Make the Case: Reviewing the 10 Worst Video Game Movies

What the hell, let’s do one more of these Rotten Tomato recaps for 2024. Cinematic video game adaptation trainwrecks like the recent Borderlands remind us in no uncertain terms that most video game movies and even TV shows remain, by and large, either bland and utterly pointless, or fascinatingly terrible. Where does Borderlands fall? Is it the worst video game movie of all time?

Nah. Not on my watch anyway. We’ll get to Borderlands, since its current Rotten Tomatoes score has the film sitting firmly in the bottom 10. That’s where we’re going to be hanging out this month, skipping the two lowest rated films in this article, for the simple fact that we did them like two months ago.

And god, we still have so much starchy German insanity to get through. The specter of the still-living Uwe Boll stands over us all. Certainly, it looms large among the contenders for the worst video game movies. I actually think there’s some sick charm in Uwe’s filmography, but we’ll get to that, too.

Using this article as our foundation, because once again, aggregate scores can be a fun conversation starter if nothing else, let’s take a look at 10 movies that certainly do come up a lot when we talk about the worst video games put to the big screen. If you think Super Mario Bros is as bad as it gets, you’re in for a fun weekend.

 

10. Street Fighter: The Movie (1994)

Director: Steven E. de Souza
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 11% (44 Reviews)

The Plot: Jean-Claude Van Damme takes a barrel full of cocaine, and then stars in this adaptation of the massively popular Capcom fighting game series. There are a few other plot threads running through this, beyond Van Damme as Guile in his bid to stop the maniacal M. Bison (Raul Julia at his glorious scenery-chewing best), but it’s mostly just a mess of trying to marry as many Street Fighter game references as possible to a pretty standard comic book action movie sort of story. The result is indeed a mess, with characters like Chun-Li, Cammy, Blanka, and others getting half-baked motivations and minimal screen time because there’s just too goddamn much going on here.

Is It Really That Bad? No, it’s not very good, but then and now, I think Street Fighter: The Movie is a lot of fun. Raul Julia’s villain performance is truly one of the best of all time, despite being trapped in a chaotic cash grab that’s poorly directed and written by Steven E. de Souza (Steven also wrote the screenplay Die Hard, so it’s all good). But I also think, without getting into anything as vapid as ironic enjoyment, Street Fighter: The Movie is extremely ridiculous and entertaining as a result.

 

9. Wing Commander (1999)

Director: Chris Roberts
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 10% (51 Reviews)

The Plot: Guys, what the hell is Wing Commander actually about? I rewatched this nonsense a mere three days ago at time of writing. I even discussed the film with my wife as it plodded across a story of a pilot (Freddie Prinze Jr) who must protect and deliver an encoded message during a war against a race of ruthless aliens. I really don’t remember 75% of this movie, save for the genuinely good scenes between Prinze’s sidekick Matthew Lillard and a fellow pilot and love interest named Rosie (Ginny Holder). Why couldn’t the movie have just been about those two?

Is It Really That Bad? Here’s the problem with Wing Commander. Matthew Lillard is pretty damn good in it. The movie seems to think so, too, because Lillard’s scenes and character makes up the only thing about Wing Commander that’s interesting or seems to have a focus. The rest of the movie is a weird mix of Star Wars and Top Gun, and it doesn’t do a very good job of emulating either of those things. Most of Wing Commander is a slog that feels as though it traps you in a single room with a group of mostly unlikable people. Wing Commander is just a series of scenes that are only technically connected. There’s no flow or pace to this. It just lumbers along. And then it’s over. How like life, I guess, which reminds me that I should probably find better things to do with my time than watch something as tedious and mediocre as Wing Commander.

 

8. Postal (2007)

Director: Uwe Boll
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 9% (46 Reviews)

The Plot: I guess Postal is a social satire about Al Qaeda trying to use a popular new kids toy to release a chemical weapon into the American populace. While this is going on, a loser from a trailer park (the underrated, endlessly likable Zack Ward) teams up with his cult leader uncle (Dave Foley, who can honestly say he’s funny in almost every comedy he’s ever done) to steal this kids’ toy. These plot points eventually crash into each other, by which the point Postal has thoroughly wasted your time with hateful characters, bad jokes, and a lot of gun violence. It shouldn’t work, and it doesn’t, but there’s no denying that Postal is at least memorable.

Is It Really That Bad? In my mind, it’s better to be bad than simply boring. Postal is living proof of my opinion, presenting itself as a movie that even I found to be pretty offensive, but there’s also a lot of truly crazed shit going on here. Postal packs a decent cast of actors like J.K. Simmons and Seymour Cassel picking up some easy paychecks, and these are actors who tend to be entertaining in most things. Watching them and the others, with some sincerely humorous chemistry between Ward and Foley that leaves you wishing they would just do something together, make the best of a movie no one could have imagined would turn out well is enough to make Postal a waking nightmare you must experience for yourself. Preferably with a few inebriated friends.

