 When it comes to doing a 'Mortal Kombat' film "right" (in my opinion), you need a few key ingredients to mix into your fatality fudge cake. You'll want a generous helping of blood and gore, a few sprinkles of one-liners from the game, plenty of recognizable fight moves, the appropriate characters, and make the tournament take place in some kind of grand arena. The only thing I felt like I didn't get here, however, was that final ingredient.
The film opens in feudal Japan, where Bi-Han, aka eventual Sub Zero (Joe Taslim), and his Lin Kuei assassins attack their rival ninja clan, Shirai Ryu, including the wife and son of Hanzo Hasashi, aka eventual Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada). Bi-Han emerges from the fight, triumphant, but misses one member of the family; Hanzo's infant daughter. This is when Raiden (Tadanobu Asano) shows up to rescue the child and take her under his protection. As centuries pass, the Hasashi bloodline continues, and eventually falls to Cole Young (Lewis Tan); a former MMA champion, and no one we've ever heard of in any of the games. In my opinion, a somewhat bold move on their part, but an interesting one nonetheless. Cole, his wife, Allison (Laura Brent), and daughter, Emily (Matilda Kimber), are soon attacked by Sub-Zero, but they are intercepted by Special Forces Major Jackson "Jax" Briggs (Mehcad Brooks). Jax directs the family to Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) who has further information as to why Sub Zero is attacking them. Cole finds out that it all has to do with his birthmark, which turns out to be a mark several people have (including Jax), basically branding them to represent Earth Realm in a major tournament called "Mortal Kombat". Currently, the realm of Outworld is about to take it all, with only Earth to have to get through, so Sonya and Cole set out to find the Earth Realm Temple to prepare for the fight ahead. The character that is perhaps most worthy to mention through the film is probably Kano (Josh Lawson); a mercenary who Sonya makes a deal with to help them, and who also has a mark. He provides a lot of the comedy relief, but does so with a dark sense of humour that's very fitting for the film. However, I might suggest that most of the characters here are actually a little bland. We eventually come across Liu Kang (Ludi Lin) and Kung Lao (Max Huang) who add a little something as well, but I have to admit that I found these characters pretty one-note, and there just isn't quite the same charm we got from the '95 version. Call it a guilty pleasure, if you will, but I had a more fun time with the '95 film than I did here. However, this wasn't without its dark charm that lied elsewhere. For those of us who came here to see good fight scenes, complete with fatalities, we do get a fair share of it. When these fighters fight, it's quite a show, and they do a good job at not sparing us the blood we crave with a movie like this. Having said that, this did a much better job here with gore than the '95 version. So one could say that opinion between the two all depends on what you're looking for. If you want the R-rated blood and cuts, go for this one. If you just wanna have some nostalgic fun, go with "MK 95". They're both in the realm of "just okay", and neither is very mind-blowing, but there's no real reason for me to think they simply can't be enjoyed by fans. At the end of the day, it's 'Mortal Kombat', and it was never to be taken too seriously. I found that I enjoyed this, but it wasn't without a few things I really didn't like. The thing that stood out the most to me was, I'm sad to say, Sonya's character. She could have been a bit more interesting, but they mostly just use her for reaction shots, and to give exposition about the tournament she's been researching. It didn't help that the camera was constantly flipping over to her for no real reason. One could make a drinking game out of all of the "Sonya reacts" shots. Her reaction is always the same, deadpan look too. To be clear, I don't blame the actress, it seems to be bad direction and bad editing combined with just giving her nothing to do, at least not until the very end, which even then provides no surprise as to where she ends up. I liked a few of the Easter eggs scattered throughout the movie, and I enjoyed the tail end of it, but things are left wide open for a sequel that I wonder will even come to pass. If it does, it needs to be a bit better than this, perhaps actually taking place in Outworld as opposed to it mostly being characters from Outworld coming to visit us. A few things irked be just the same; for example a fight in the famous "Pit" that does not involve the uppercut/impaling fall. I thought it was a total waste. I might consider that a personal nitpick but WHY have the Pit if you're not going to use it? Anyway, that aside, I think if I had to pick one to be "better", I might just stick to the '95 version, if only because I had more actual fun with it. But hey, if you're more of a gore hound, this might be the better route. All I know is this; at least this wasn't on the level of 'Mortal Kombat: Annihilation'! 3/5
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 Well, I have some good news and some bad news to start this review with. Starting with the bad news, I must beat the dead horse once again by stating that I know pretty much nothing at all about the 'Monster Hunter' games. In fact, I'm so "under a rock" with this, that I'm not sure I'd even heard of it before the release of this film - which I honest to God thought was about to be another 'Resident Evil' movie with the first few glimpses of Milla Jovovich doing actiony stuff. Well, it's not, but being that it's directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, it might as well be.
