Balrog was a bad guy. And Dee Jay, who sucks by the way, was a good guy in the game and so was Zangief. Hell, even the game’s actual story, as nonsensical as it may be, would have been better. Next: the casting. There’re only three real qualms here but they are quite significant. First would have to be the guy they chose to play T. Hawk. If you remember the great Super Street Fighter II, you also remember that ol’ Hawk was huge (sort of like the chief from Cuckoo’s Nest, but less psychotic, and better looking… oh, and from Mexico) yet whoever did the casting for the movie decided to go with some skinny (about as thin as me), weak looking (again, like myself) European guy (well, maybe he was Hispanic). But nonetheless, it was some of the worst casting ever. Vega was also poorly cast, since the guy they selected, though he may have been Spanish, looked nothing like Vega. I’m sure all of you remember that in the game he was seemingly frail and feminine, but packed a punch. Well in the movie he looked like some rough spic (excuse the derogatory remark) without any semblance to the great Vega of Street Fighter fame. And finally, the worst thing they could have done was to cast Van Damme as Guile. He looks nothing like him and if I recall correctly Guile was from the US, not Austria. Anyway, Van Damme just sucks as an actor and gives a bad name to martial artists and Austrians alike. Pathetic film? Yes. The next aberration to the industry would have to be Mortal Kombat, both the first one and Annihilation. These movies suffered from many of the faults that the aforementioned crap-fest suffered, and then some. Bad casting was prevalent in the first and carried on into the second. At least in Street Fighter they got one well-known actor, but in Mortal Kombat there were none. And the ones they did get sucked. And what made matters worse was the fact that they didn’t keep any of the set of horrible actors in the first for the second, which could have been a good thing, except for the fact that the second set of actors was worse. And also, I’m certain there are some story consistency issues between the two films. Unfortunately, I can’t think of them right now. Oh well. Well, this movie also has difficulty following the games inane story line. You see, I don’t remember any of the events in the second (and most in the first) ever being mentioned in the games story lines. Oh, I just remembered, Christopher Lambert played Raiden in the first movie (if you don’t know who he is you’re stupid because he was the protagonist in Highlander. Not the TV series either). Mortal Kombat sucked. Another one? Yeah, unfortunately. This time it’s the multimillion dollar project undertaken by Squaresoft. Yes, I’m speaking on the horrid Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Though the visuals were great (they looked like real people), except for one guy looking like Ben Affleck (Why?) and the terrible Alec Baldwin personifying him, there was one big problem, an area that Square had never failed to excel in: the story. For some odd reason they thought stopping ghosts from an obliterated planet from devouring souls of the people some time in the future would be entertaining. They thought wrong. I’ll spare you the details and just say it sucked… bad. I’m certain this film would have done well if the story wasn’t so awful. The most complete degradation of a game came from the first (to my knowledge) video game flick ever, Super Mario Bros. They had everything wrong: the story, the characters, the setting, and even the mood. I’ll go backwards, saving the worst for last, and start with the mood. By the time the movie came out the game was known for its buoyancy and bright colors, yet the movie was filled with a dark and gloomy atmosphere that was really depressing. The movie itself also had very little humor, which was unfortunate. Next would be the setting, I guess. Well, the movie took place partly in Brooklyn (the plumbers’ home town) and in the Mushroom Kingdom. We all know that the game took place in the Mushroom Kingdom, so it seems accurate, right? Wrong. If you remember correctly, there were no people in any of the Mario games (well, maybe a couple), which the movie had, but there were mushroom people, which the movie didn’t have. Also, Goombas (not the term for an Italian gangster) are not big lizard-like creatures in the game. Ah, the characters, well, they were well done, you know, the stereotypical Brooklyn denizens. But really, I think they cast John Leguizamo as Luigi. He isn’t even Italian and he’s not that tall. Heck, Phil would have made a great Luigi, even though he is a bit larger in stature. Now the story. We all know the game’s story, right? Well, all I can say is that it’s nothing like it. Parallel worlds, King Toadstool being turned into a mushroom, Princess coming to ask Mario for help, no Toad and an un-rideable Yoshi make for the most altered plot elements ever. The worst movie based on a game ever… And I think they were going to make a sequel, eww! There you have it. I’ve stated the obvious (at least to those that have no life), so I will spare you the poorly written conclusion (since you already had to read a poorly written introduction) and just say that I hope that the Resident Evil movie isn’t as blasphemous as the previously mentioned pieces of trash. A run on? I think not. |