Videogame Bits: Street Fighter Alpha (1995)

By Terry Cleveland

I didn’t quite know what I was in for when I sat down to watch Street Fighter Alpha. My thought was, “hey I like Anime and video games. How bad could it be?” The answer: absolutely awful, and then some.

Videogame Bits: Double Dragon (1994)

By Terry Cleveland

Double Dragon starts out with two brothers, Jimmy (Mark Dacascos) and Billy (Scott Wolf) who happen to be martial artists and douche bags. The brothers find themselves stuck in a plot to control New Angeles City, with the help of an ancient medallion split into two pieces (like the wonder twins), perpetrated by a Vanilla Ice look alike with a lot of money (Robert Patrick aka Liquid T-1000 from Terminator 2).

Videogame Bits: Super Mario Bros (1993)

By Terry Cleveland

I’m not sure how or why anyone could possibly think that there should be a movie based on a platforming video game about a plumber who jumps on dinosaurs. I’m also not quite sure what was going on or how it was related to the Mario franchise during the film, but I liked it.

Videogame Bits: Resident Evil (2002)

By Terry Cleveland

Zombies, guns, and nudity are usually good things when you throw them together in a movie, but unfortunately this not the case with Resident Evil. For some reason the style of horror is next to nothing like the games, which have a more methodical style.
The movie starts out with a depiction of the Umbrella Corporation who it turns out manufacture biological weapons and other assorted nasty things. The scene then shifts to a typical day at an Umbrella Corp. lab where various people are going to work and getting ready for the day. Then in a typically cliché fashion somebody decides to release a horribly infectious zombie virus (T-Virus) into the ventilation system and ruin everyone’s day. After some fun movie fatalities we finally get to the main character Alice (Milla Jovovich) who wakes up naked in a shower with amnesia (surprise!). She then meets up with an elite team of soldiers, who were sent to investigate the outbreak, and three civilians (Michelle Rodriguez, Eric Mabius, and James Purefoy ). The rest of the movie is then dominated by matrix-esque slow motion action sequences bathed in industrial metal music, and a boring plot involving a rogue AI. There also is a half-assed attempt to establish a hazy conspiracy involving Alice’s memories, but it is overshadowed by the obvious reliance on future installments in the series to fill in the holes.
One of the main reasons that the adaptation missed the mark so badly was the focus on action instead of survival. Normally this would be ok in a Hollywood movie, but when it comes to Resident Evil one of the most frightening aspects of the game is the uniquely savage breed of survival, where even as a player you are never sure if you will make it to the next room. The movie is definitely about survival, but more emphasis is placed on the hot ass kicking protagonist, than the actual atmosphere of the source material.
My impression of this movie was that the person(s) in charge of the production had either not played any of the Resident Evil games, or had and simply chose to say “fuck it, let’s just add some metal music and slow motion fight sequences”. I’m not saying that it was all bad though; there were definitely some recognizable references to the games, and a great scene where one of the characters gets cut into cubes of meat by a laser defense system, but these were not enough to salvage what little there is to this movie. Ultimately I’d rather play the games (even the bad ones) any day than watch this movie ever again.

2 out of 5 stars

© Terry Cleveland, 2011

Videogame Bits: Bloodrayne (2005)

 By Paco McCullough

A couple of years ago, I saw the legendary B-movie star Bruce Campbell talk about making movies. Among other things, he said that the more fun the cast a crew had, the worse the film is. If the cast and crew were miserable, they were probably making something worth watching. Everyone involved with Bloodrayne must have been having a blast, because it is easily one of the worst movies I’ve seen in a while. However, when actually watching the film, not even the actors look like they’re having fun.
    What plot there is involves a half-human/half vampire, Rayne (Kristanna Loken, the bad terminator from Terminator), attempting to kill her father (Ben Kingsley!), a vampire that raped her mother. She is joined by a trio of vampire hunters (Michael Madsen, Michelle Rodriguez, and Matt Davis) and they go on an adventure. There are too many nonsensical plot points and inexplicable fights to count. Two of my favorites: A monster whose head uncannily resembled a scrotum and a scene with Meat Loaf as a vampire with a harem of naked women. The script is not only clumsily written, it feels like the writers felt they needed to pad it with these random encounters.
    Other problems include laughable choreography and special effects, though the amount of blood used helped me overlook these flaws. In one of the most bizarre choices I have ever seen a director make, after the climax there is a several minute long flashback to what feels like everyone who was killed over the course of the movie. There is no purpose for it, and once it is over the film returns to the plot for a couple more minutes.
    Possibly the worst part? I kinda liked it. It was cheesy and bad in the way Syfy Originals are. Would I recommend it? No, but it is the closest thing to a trainwreck I have ever seen a film be. When it comes right down to it, I’d rather watch a complete disaster than an average bad movie (I’m looking at you, Transformers movies).

2 out of 5 stars

© Tanner McCullough, 2011

Videogame Bits: Mortal Kombat (1995)

By Paco McCullough

Videogame bits is a new feature where we discuss videogame movies. Over the next several months I will be reviewing one a week.
This week in videogame bits, I watched Paul Anderson’s (The Resident Evil one, not the Boogie Nights one) Mortal Kombat. I had fond memories of this movie, as I’m sure most boys from the 90s did. It had been years since I had seen it, and I found myself actually excited to see this film. Boy was I disappointed.
    Mortal Kombat follows three humans as the fight in a tournament to save the earth from the evil Outworlders. If ten tournaments are lost, then the Outworlders will conquer earth and enslave all its inhabitants. At the start of the film, nine have already been lost, so a lot is riding on our heros. Somehow the writers managed to make heros that were not only cliched and poorly written, but also unlikable on their own merits. Even though I felt like I hardly knew Johnny Cage (Linden Ashbey, who has had no other major roles to speak of), I still found him incredibly unlikable. If you don’t care about the characters, then there’s no thrill when they’re put at risk.
    The story takes up far too much time, which would be a problem even if it was good. Mortal Kombat is based off of a videogame where all the characters do is fight, yet only a small percentage of this movie is actually fights. Much more of this movie is talking about fights and the characters fears. I cannot emphasize enough how poorly written these scenes are.
    As for the fights themselves, they are competently done. None of these actors are comparable to Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Sonny Chiba, or any other professional martial artists. Despite this, the fights are decently choreographed, although there is an absurd level of backflips that take place. Nearly all the action is bloodless, which as a fan of the games, I feel is counterproductive. Considering how violent the videogame Mortal Kombat was, I am confused as to why they chose to make a tame PG-13 flick. The only thing the two properties seem to have in common is their overall level of campiness.
    There are certain enjoyable things about this film. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa seems to be the only one in on the joke, chewing the scenery as the evil sorcerer Shang Tsung. The cheesy techno score is laughable in all the right ways. Mostly though, this movie is not worth your time or energy. If you are interested in a Mortal Kombat viewing experience, check out the highly superior web series.
2.5 out of 5
© Tanner McCullough, 2011