Now, as for the good news, the idea of me not being familiar with a movie based on a video game franchise ends with this (at least for the time being). I'm sincerely hoping they try to focus more on trying to perfect bigger video game titles. Getting these stories and characters right over the years has been a huge problem, and the way Marvel films have opened up the cinematic world with perfected CG and a good budget backing them, there's no real reason the same can't be done for video game movies. But I digress, as I'm here to once again review this with no real bias about it either way. The film opens in an interesting world where sailing ships crash over seas of sand. In this world, humankind coexists with a whole whack of monsters of all shapes and sizes (mainly extra large), and we find a Hunter (Tony Jaa); someone trained to hunt and kill monsters, gets separated from his team upon the sudden attack of the Diablos - huge, horned, hungry and subterranean. We also meet the Admiral (Ron Perlman) here, who will make his main appearance much further into the movie and potential spoiler territory. But I will admit that I find Ron Perlman is an actor who always adds a good dash of brutish fun to just about anything he's in. Meanwhile, back on Earth, U.S. Army Ranger Captain, Natalie Artemis (Milla Jovovich) and her team on in search of a missing team of soldiers in the desert. Suddenly, there's a brutal storm that pulls the soldiers through a portal to this monster world, where the team finds themselves face to face with the likes of gigantic creatures, straight out of their nightmares. Eventually, Natalie manages to meet the Hunter, and together they try to navigate this world to get him back to his team, and her back home to Earth. So for the most part, this ends up being a survival movie, and it's not without a bit of imagination, and a LOT of great action. Once again, I'm incredibly far-separated from the game series, and even Googling seems to offer quite a variety of titles. But the gist of it is that the first game was released in 2004 for PS2, and provides a fantasy/action role-playing experience where you take control of a Hunter and, well, hunt and trap monsters. If anything about that is wrong, feel free to correct it in the comments. But either way, other than 'FFVII', the RPG thing was never really for me, so the idea that I missed out on these isn't entirely shocking. But to think that I hadn't heard of it until this movie release does say a lot about how much I really game (as do all the reviews that say I'm unfamiliar). For the most part, audiences seemed to turn their back on this one. While I certainly didn't hate it, I can understand a few reasons as to why. First and foremost, the fans of the games (and this will come as no surprise) complain about it being too far apart from the games (a lot like 'Resident Evil'). But on top of that, this is a good example of an action movie that just kind of "goes" right from the beginning with not a whole lot of explanation about things. This is one of those "all style, no substance" movies, in which everything about it looks great, and it can be a fun action ride if you let it be. But if you're looking for anything with mood or even any real feeling other than "HOO-RAH!", you might be out of luck. I had fun with this, but only as eye candy, as Paul W.S. Anderson keeps pulling off. But he DOES need to do better with story, characters, plot, dialogue, and everything else that isn't action. 3/5  Truth be told, I would consider myself a "non-fan" of Pokémon. Don't get the wrong idea though. I have no problems or issues with Pokémon or anyone who's into it. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that I feel like their fan-base is one of the nicer, less toxic ones, unlike some of the stuff I'm into like 'Star Wars' or 'Game of Thrones', where fans go off like dynamite if something isn't to their liking. I'm sure fans here can do the same, but from my perspective, it's far less noticeable.
