Giant Bomb to watch, evaluate every game-based movie

41 Comments by Kyle Orland Apr 16th 2008 7:00PM
Filed under: Culture, Retro, Fashion

It's common knowledge that movies based on games are generally awful (much like games based on movies). But for all the internet griping about everything from Dead or Alive to Hitman to anything by Uwe Boll, how many of us are insane enough to want an encyclopedic knowledge of every awful game-based movie ever made?

The answer to that question is "at least one" and that one is former Gamespotter Ryan Davis, who has publicly set out to watch every game-based flick as part of "The Giant Bomb Video-Game Movie Experiment." While the project sadly leaves out game-inspired movies like Tron and WarGames and animated classics like Pokemon: Yet Another Insipid Movie, we still have to admire the moxie required to even attempt such a project. Will Davis' determination be enough to see him through? Will his sanity hold out? Find out this summer, only ~~in theaters~~ on the web.

Tags: double-dragon, giant-bomb, movies, ryan-davis, tron, wargames

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(Page 1) Reader Comments

Nigeria - MK: 0430-8491-9123: Apr 16th 2008; 7:05PM

Yeah, but will they watch the unofficial porn spin offs?

ThornedVenom (Harley Quinn Defense Force): Apr 16th 2008; 11:38PM

Thanks for reminding me of rule 34.

freecajunlove: Apr 16th 2008; 7:06PM

I've seen all these films...

Zachary Hinchliffe: Apr 16th 2008; 7:15PM

love the name. cajuns ftw.

Mr Khan: Apr 16th 2008; 7:29PM

AP Literature might sour me on cajuns, as we're being forced to read Chopin's "The Awakening"

I kinda liked her short stories, at the 'Cadian Ball and The Storm, but the novel is wearing on me

colin: Apr 16th 2008; 8:06PM

ahhh, Kate Chopin ... the ONLY American female author EVER studied besides the token Zora Neale Hurston and Amy Tan.

The Storm was pretty good, but I heard The Awakening was like uber-softcore early 20th century porn for the unsatisfied houswife, fully of goofy innuendo and such ...

The Progn0sticator: Apr 16th 2008; 7:12PM

HELL YES!

That is all.

jynxycat: Apr 16th 2008; 7:19PM

I just watched Hitman about an hour ago... felt like the Bourne Identity, but a lot worse. Zero elements from the game, blah.

Maverick Saturn: Apr 16th 2008; 7:28PM

Boring wasn't it, lol

Grog: Apr 16th 2008; 7:24PM

In a side note, the pro-Boll petition is currently at 1,774 signatures while the anti-Boll petition has slowed down and is currently at 202,506 signatures.

ThornedVenom (Harley Quinn Defense Force): Apr 16th 2008; 11:40PM

The sad part is that I'm pretty damn sure that he won't keep his word, and that he's still going to keep on making more videogame movies.

Why?

Because the cash just smells too good.

E: Apr 16th 2008; 7:25PM

what about resident evil?? i thought that was very good movie and sequals are equally as good except the last one kinda picked you up and left you hanging

Maverick Saturn: Apr 16th 2008; 7:28PM

No, first was good, second one started good but got gay when Nemesis joined the jedis to fight the forces of evil ¬_¬ and the third was a mixture of superman, dragon ball z and matrix, lol

Nigeria - MK: 0430-8491-9123: Apr 16th 2008; 7:44PM

Yeah, I hated that gay part in Resident Evil as well.

Multiple zombie penis ain't cool. It's not cool at all. They were just coming out everywhere. From all angles, non-stop. And the rubbing, remember that part Maverick? The worst part, I just remembered: the Zombie cum? That was horrible. It was all gooey and multicoloured and Jovovich was all like, "no, not my face, nooooo".

Oh gosh that was disgusting. So gay.

Maverick Saturn: Apr 16th 2008; 7:53PM

Dude, too much hentai :S

Maverick Saturn: Apr 16th 2008; 7:30PM

DOA is by far the worst game movie i have ever seen, heck its one of the worst movies i've seen, other then d-war, flying virus, bats and a heck load of other crap.

It was awful

NEVER WATCH DOA!!!!!

colin: Apr 16th 2008; 8:09PM

Hoodlum -- starring larry fishburne -- is one of the most horrendous hollywood feature films ever made.

sorry, but i double posted this a little bit down the line. sorry in advance

Poisoned Al: Apr 16th 2008; 8:42PM

Is it really that bad? I'm a big MST3K fan, so I know bad. I mean is it, "Manos: The Hands of Fate" bad? don't think there is a worse movie then that. Not that I've seen.

