Video Game Movie Adaptions: The Guilty Pleasures

So we’ve seen the best & we’ve seen the worst…now we have the guilty pleasures! You know…the ones that others hate that you can’t help but love. The ones you won’t openly admit to enjoying but secretly have the DVD at home.

Here are mine…

Street Fighter: The Movie

Possibly one of my favourite ‘so bad its good’ film. Street Fighter makes me cringe at times, makes me laugh when I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t but most of all makes me cheerful when watching it.

The story goes like this, M.Bison is a warlord who wishes to control the world. He wishes to create an army of super-soldiers so gets Dr. Dhalism to turn Guiles mate, Blanka into a monster by showing him bad scenes (war, famine, the Twilight movies). Guile is not happy about this so with his army of supporting characters he fights back. Most of the Street Fighter lot are here in minor roles doing things that make no sense. It all ends happily with everyone posing in the strangest way ever….

Crazy movie, I mean really crazy but it has so many classic moments:

• Cammy played by Kylie Minogue announces her kick before she does it – “thrust kick”.
• Cammy’s accent changes 3 times, American, British & Australian!
• M.Bison played by the late great Raul Julia – from the ‘it was Tuesday’ comment to his ‘I’m a god’ speech. Fantastic!
• Zangief’s – “change the channel”.
• Sagat vs. Ken & Vega vs. Ryu – fun!
• JCVD’s acting as Guile is so bad, I mean it is awful beyond anything he has ever done.
• It has Simon Callow in it!
• Dhalism doesn’t stretch & Blanka is a total fail.
• Dee Jay is stereo-typed so much that it is uncomfortable.

What do you mean you haven’t seen it?! Get going!

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

A lot of people don’t like this movie, I have a serious soft spot for it. I mean for the time & money put into making it this movie is a joke (4 years – $137 million). Remove the name Final Fantasy & it fares so much better as a movie.

Set in the future, Earth is infested by alien creatures called Phantoms that can kill by touch. The remaining humans live in ‘barrier cities’ constantly battling for survival. A couple of scientists (one called Dr. Sid – see what they did there?) learned that by gathering 8 spirit signatures they can combat the Phantoms. In the search for the 6th the lead lady is infected & manages to annoy the bad guy who wants to combat the Phantoms by blowing them up with a super-cannon! In a state of unconsciousness she finds out that the Phantoms are ghosts of aliens brought to Earth by a fragment of their planet.

Eventually they find sprit no.8 but the man guy fires the cannon anyway. Much hilarity ensues…..oh wait I mean terror, much terror ensures but everyone lives happily ever after….. well almost everyone.

Ok you’re probably wondering why this one is in this section, it’s because I absolutely love the story. The whole spirit idea is fantastic & very Final Fantasy. It looks pretty good as well but it’s just dragged out so badly. Filling a cast full of famous voice actors is not the way to go, Alec Baldwin. Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, James Woods & Donald Sutherland would not have come cheap.

So see this movie but forget its anything to do with Final Fantasy.

Doom

One thing makes this movie stand out & it is the bit near the end when the camera goes all 1st-person on us & its just like in the game. The rest of the movie….well….

Set on Mars in the future a crack team of hard-men & The Rock go to find out why they have lost communication with the space station. They get there & find out there are lots of monsters, lots of people die & The Rock turns out to be a dick.

Err…that’s it.

The movie is your standard action heroes shoot shit & get killed but thanks to the video-game homage’s such as the BFG & 1st-person section it’s a movie you must see.

Double Dragon

Oh my god…. this film is a cheese-fest.

Set in the then futuristic setting of LA 2007, an ancient medallion called, you guessed it, Double Dragon has been split into 2. The main bad guy has 1 half & wishes to find the other half as it will give him great powers. Two young brothers Jimmy & Billy Lee’s master/sensei has the other.

Cue much fighting amongst bad-guys & good-guys leading to the big show-down. The best bit is when the brothers transform into matching uniforms but different colours…..just like in the game!

The dialogue….oh my god!

• “I just want total domination of one major American City! Is that too much to ask for? Is it? Is it? Huh?”
• “My whole life just flashed before my eyes! Dude, I sleep a lot. “Are you crazy? We almost wrecked our CAR!”
• “You think I’M bad, wait till you meet my lawyers!”
• “Your incompetence sticks needles into the flesh of my honour.”

It’s cringingly bad so you have to see it.

…and that is all I can think of. What ones are missing for you?