When I first saw this, I wanted to experiment and pay close attention as a non-fan to see if I could get anything out of it. And the truth of the matter is, to my surprise, I actually got quite a lot out of it. In fact, this is kind of the perfect Pokémon movie for someone in my shoes. I know just enough for a beginner's pop quiz on the subject, and this does a very good job of not only unveiling their world, but going a direction with it that works for a mass audience. We're introduced to Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) and his friend, Jack (Karan Soni). Jack is keen on getting Tim back into hunting and training Pokémon, since he gave it up. While trying to catch a Cubone (which we even get a glimpse of a history on with a couple of seconds of dialogue), Tim receives the news that his Father, Harry, was killed in a car accident Cliché. This leads him into Ryme City; a place where Pokémon society and Human society have become integrated , so that he can collect his Father's assets. Ryme City has an equal rights subtext to it where Pokémon aren't hunted, but work with humankind instead,, and it works very well. Pokémon aren't "pets" here (so to speak) so much as partners. It's neat to see how some of them work too. For example, Squirtles work with the fire department, which makes perfect sense. Anyway, it's here, he eventually meets Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds), and is miraculously able to understand him. Pikachu reveals that he has amnesia, and the last thing he remembers was working a case with Harry when the car accident happened. It's further revealed that Harry might very well still be alive, and the film turns into a search for the truth behind that, blended with the investigation of a mysterious gas known only as "R" that makes Pokémon go mad. The first thing that jumps out to me with this film is the animation style. Although anything I know about Pokémon was learned through a little bit of word of mouth, and about two months worth of playing 'Pokémon Go', these characters were instantly recognizable (at least those I knew about) and looked pretty much exactly as they should. Although Pokémon have always been cute, the animation here makes you wanna reach through the screen and pet them, or cuddle them. Whatever the case may be, they're cute as hell, and Psyduck, was able to give me quite a few genuine chuckles. But it also gets a bit dramatic here and there, marking the film with some genuine heart as opposed to it being just a noisy mess of strange creatures (which it totally could have been). Other than the awesome animation, comedic and dramatic moments, the big question is "can a non-fan walk away from this movie, still enjoying it?" I'm gonna go ahead and say yes. Even if you know nothing at all about Pokémon, if you just watch and pay attention, you do end up getting a sort of crash-course about the whole deal in the first act of the movie. As the movie goes on, you develop a little tiny bit of an education on some of them as well. For example, going back to the Cubone, I didn't know the skull was supposed to be the head of their dead relative. Or when it comes to Psyduck, I didn't know that he exploded under extreme stress. These may be painfully obvious things to fans, but bear in mind that I'm still pretty much blind to about 80% of it all. I know the very basics of hunting, catching and training, and I can recognize a handful of their faces. I really don't know for sure how the hardcore fans have taken to this movie since its release. A lot of them seem to overlook this and stick with their hunting. But with that said, and going against the grain of several other reviewers, I might go so far as to say that this film was actually made more for the non-fans, while the regular fans are there more to appreciate a lot of the Easter eggs hidden throughout it. I never actually got lost in this, and everything that was necessary to explain seemed to come through. In the end, I think this is one of the best video game based movies out there. Will fans disagree? Sure. But this a great way for fans to get non-fans to dip their toes into that Pokémon water. 4/5  Let's face it. A good video game-based movie is hard to come by. If it's trying to be more like the game, it doesn't translate to screen very well, and if it does it's own thing, it's not close enough to the game. To create a video game movie is always a gamble with a double-edged sword. Unlike a lot of the games these films are based on, you just can't seem to win. However, in my personal opinion, 'Tomb Raider' here seems to have found a happy middle ground, and I'll even gives a bit of hope for the genre.