 

7. Hitman: Agent 47 (2015)

 

Director: Aleksander Bach
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 8% (131 Reviews)

The Plot: I haven’t played any of the Hitman games, but I sincerely hope they’re more fun than this movie was, a reboot of a film franchise that began and by all rights should have ended with a 2007’s Hitman. Hitman: Agent 47 sees our calculated, engineered contract killer going up against forces larger than the ones in his latest job, and that’s not a bad premise at all. It just never gets out of the gate. This is another movie that feels disjointed in its plot and pacing, and flat in every other regard, including performances and production design.

Is it Really That Bad? Yes, and it’s a bummer because the only thing that really makes this a bad movie is how overwhelmingly dull it is. Hitman: Agent 47 is so lacking in chemistry, style, or even sense of excitement in its dialog or mostly unremarkable fight choreography, it’s fair to wonder if someone is just messing with your head. This is a movie that feels like it was made by A.I., which in 2015 it most certainly was not. No one in this film is bad. The direction and screenplay are functionally fine. It’s just nothing that ever climbs to even a low tier of exhilaration. This is easily the dullest movie we’re covering this month. I got sleepy just typing out that last sentence.

 

6. Silent Hill: Revelation (2012)

Director: M.J. Bassett
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 8% (60 Reviews)

The Plot: Harry Mason and his daughter (Sean Bean and Adelaide Clemens) return for the second Silent Hill film that’s more of a grab bag of stuff from the entire video game franchise than a consistent adaptation of any one particular game. Even if straying from the source material doesn’t bother you, and as a general rule I don’t think it ever should, this movie’s wretchedly slow plot is further hampered by flat characters and very little of the visual intensity or special effects that made the first Silent Hill movie at least worth a look.

Is It Really That Bad? I really wanted to like this, despite going out of my way to not see this movie for over a decade. Far from perfect, the 2006 Silent Hill is nevertheless a solid horror film with a decent budget, some good performances, and some of the nastiest special effects made for a horror movie with a budget of approximately 50 million. This sequel, coming out a full six years later with very little momentum or enthusiasm, got a budget of roughly 20 million. It shows in a production that at least boasts a fun scene with Malcolm McDowell, as well as a visually strong third act, but doesn’t have a lot else to offer. Another movie whose greatest sin is just being all that interesting. Good luck caring about any of these people because I sure as hell didn’t.

 

5. Borderlands (2024)

Director: Eli Roth
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 10% (159 Reviews)

The Plot: I genuinely don’t know. I haven’t played these games, but I had an extremely vague notion of their plot and characters going in. As it turns out, I was mostly thinking of Fallout, which I also haven’t played. And I don’t think that really matters either. Borderlands is less of a movie and more of a series of proof-of-concept short film projects that kind of run together like a movie should if you watch it from beginning to end. There’s a bounty hunter (Cate Blanchett, with one of the worst accents I’ve ever heard), some other freaks and weirdos. I guess there’s a treasure of some sort? A girl with some powers? I just saw this, and I can’t remember anything.

Is It Really That Bad? It is, but I sure didn’t want it to be. A clear product of studio interference, the fact that Borderlands wrapped over three years ago is what we in the business call the sort of red flag you can see from space. I genuinely don’t think director and co-screenwriter Eli Roth is solely to blame for this irritating, dull attempt at cashing in on Guardians of the Galaxy.

A PG-13 rating also didn’t help. It made sense from a financial standpoint, but it guts the one thing Borderlands could have possibly had going for it. Some actual cinematic insanity. Instead of meager creative compromises and studio insecurity taking a movie filled with poor casting choices and terrible performances and destroying any potential it might have had. Jamie Lee Curtis in particular is dreadful, but Kevin Hart isn’t too far behind with the most pointless character in this entire wretched affair. It’s a misfire in every way, but the people who decided to take the movie away from actual creatives and hack it to pieces deserve the brunt of your anger.

Borderlands isn’t even a fun bad. It’s just bad, and it deserves to die a slow death in shame and obscurity.

 

4. Mortal Kombat Annihilation (1997)

Director: John R. Leonetti
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 4% (53 Reviews)

The Plot: Taking place immediately after the events of the 1995 Mortal Kombat blockbuster, Mortal Kombat Annihilation gets things off to a fun start by replacing most of the first movie’s cast with actors who almost universally give worse performances than those in the previous film. “Robin Shou deserves better” is a sentence you’ll say a lot, because the movie gets you hooked by killing off a beloved character, separating everyone for much of the movie, and not really stressing out over things like plot and character development. These things appear infrequently and are treated as a burden. It’s all just a series of fights to cheesy dialog and shockingly accurate costumes.