AoE: Apr 16th 2008; 9:27PM

Mavrick, I take it you're not a fan of the games then? I'm not going to argue that it's a great film because lord knows it's not. But really, it nailed the spirit of the source material quite well. You can't expect Citizen Kane when the source material is a fighting game whose chief selling point is boob physics, you know? And the movie had exactly everything you'd find in the game: Bad acting, a goofy yet fun storyline with terrible dialog, cheesy-bad special effects, boobies, halfway decent fight scenes (that actually took pains to use the correct moves/styles with the game characters) What's not to like? I mean as long as you go into it expecting something bad. But honestly, a movie based on the Dead or Alive franchise... reallly honestly are you going to tell us that you expected a good movie? really?!

ThornedVenom (Harley Quinn Defense Force): Apr 16th 2008; 11:40PM

Nobody watches or even plays DoA for the story.

Maverick Saturn: Apr 17th 2008; 8:58AM

Lol, thats the problem, I knew the that other then for fun, DOA the game is rather shite, but I half expected the movie to try to at least change that, make something good out of it, but instead, the movie was even worse then the games, I actually like the games now, THAT movie made me like a bad game! Yikes!

Goity: Apr 16th 2008; 7:32PM

Advent Children was pretty decent, though.

NitroFrost: Apr 16th 2008; 8:02PM

No its was Awesome.

ThornedVenom (Harley Quinn Defense Force): Apr 16th 2008; 11:42PM

It was visual orgasm, wrapped in a package of fanservice: since I hadn't played FFVII (yup, I'm tainted), I didn't really get what it was about.

Goity: Apr 17th 2008; 1:27PM

It's probably one of my favourite films, but you have to watch it multiple times to understand it fully. So glad I got it on DVD and UMD because of this.

Mr Khan: Apr 16th 2008; 7:33PM

But its cheating if they don't watch all of those horrid, formulaic Pokemon movies

If they were REAL movie masochists, they'd watch them all with that

Maverick Saturn: Apr 16th 2008; 7:36PM

Seen Mario movie, seen wing commander movie, seen silent hill, seen all i think.

Matt B: Apr 16th 2008; 7:50PM

Giant Bomb watching giant bombs??

What the Frack?!: Apr 16th 2008; 7:54PM

Speaking of Uwe Boll, don't forget to sign the petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/RRH53888/petition.html.

Lone Starr: Apr 16th 2008; 7:59PM

"We still have to admire the moxie required to even attempt such a project."

Pay me to watch these movies too and I will show you so much moxie, you'll float away.

Poisoned Al: Apr 16th 2008; 8:05PM

What about "The Wizard?" While it wasn't BASED on a video game, it was just a giant advert for Nintendo.

Poisoned Al: Apr 16th 2008; 8:06PM

Nm, just read the artical.

colin: Apr 16th 2008; 8:07PM

Hoodlum -- starring larry fishburne -- is one of the most horrendous hollywood feature films ever made.

AoE: Apr 16th 2008; 9:22PM

Wait, wtf?! You can get a joystiq story posted because you subject yourself to bad video game movies? Um... because honestly, i've watch every video game adaptation, not matter how bad, including yes every uwe boll film... and frequently (though usually not with uwe boll's work) in the theatre... Ryan's just a poser.

Schmobu: Apr 16th 2008; 9:35PM

strange I just finished watching a group of game based movies, even stranger that I watched Double Dragon first, not one of them was worth existence.

Kokomadeta: Apr 16th 2008; 11:06PM

I don't care what anybody says, I liked DOA. It was a fun movie that wasn't really meant to be taken seriously. Furthermore, I liked the second House of the Dead (it wasn't a Boll movie). I can't remember which other game movie I liked that people hated, but I know that there's another...

Obie: Apr 16th 2008; 11:22PM

Giantbomb is my new favorite gamesite....period.

ThornedVenom (Harley Quinn Defense Force): Apr 16th 2008; 11:43PM

I'm still waiting for that Street Fighter movie, although personally I'm more beefcaked about the DBZ one.

Exodus: Apr 17th 2008; 12:07AM

We can't forget the awfulness that was Mortal Kombat Annihilation...talk about terrible film making. You take the 2 best MK characters and give them a gay 1 min cameo...Scorpian and Sub-Zero. Add terrible costume designing (The robot costumes; aka Cyborg, Sektor, etc(they bend like metal shouldn't)) piss poor acting... and well I actually thought it was worse than the Street Fighter film with Jean Claude in it...don't even get me started with that film. Stupid American commando with a French accent.

rDr4g0n: Apr 17th 2008; 9:06AM

my brother and law and I have been discussing doing the exact same thing for the past year... we just never got off our butts and did it. He has never seen the mario movie, so we figured itd be a perfect opportunity for some candid shots of the disgust on his face when he sees what koopa looks like.

GearSecond! (aka AwesomeStuff): Apr 17th 2008; 9:11AM

Whats wrong with the Pokemon movies? :( They've gotten lots better in production through the years or are you guys just saying it sucks just because of the name "Pokemon" itself?

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