Based on the game of the same name (the more modern one, anyway), this film brings in a new Lara Croft (Alicia Vikander). As we see things start off, we learn a bit about this new Lara Croft who happens to be a far cry from Angelina Jolie's interpretation. She boxes in her spare time, stays fit, and takes on challenges that test her limits. Namely this is with a "fox hunt", where Lara is on a bike with a tail attached to it, and she is chased through the town of London by other cyclists trying to grab the tail. A neat idea to show off her potential as a badass, but it doesn't entirely fit with the familiarity of 'Tomb Raider'. I did have that twitch early on and assume that the rest of the movie was about to suck. Gladly, I was wrong. Lara is meant to declare her father dead, after his missing for seven years. She takes what her father leaves her in his will, and it turns out to lead her to a secret room consisting of files and documents on Himiko - a supernatural Mother of Death that her father chased after with the hopes of bringing his wife, Lara's mother, back to life. Long story short, instead of destroying it all like her father asks in the will, she uses it to try to track him down. Lara then finds herself racing against an organization called Trinity who wants to weaponize Himiko's power. So fairly typical of this type of film. It's always a race. It's once she reaches the island that the film takes off in a lot of positive ways though. I enjoy that they made Lara fallible here instead of just an automatic badass who knows exactly what she's doing, as the Jolie interpretations would portray. There's a sense of danger, and she gets lucky a LOT of the time. As iffy as this sounds, what that lends itself to all of her cliff-hanging, climbing, running, jumping, trap-avoiding and even puzzle solving that you want to see, translated from the games. In the end, this is a new Lara Croft story, with no direct basis on any games, rather than the updated persona. The character is believable as both a video game and movie hero that you can route for, and it's my opinion that some game-based adaptations can come in with this idea in mind. For example, I wouldn't want to see a 'Last of Us' movie because the game is pretty much it's own movie, and it's got a great story behind it that doesn't need to be touched. But, there's no reason a new and different story can't exist from someone else's perspective, still involving the main characters and keeping the spirit of the game in mind... Like 'Last of Us 2' (they really shouldn't make that movie). It has a bit of a slow start, and a lot of the action sequences are unbelievable as they are. But hey, you can't tell me a lot of the stuff in the game isn't as unbelievable. Just keep in mind this isn't big-breasted, posh badass Lara Croft. This is athletic, brave woman who faces her fears Lara Croft - honestly, the type of Lara I'd prefer. She's a little more humanized here. I probably enjoyed this more than most, but as far as game adaptations go, even if you don't end up loving it, I'd definitely claim it to be one of the better ones. 4/5  My overall experience with 'Warcraft' is minimal at best. I never did delve into the whole 'WoW' thing, and the only chapter I really ever played was 'Warcraft 2' back in the late 90s... with all the cheat codes because I was ridiculously impatient with strategy games. "Every little thing she does", "Make it so" and "Glittering prizes" were my personal favourites (alternatively, "all upgrades and infinite mana", "speed up", and "10,000 gold, 5000 lumber, 5000 oil"). Yeah, much like my experience with the 'GTA' game series, it was something I didn't so much "play" as mess around with for fun.
However, getting to the review, this was a project announced ten years before its release as a collaboration between Legendary Pictures and a then controversy-free Blizzard Entertainment. By the time of its eventual release, however, some fans weren't exactly chomping at the bit anymore, and the film underperformed at the domestic box office, receiving the unsurprising bad reviews one pretty much expects at this point from a video game-based film. It did, however, do very well worldwide, which goes to show that 'Warcraft' has some real international reach. In fact, it currently stands as the highest-grossing video game adaptation of all time, despite its American flop of a release. Story-wise, the main focus has a lot to do with the Orcs ('Warcraft' orcs, not 'Lord of the Rings' orcs), as we're introduced to Durotan (Toby Kebbell) and his pregnant mate, Draka (Anna Galvin). The couple are facing a blight on their kind, caused by a force known as fel magic - a dark magic used by the orc warlock, Gul'dan (Daniel Wu). Using this magic drains the lifeforce from Gul'dan's prisoners, and the orcs, forming the Horde, use it to form a portal to the human world of Azeroth to find more victims. Protecting the land of Azeroth are King Llane Wrynn (Dominic Cooper), brave fighter, Anduin Lothar (Travis Fimmel) and wizard, Medivh (Ben Foster). Before long, with his growing family, Durotan shows growing concern about the future of his homeworld of Draenor. He eventually concludes that the only way to stop things from getting worse is to form an alliance with the humans.That's basically the short version, and knowing so little about 'Warcraft' other than what cheat codes come in handy for 'Warcraft 2', it's hard for me to conclude whether or not there's any accuracy to any of the storylines within any of the games. But from my perspective, I honestly didn't mind this one, with the exception that if feel it does move a bit slowly, when the story is simple enough. I think for me, what it comes down to is all around design. They didn't try to make things "dark", or try too hard to make it look like something normally medieval. When you look at the orcs here, they definitely have the right look, but more to the point, even the human armour is... I don't want to use the word "cartoony", but let's just say a suitable match of accuracy, at least, if memory serves correctly. I also like that this is something where we see the orcs as both bad and good, and the humans as, well, human. Things are pretty neutral here, and that's always been something I've enjoyed in film. So to conclude, I like it fine. It's perfectly passable. Nothing I'd rush back to, but I'd be happy to see what various fans (many of them personal friends) think of it. 3/5  So far, on this list of video game flicks, the one that stands out as best overall (at least for yours truly) has been 'Silent Hill'. There's a certain dark, horrific beauty to it that I couldn't help but admire. And while it may or may not be reminiscent of the game for fans, it totally works on its own as a simple, mind-bending horror movie. In other words, you really didn't need the game to enjoy it - all the stuff that needed to be there was there; not the least of which was a brilliantly eerie soundtrack (perfect for Halloween).