Is It Really That Bad? And the thing about Annihilation just being cheesy dialog and surprisingly accurate costumes is that this is ultimately fine. I didn’t hate this movie in 1997 (it wasn’t good either), and I don’t particularly hate it now. Silly, yes. Poorly made, arguably so. But it’s rarely boring and the overacting and wooden performances from our cast, especially a very fun Lynn “Red” Williams as Jax, is to the film’s benefit. It’s not great, but at least there’s some actual violence to be found here, and that’s carried many a bad movie.

 

3. BloodRayne (2005)

Director: Uwe Boll
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 4%

The Plot: BloodRayne borrows heavily from such works as Little Women, as both are ultimately stories about women trying to find themselves in an increasingly chaotic world. BloodRayne takes a slightly different path from the works of Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters by making its main character a half-vampire, throwing in a truly disturbing Meat Loaf performance, and adding some completely pointless, unsexy girl-on-girl eroticism for I assume Uwe Boll’s entertainment. Other than that, BloodRayne’s ties to cinema history and the foundations of classic literature are impossible to ignore.

Is It Really That Bad? In Uwe Boll’s defense, which is a fun sentence to write and say aloud by the way, anyone who was expecting a good movie out of a mediocre, albeit visually striking video game, might want to learn more about measured expectations and reasonable dreams. But even if you make this allowance, BloodRayne is still exceptionally and distinctly terrible. Bad writing and absolutely no sense of pacing or atmosphere take their toll on your sanity, but there’s also some sincere efforts by the cast, especially poor Kristanna Loken as our girl Rayne, to make this whole thing work.

I always love seeing good actors in trash, and to that extent, BloodRayne has a little shine for me. Sir Ben Kinglsey reciting dialog as though Uwe is pointing a gun at his head has minimal entertainment value. BloodRayne is bad, but it’s the spirited kind of bad more often than not. I think there’s some potential for fun if you’re willing to get higher than pterodactyl tits and call your friends.

 

2. In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007)

Director: Uwe Boll
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 4% (51 Reviews)

The Plot: After typing and deleting “Who actually gives a shit” several times, I guess I should just say In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale is a movie about a kingdom at war with various forces, including an evil wizard (Ray Liotta because sure, why not) and monstrous warriors known as Krugs. Jason Statham plays a seemingly simple farmer who is thrust into these various conflicts for reasons that are initially muddled, which then becomes stupid, and then circles back around to being muddled again. A Dungeon Siege Tale is quite possibly the worst written and plotted movie we’re covering this month. It’s a slog of lined up fight sequences, bad exposition, and dreary visual effects and production design.

Is It Really That Bad? This is the Uwe Boll that almost broke me during the recent rewatch. In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale is the only one I almost stopped watching halfway through. Which is a shame because there’s bits and bobs here that again, can be enjoyed under extremely specific circumstances. Watching Burt Reynolds seek deeper into depression before our very eyes is fascinating, and once again, we have Matthew Lillard putting his entire soul into making at least his scenes fun to watch. And they are. Matthew Lillard is a treasure, and the only particularly nice thing you can say about A Dungeon Siege Tale is that the outdoor locations are nice. So much so that occasionally you’re watching a movie that looks better than most Hollywood productions being released today.

 

1. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)

Director: Andrzej Bartkowiak
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 3% (62 Reviews)

The Plot: With a plot that feels more “Loosely inspired by someone who heard the plot of Street Fighter II in a crowded bar one night” than “Adapted from Street Fighter II the video game,” Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is a prequel story. A young Chun-Li (a very charming Kristin Kreuk) in searching for her missing father goes up against the notorious criminal lord known as Bison. The Legend of Chun-Li features a few other Street Fighter combatants, but most the movie is a pretty standard action crime drama about a group of ragtag heroes trying to defeat a massive force of evil. That’s fine, except for the execution of this concept on almost every level.

Is It Really That Bad? Is it bad enough to be the third lowest-rated video game adaptation on Rotten Tomatoes? Nah. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li has a lot of problems, but most of those problems come down to woefully poor casting choices with a plot and sense of style that rarely reminds you of its source material. What’s worse is that even if you pretend this isn’t based on the Street Fighter franchise, you’re still stuck with a soggy action drama that does pick up a bit as things go on, but nothing can save a dull script and lifeless fight choreography.

Even when The Legend of Chun-Li gets something right, such as a couple of brutally effective scenes with Neal McDonough’s Bison, or by simply casting the late, wonderful Michael Clarke Duncan in the role of Balrog, there’s a lot of bullshit waiting to pull those brief explosions of joy back down into Hell. Once again, Robin Shou, here in the role of Chun-Li’s mentor Gen, deserves better.

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