Top 5 video game movies that missed the point

The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time movie ignored almost everything that made the original game engaging, but it's hardly the worst offender in the genre. Dozens of video game movies have been made over the last two decades, and nearly every one of them missed the points of the franchises upon which they were based. The Mario Brothers became an Englishman and a Latino fighting an oppressive cyberpunk regime. The Mortal Kombat tournament became a slapfight with less blood than the original Super Nintendo release. Billy and Jimmy Lee brawling through the streets became the guy from Party of Five and the Chairman from Iron Chef America fighting the T-1000 over an ancient magical amulet.

Hollywood just loves to play long games of "Telephone" between a video game's concept and its movie adaptation. Here are the 5 video game movies that most completely missed the point.

5: Super Mario Bros.

The game: Two Italian brothers jump on turtles and eat mushrooms and flowers to fight a giant turtle dragon and save a princess. They climb vines and dive into pipes inexplicably scattered through a bizarre landscape filled with bricks, girders, and giant toadstool platforms as far as the eye can see.

The film: Two Italian brothers (played by an Englishman and a Colombian) find a magic rock that transport them to a parallel world where dinosaurs evolved into humanoids. There they fight the oppressive, vaguely corporate tyranny of the late Dennis Hopper.

How it completely missed the point: Super Mario Bros. is a very hard property to make coherent. It's like a weird Japanese version of Wonderland with wholly surreal themes and concepts. The constant mushroom references make it basically impossible to portray as anything but a vivid, drug-fueled hallucination. They could have at least tried to adapt the premise, though, instead of coming up with a half-assed pseudo-sci-fi plot that turned everything in the Mario games from colorful and whimsical to dark and creepy.

4: Doom

The game: A beefy space marine fights off hell-spawned demons on Mars' moon of Phobos. Big guns, hordes of nightmarish monsters, and blood as far as the eye can see.

The film: A beefy space marine and his motley crew fight off mutated zombies spawned from a weird genetic experiment on Mars. The beefy space marine then snaps and has to be killed by Dr. McCoy.

How it completely missed the point: Without any hell or demons, Doom is basically a generic zombie film in space. You might as well call it Resident Evil 4: Residence on Mars. Adding insult to injury, they took the only character with even a passing resemblance to the space marine from the game and turned him into the surprise villain. The movie needed far more blasphemy and far less face-heel turns.

3: Double Dragon

The game: Martial artist street toughs Billy and Jimmy Lee fight through a city to rescue Billy's girlfriend Marian from the evil Black Warriors gang.

The film: Two dorky martial artist teenagers in a bleak, dystopian future Los Angeles fight to keep their half of the magical "Double Dragon" amulet out of the hands of a megalomaniacal crime boss with mystic shadow powers. They then combine the amulet and become Ninja Siegfried and Roy.

How it completely missed the point: Double Dragon isn't about magic or dark future visions of America. It's a straightforward beat-em-up about two guys trying to fight a gang and rescue a girl. The movie added so many unnecessary and nonsensical elements that it became a parody of itself. It's the ultimate "so bad it's good" video game movie, because it goes so far off the deep end it hits China.

2: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

The game: A fighting tournament draws in the most talented martial artists in the world, including a Chinese Interpol agent, a Japanese karate master, an American special forces officer, and a psychotic crime boss-cum-dictator.

The film: Lana Lang from Smallville learns Kung Fu from Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat, and then goes on to fight a strangely Irish, business suit-clad M. Bison so she can avenge her father.

How it completely missed the point: Everything the first Street Fighter movie did wrong, The Legend of Chun Li did worse. No street fighting tournament. Only five characters from the games. A bizarrely homicidal and miscast Chun Li. A freaking Irish M. Bison. Combined with terrible writing, terrible choreography, and terrible acting, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li utterly failed not only as a video game movie, but as a movie, period.

1: Bloodrayne

The game: Curvy vampire woman slaughters Nazis and vampires.

The film: Slender Lady Terminator fights Gandhi and his army of vampires in an inexplicable Medieval setting.

How it completely missed the point: Nazis make great villains. Medieval vampires make boring villains (see: Underworld: Rise of the Lycans). Also, while Kristanna Loken is an attractive woman, she doesn't exactly have the natural assets needed to portray Rayne. On top of that, the movie is roundly horrible, which only makes the lack of bustiness and Nazis even more painful. How do you take something as simple and awesome as a busty vampire girl who kills Nazis and turn it into boring, uninspired, poorly directed garbage? Ask Uwe Boll, the punchline of all video game movie jokes.