But now we take a look at the film's sequel; a somewhat convoluted mess that I almost feel like I should watch again before reviewing it, because it was kind of confusing, but I don't want to, so here we are with a somewhat half-assed attempt. So, some years after the events of the first film, Christopher Da Silva (Sean Bean) and his adopted daughter, Sharon (Adelaide Clemens) find themselves on the run, assuming different identities; prominently, in this film, Harry and Heather Mason (I will keep calling them Chris and Sharon for purposes of recognition). Now for those catching up, we know Chris and Sharon from the first film, and as far as we know before going into this, they remain somewhere in Silent Hill - so IS this the real Sharon? While Sharon is convinced that their running has to do with Chris being in trouble with the cops, Chris knows better that it's actually a cult from Silent Hill known simply as "The Order". Now, the standard 'Silent Hill' story tends to involve someone venturing, or being taken into the dark world of Silent Hill, and another venturing in after them. In this case, the Order kidnaps Chris, and Sharon heads in to find him with the help of one, Vincent Cooper (Kit Harington). Maybe it's just my ADD at work, but pretty much around the time the Silent Hill stuff starts to go down, that's where things started to confuse me. This was a film that I found to be a jigsaw puzzle pieced together wrong. It consisted of all the right pieces, but it get to be too much for a plot that should be about as basic as the first. If you're in the mood for a lot of disturbing imagery that borders on torture porn, however, this could be pretty ripe for the picking for you. That's one thing I'd say the movie did really well - the atmosphere of the first film is still ever present, and that includes the soundtrack that I so praise. So as far as the mood goes, in my humble opinion, the film nails it. There's also some pretty great usage of practical effects to add some of that real "meat" to things. All in all, the film is successfully creepy, and uses various stars to its advantage like Carrie-Anne Moss and Malcolm McDowell. Who do they play? No spoilers, but if you need to know, here's this. The film unfolds with some mystery and intrigue, but I personally had a tough time with it. While certain aspects of the film are done really quite well, other things are either confusing or even sort of redundant. I mean, we have a character going into Silent Hill looking for another character while the story tells some kind of horrific history in the town, for some reason always involving a little girl. And I think that's where the film really drops the ball; it's sort of more of the same, and the cool, gruesome, horrific imagery just isn't enough to save it. In my mind, I'd say stick to the first one, as it just plain works as its own horror movie complete with a twist ending. This, while I wouldn't consider it trash, is a bit more or a spectacle than a good story. Who knows, it could make for a guilty pleasure for the Halloween season. 2/5  We all know that this is one of those movies that has gone down in cinematic history as something very "white-washed", and I'd like my audience to know that this is not something I'm about to touch with a ten-foot pole. It's a film that's old enough that by now, it's out there, and it can be used as some kind of educational example. I also don't pretend to know anything about these games, namely the one that share's the film's name, and I don't know how accurate things are (I know, surprise, right?). But I will admit something, cards on the table right now. Honestly? I actually enjoyed this.
