Could 2018 Be the Year Where Video Game Movies Don’t Suck?

Ever since the early 90s, Hollywood has released a multitude of movies based on video games and they have been, for the most part, poorly received. Most of the time it’s usually due to either it’s massive detachment from the source material (i.e. House of The Dead, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li) or maybe it’s just simply terrible (i.e. Max Payne,Assassin’s Creed). The 90s saw a boom of these types of films thanks mostly to the Box Office success of the 1995 film adaptation of Mortal Kombat.

While there were films released before then, Mortal Kombat was not only the one that performed the best (at the time) but was better received by both critics and fans. Hell, it’s still regarded as one of the best Video Game based films today! Honestly, it’s not really hard to see why. Sure, the special effects are cheesy and the acting isn’t exactly the best, but it had some loyalty to its source material, a campy tounge in cheek attitude (which is sorely missed in today’s world), and, of course, the best 90s club song ever.

Ever since then, there was a short period of time where video game films were coming out frequently. The two most notable being Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and the Resident Evil franchise. The 2000s faced a series of colossal failures which included: Doom, Bloodrayne, House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, and more. Both Tomb Raider and Resident Evil managed to become the most successful at the box office at the time and (like Mortal Kombat) spawned sequels which (again, like Mortal Kombat) were not very well received.

The 2001 adaptation of Tomb Raider was (just like every video game based movie) lambasted by critics but, was not only better received by audiences but, managed to make $131 million at the box office making it still, to this day, the highest grossing movie based on a video game. As for the 2002 adaptation of Resident Evil, it went on to gross $40 million at the box office and spawned a financially successful franchise.

Those three: Mortal Kombat, Tomb Raider, & Resident Evil have been ragarded as either the best or least terrible of the video game based films. There were few films that have come close: Warcraft, Max Payne, Hitman, and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. But, sadly, most of those were bad films (I sort of liked Warcraft despite not being the biggest fan of its source material) that failed to reach the same financial success.

Now, with the 2018 reboot of Tomb Raider currently playing theaters (as of writing this) and getting by far the best reviews that video games movies have gotten, my question is: are we closer to finally having a good video game movie?

Honestly, yes. While I have marveled at the fact that (despite our current technological advances) we still manage to receive garbage like 2016’s Assassin’s Creed and 2015’s Hitman: Agent 47. The 2018 reboot of Tomb Raider managed to give me hope that we’re just about there. While it’s not exactly Casablanca or Schindler’s List, this version managed to stick to 2013 reboot it was based on while giving the role of Lara Croft to a very committed actress who could make her name as an action heroine.

I feel like most film critics nowadays are out of touch with millennials and the lack of a diverse selection of films hitting theaters (almost every movie that comes out is either a superhero movie or a Disney rehash) makes this a great time for a good video game movie to finally come to fruition.

With the current trend of the Rock making everything better (i.e. Fast Five, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle), I feel like Rampage is already better than his first foray into video game movies, Doom. Hopefully, it’ll at least be a fun monster movie that succeeds and kick starts a new trend where this type of film isn’t associated with awfulness.