Friday, June 24, 2011

Top 10 Video Game Movies: Part I


Zombie killer Milla Jovovich with golden guns, presumably to play Golden Eye

There are lots of good movies about video games: King of Kong, Scott Pilgrim, and The Wizard.  At the same time videogames are becoming increasingly cinematic.  So it stands to reason that there would be some great movies based on videogames, right?  Well, no.  It’s common knowledge that movies based on videogames suck, but some are certainly less sucky than others, right?  Well, kinda.  Here’s my top 10 video game movies.  Enjoy.

10. House of the Dead

Sorry, she keeps her top on the whole time
I know I'm going to take some heat for this one, but without including sequels (too many Resident Evil movies) or anime (fucking lame) there are woefully few halfway decent videogame movies.  That is not to say that House of the Dead is halfway decent, quite the contrary in fact, but I think House of the Dead has kind of a Plan 9 quality.  The movie is such a mess in every single way it becomes laughable.  Continuity errors abound, the acting is bad, the story retarded, and it’s so poorly directed you usually can’t tell what’s going on (for a more comprehensive review check out my friend Brian’s blog.)  Once you get past all those things there’s not much to complain about, except that the hottest chick in the movie doesn’t take her top off.  What gives?  Thankfully there are plenty of other naked ladies throughout the film’s mercifully short runtime.  Clocking in at 90 minutes HotD moves at a pretty good pace.  Even good movies can suffer from poor pacing and an excessive runtime (Judd Apetow is lucky he’s making movies in the DVD age.  No one would rent a comedy on two goddamned VHS tapes.)  While HotD is terrible at least it stars the U-Boat captain from Das Boot, which earns it a place on any list.
Speaking of Plan 9 here's Lisa Marie.  She played Vampira in Ed Wood.  She's hard to google and this picture is pretty rare.  Enjoy the sideboob!

9.  Final Fantasy
Creepy! Can you say uncanny valley?

Final Fantasy was kind of revolutionary for the time.  Sure the CGI characters look like those creepy mannequin robots from Doctor Who, but at least this movie swings for the fences.  Most fans of the popular series of video games hate this movie.  Luckily I’ve never played any of the videogames so I couldn’t give a flying fuck.  My disdain from the series stems from the first time I ever watched someone play Final Fantasy VII.  
 “What the hell is going on?" I asked.
My buddy said, “I’m trying to find a dress.”
“Why?”
“So I can disguise my character as a woman and sneak past the guard.”
“…”

Needless to say I wrote the series off after that.  If I wanted to dress in drag I’d be a British comedian.  Plus the name always bugged me.  How could it be a “Final” Fantasy if there’s like 20 of them, and Final Fantasy X 2 is just stupid.  What’s wrong with part 11?  At least give it a cool subtitle like “Final Fantasy X: the Finalist Fantasy” or “Final Fantasy X: The Legend of Curly’s Gold.”
You know what I always thought was missing from video games?  Hairless lady-boys, that's what!

8. Tommy (based on the Johnny Mnemonic Pinball Machine)

Coming soon to a bowling alley near you
The Who are better than Led Zeppelin, and Tommy is way the fuck better than The Song Remains the Same.  The Johnny Mnemonic Pinball Machine was okay I guess, not as good as the Spacejam Pinball Game, but okay.  You might think that Johnny Mnemonic was based on the Johnny Mnemonic Pinball Game, but that doesn’t make any sense.  First of all, Johnny Mnemonic sucks.  Secondly, the Johnny Mnemonic Pinball Game was based on the movie not the other way around.  Similarly, the Tommy Pinball Game was based on the movie Tommy which was based on the Johnny Mnemonic Pinball Game.  Confusing?  Well, it almost seems like I’m padding this list with a movie that has nothing to do with video games, and for that reason alone Tommy is only number 8 on our list. 
Interestingly you don't need VR gloves to operate the pinball machine

7.  Mortal Kombat

Get ready for the song and dance number
I don’t care what anyone says this movie sucks.  Usually when people are talking about video game movies everyone will agree that as a genre it is decidedly sub-par.  Then someone will chime in, “well Mortal Kombat was okay.”  It’s not.  It was made in the “CGI deadzone” (the mid-90’s) so the special effects look like shit; and the plot was retardedly stupid.  Why is it clocking it at number 7?  Well, just like when you played Mortal Kombat with your younger brother, the competition isn’t exactly strong.  Secondly, the plot being stupid doesn’t bother me that much, because the plot of the games was always pretty dumb.  That’s not to excuse the plot, but even at the age of 12 I knew what I was getting into: a dumb Kung Fu movie.  Mortal Kombat also had that hot chick from Billy Madison, and I always thought she was hot.  Whatever happened to her and Tia Carrera?  They were both hot and they were only in like 2 movies each.
There are plenty of pics of Bridgette Wilson as Sonya Blade, but I chose to include pictures of her in lingerie, because that's the kind of guy I am

6.  Super Mario Brothers
Sumthin' for the ladies!  Fun Fact: Ron Jeremy's nickname is "The Hedgehog" because he can curl up and suck his own dick.

Mama Mia! A crying Italian!
This movie falls into the same category as Buckaroo Banzai, Mac & Me, The Sword and the Sorcerer, Street Fighter, Flash Gordon, and Godzilla (1998): a movie that promised a sequel that never came to pass.  It’s also in a separate category from the previous movies on this list (except for Tommy) in that I actually enjoy it.  I watched this movie a lot as a kid, so it has the nostalgia factor.  It also has the legendary actors Bob Haskins playing Mario Mario, and Dennis Hopper playing King Koopa.  John Leguizamo plays Luigi Mario and I thought it was a nice change of pace seeing a minority playing an Italian instead of the other way around (Al Pacino in Scarface.)  The movie incorporates some of the elements from the video game: giant pipes, mushrooms, and King Koopa; while at the same time having absolutely nothing to do with the video game.  Admittedly it would be kind of hard to make a compelling film about a couple of plumbers jumping on things, but changing it to a parallel world where dinosaurs became people that drive electric cars and listen exclusively to “Walk the Dinosaur” was kind of a stretch.  Like most movies on this list Super Mario Brothers was not a financial success, hence the lack of a sequel.  Oh well, I still like it.

Part II coming soon…

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