For a little history, let's turn to my homework on the 'Sands of Time' game. It's a third-person puzzle platformer that follows an unnamed Prince who's father attacks an ancient city. During this, the Prince finds the "Dagger of Time" and his father finds an hour glass containing the "Sands of Time". The Sands are presented as a gift to the Sultan of Azad, but a traitorous Vizier tricks the Prince into releasing the Sands, which in turn transform the townspeople into monsters the Vizier is able to control. The adventure involves the Prince, along with the Sand-educated Farah to set things right, and the game was released to critical acclaim, especially when you could use your dagger to rewind time and fix your mistakes. The film introduces us to a white boy named Dastan (William Foster) who lives on the streets in Persia, playing 'Aladdin' in his spare time (no, seriously, watch this opening and tell me it's not ripped out of 'Aladdin'). He stands up to some captors after trying to steel some fruit, and impresses King Sharaman (Ronald Pickup) who adopts him. After fifteen years, the King's princes; Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal), Tus (Richard Coyle) and Garsiv (Toby Kebbell) are given the news that the city of Alamut is forging weapons for Persia's enemies. This attack is what leads Dastan to the dagger mentioned in the game description. Alamut falls, and Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton), realizing Dastan holds the sacred dagger, agrees to marry Tus in order to unite their nations... makes sense. Anyway, this eventually leads to the death of the King, Garsiv accusing Dastan of murder, and Tus being appointed King, setting a bounty on the heads of both Dastan and Tamina. So it pretty well ends up being an "on the run" adventure movie, and the adventure and action here is actually pretty solid. There's more to the overall plot that involves actors like Ben Kingsley, but I could be here forever unfolding plot point after plot point. The key factor here is that the film, though containing elements from the game, is not the same story. This is always something that I understand when it comes to criticism about video game movies. A movie has to work in a certain way where a game can jam more information into it. For example, I don't know the reason he's unnamed in the game, or if he's ever given a name, but it might have been pointless to have him nameless. I'm going to go ahead and imagine that as an adaptation of the game, it probably dropped the ball. But if the game never existed, and perhaps the white-wash fact wasn't a thing (I know what I said about touching the subject, but still) this could have just been the next fun Disney adventure flick. It's another case of all the right elements being there, but the execution leaves a little to be desired. Although I do enjoy it for what it is, it might be a good example of it being a good movie if it wasn't called 'Prince of Persia'. This is more a matter of me being disappointed for fans of the established and very well received game. But perhaps it can be used as an example of why we really don't need a 'Last of Us' movie? Anyway, for me, passable. For others, I totally get it if it's not. 3/5  Some of you may recall my review on 'Street Fighter'. While I only gave it a 2/5, I admit, pretty openly, that it's one of my favourite video game movies in existence, due to how much of a guilty pleasure it is. One can tell that it's not taking itself too seriously, and as a result, things get pretty ridiculous and it's actually a lot of fun in the right frame of mind. But then we have this; an apparent tie-in with the far less familiar (to me) 'Street Fighter IV'. If you don't like the original film, compare it to this, and it might as well be 'Schindler's List'.
This apparent spin-off of 'Street Fighter IV' (at least as far as characters go) tells us about popular 'Street Fighter' character Chun-Li's origins. As a kid (Inez Yan), she moves to Hong Kong with her family. She studies to be a concert pianist, and learns the art of Wushu from her father, Xiang (Edmund Chen). One day, the family is attacked by two members of the shady criminal organization, the Shadaloo; M. Bison (Neal McDonough), and Balrog (Michael Clarke Duncan). They kidnap Xiang, haul him away, and the next time we see her, she's grown up (Kristin Kreuk) and has since become a skilled pianist after all these years. At the end of a concert in which she performs, she is given a mysterious scroll. We don't quite know what its about, but just to add to the drama, Chun-Li also loses her mother to cancer. In the meantime, we have two different stories going on that really like to drag us away from Chun-Li. On one side, Bison plans to control the Shadaloo organization, and we see him get his henchman, Vega (Taboo of the Black Eyed Peas) to kill one of the shareholders. We also see that Xiang is now working for him. On the other side of this coin is Interpol agent, Charlie Nash (Chris Klein, in one of his best overacting roles ever) and detective Maya Sunee (Moon Bloodgood... shit that's a cool, vampiric sounding name), Nash after Bison for quite some time now. Eventually, this all boils down to Chun-Li, of course, having to find Bison and rescue her father, with the... help? of Nash and Sunee. And listen, if I have that a little bit wrong, it's because I had a hard time paying attention. The film is narrated in such a soft and lifeless voice (which I believe is still Kreuk, but I'm not 100% on that) it's enough to make you want to sleep. The casting is also pretty ridiculous, and with Kreuk being cast as a Chinese woman, it has been accused of white-washing. To be fair, however, she is half-Chinese, half-Dutch, apparently, so I can find at least a bit of leeway there. But I'm only speaking for myself. Having said that, she's a fine example of a time the original film did much better casting for the character with Ming-Na Wen. And speaking of that, the most ridiculous casting here has to be McDonough's Bison. The attitude is right, but the look, and the psychopathic expressions are missing that Raul Julia provided in spades. Neither of these 'Street Fighter' adaptations are good, but I can return to the original for a laugh and a touch of nostalgia, whereas there's nothing here for me... except Klein's overacting, which is hilarious. Some may recall that I once reviewed this for my "Film Negatives", and nothing has changed in my overall opinion. To put it bluntly, this is just terrible inside and out. Bad casting, bad acting, bad writing, bad execution altogether. This was another one that didn't last in theaters for any significant amount of time, and it's really no surprise. At the end of the day, I'd still highly recommend the 1994 film over this, even if the 1994 film is totally ridiculous. I stand by my opinion - one can still have a lot of fun with how goofy it actually is. This falls flat, and doesn't really recover, even in the guilty pleasure way. 1/5  Although there now stand three 'In the Name of the King' films, this was the only one to get any sort of theatrical release. Despite its all-star cast and popular video game-related title, the film ended up being a box office bomb, not even breaking the weekend's Top 10 upon its release. The film was critically panned left and right, up and down, and widely considered one of the worst video game adaptations of all time. This is also another one brought to us by Uwe Boll, marking his fourth video game adaptation... that's also not a typo, since I got the dates confused between this and his fifth, 'Postal', but here we are.
For those keeping track, it started with 'House of the Dead', and continued, in order, with 'Alone in the Dark', 'Bloodrayne', 'In the Name of the King' and 'Postal'. This means there's only one more in this collection for me to endure, and it's literally next on the list. But back to the film at hand, this is loosely based on the 'Dungeon Siege' action RPG games. There are similarities, such as the location, taking place in the fantasy world of Ehb, but this is a lot like that one time they tried to make 'Dungeons & Dragons' a movie. For a game with customisable characters, and no real characters to route for that we'd be familiar with, there's a lot of free reign, save for a few elements here and there. The one thing this really had going for it, however, was its star power, which manages to transform this into an absolute guilty pleasure. We meet a man known only as "Farmer" (Jason Statham), living a sunshine and rainbows life with his wife, Solana (Claire Forlani) and son, Zeph (Colin Ford). One day, a band of creatures known as the Krug (a primitive, animalistic race) attacks their town, and it seems iffy that they seem suddenly intelligent enough to be able to attack much like humans would. Revealed to the audience, they are being controlled by a magic user named Gallian (Ray Liotta) who wants to simply take over the Kingdom of Ehb. Farmer fights a battle against the Krug, alongside his friend, Norick (Ron Perlman) and brother-in-law, Bastian (Will Sanderson), but fails to save his son from being killed, and his wife, along with other townspeople taken prisoner. Coming in to survey the damage and try to recruit for his army, is King Konreid (Burt Reynolds), accompanied by Commander Tarish (Brian White), another magic user named Merick (John Rhys-Davies) and a small group of Ehb's army. Farmer, Norick and Bastian refuse to join, however, and they set off on their own to search for Solana, believing she is still alive. That's the main plot, but we also come across Merick's daughter, Muriella (Leelee Sobieski) who, once in love with Gallian, has noted his dark side, and believes herself to be the reason he's so powerful. Perhaps most odd, however, is Konreid's nephew, Duke Fallow (Matthew Lillard), who plots to one day take his uncle's throne. Now, think of Lillard being his typical whacky self, but with a bad English accent. It was... bizarre. Nothing against Lillard at all, but one must admit, him in a medieval film where he's not a jester doesn't feel like it fits. This is a film worthy of being thrown in the discount bin pretty quickly (and I think it actually was). It's a strange mishmash of big names, bad direction, and borrowing from all sorts of things, namely high fantasy titles like 'Lord of the Rings' with some of its sets and a lot of its atmosphere. It does, however, play out a lot more like 'Dungeons & Dragons'. The plot is pretty standard; girl gets kidnapped, hero must save damsel in distress. Beyond that, a lot of the performances are quite funny to watch, but not really in the right way. Perhaps most entertaining is somewhere between Ron Perlman's cheesy one-liners, and trying to take Burt Reynolds seriously as a king, when I've seen him as a pornographic director before. This one is a little bit harder to find, but it's worth checking out if you can. Don't get the wrong idea though. Uwe Boll still pretty much equals "Bad Movie". However, as I mentioned earlier, I can make this one of my many guilty pleasures. Another "so bad it's good movie" to show my friends and laugh at, doing the 'Mystery Science Theater' thing with it. Unlike pretty much all of his previous films I've reviewed, this is one I could see myself actually coming back to if I have some time and nothing else to do. On that note, I am pretty pleased that I only have one more Boll film on this list, and that's coming up next. Will it be his saving grace? Or is this guilty pleasure of a film the best I'm going to get? 2/5  Back in my PS1 days, there were two survival horror games that stuck out to me as potentially very good... if only I could get the handle of them. 'Resident Evil' was one of them, of course, owing largely to being the first game to give me a genuine jump scare. The other was the mind-bending and surreal nightmare that was 'Silent Hill'. It had an atmosphere with its gruesome imagery, lighting and dream-like, subtle soundtrack that I couldn't help but admire as what "horror" should be.
It's a bit mind-blowing to think that at the time, a game could capture some truly horrific material while a movie couldn't. The first game was '99, so horror was in a heavy phase of teen slashers. They were all basically some kind of 'Friday the 13th' ripoff taking place in a more real-world setting. 'Silent Hill', among other games, however, offered something more unique - perhaps being able to get away with it a little easier both graphically and, well, graphically. Whether or not I ever got the handle of 'Resident Evil' and its tank controls, 'Silent Hill' was one I wished I didn't suck at because I wanted to experience it as some sort of next level horror. I might add that it was also around this time I started getting interested in all the classic 80s slashers I missed. The film's basic premise is seemingly pretty similar to the first game, but borrows elements as opposed to characters, all of whom are original for the film. I offer the movie credit for that, as it can be a self-contained story and doesn't really have to follow much of the game's original plot. In the argument of introducing us to Cole in the new 'Mortal Kombat', or Alice in 'Resident Evil', they interact with a whole bunch of characters we already know from the games, so you wonder where they enter into things. This, much like the games, is its own story, so even as a video game adaptation it sort of works either way. All they needed to do was add the right elements. Story-wise, this one opens with couple Christopher and Rose Da Silva (Sean Bean and Radha Mitchell, respectively) chasing after their daughter, Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) who just about sleepwalks her way off a cliff (filmed at my somewhat local Devil's Punch Bowl - in fact, much of this was filmed close to where I live, which is always pretty cool). She screams out the words "Silent Hill", and the parents wish they could figure out the connection between her and this mysterious location. Rose takes Sharon to find the town, which had since been abandoned due to a coal fire that continues to burn - based on the real-life location of Centralia, PA. Upon experiencing a car crash during a police chase from the seemingly shady officer Cybill Bennett (Laurie Holden), Rose awakens in the mysterious and abandoned ghost town with her daughter now missing. When Rose heads out to search for her, she soon finds herself in a hell on Earth where any time a loud siren goes off, trouble in its most terrifying forms are on their way. Along her journey to rescue her daughter, Rose further uncovers a mystery that may explain her daughter's connection with this Hellish town full of monster babies, twisty, bendy people, and a "Pyramid Head", who by the way offers up one of the most brutal deaths I've seen on screen - even if the effects are a bit dated now. Although I remain somewhat unsure of how this works as an adaptation, I think it's a title that can stand on its own very well as long as it's treated like its own thing, and not a direct adaptation of any of the games. Putting that aside, I would suggest that as a horror movie, this is something that does a good job of bringing that same horror magic I experienced with the first game to the big screen. When it comes to horror, I definitely have a thing for the twisted and unusual. A good horror movie has to mess with my mind, and this does manage that in several ways. It may not have done well critically, but this has its cult following of fans who suggest it's one of the best video game movies we have. I have to say, I couldn't agree more! While I still say that goes to 'Mortal Kombat', this was still at least objectively enjoyable as a horror movie. 4/5 |
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