Rule 4:
There Is No Rule Four!!
That's right. There are only three rules! All other rules are common with any other original (?) Hollywood movies. So, instead of another rule, let's just take a look at the video game movies so far. Hopefully we can find something worthwhile in one of them.

Movie Reviews:

# Double Dragon (1993)
Double DragonBased off of the 1980's arcade classic, and it's many sequels (and outings with the Battletoads), Double Dragon. The movie may be dull, horribly acted, and a pain to watch, but let's face it, it accurately portrays these characters, as well as their journey. Is it a good movie? Of course it's not, but at least it isn't stretching.

Entertainment Weekly says: "The popular videogame morphs into this futuristic fantasy about teen brothers (Wolf and Dacascos) who battle a power-mad zillionaire (T2's Robert Patrick) for possession of a magical medallion. At stake: the future of an urban wasteland once known as L.A. This irrepressibly action-packed adventure may be based on a computer program, but it gets its real kick from martial- arts acrobatics, comic-book-vivid art direction, and a future-shock vision inspired by The Road Warrior, Robocop, and Escape From New York. What 12-year-old could resist? B"

# Super Mario Bros. (1993)
Double Dragon Super Mario Brothers is the most perplexing game to movie (outside of runner up Street Fighter). I completely understand the reasoning behind the movie, but come on, there must have been a time when somebody said, "y'know, this might not work as a live action film". And boy it didn't. This movie is among the worst example of video game movies, as well as American movies in general. The cast is all wrong, the story is way out in left field, and you do not come away from it feeling anything but pure disgust. Avoid at all costs.

# Street Fighter (1994)
street fighterWhen it comes to avoiding bad movies, Street Fighter should be next on your list. While sporting a bright cast (including kicker Jean Claude Van Damme, singer Kylie Minogue, and the late Raul Julia in his final roll), as well as a sharp writer/director, Steven E. De Souza (writer of the Die Hards, Commando, and the original Knight Rider series), Street Fighter just can't get past the extremely preposterous story. And the acting really isn't very good either. It's an all out, horrible movie to witness.

Entertainment Weekly Says: "It's written with a crayon, directed with a baseball bat, and edited with a cleaver, but why should that surprise you: This incessantly violent, renegade-good-vs.-outrageous-evil action movie reflects the garish, militaristic, kick-and-grunt video game on which it is so calculatingly based. Jean-Claude Van Damme plays the death-defying smile-free hero; in his last big-screen role, a gaunt Raul Julia, bug-eyed with megalomania and overacting distressingly, plays the lord of darkness (or something like that) who must be destroyed. The whole production is so tinny that the few moments of humor stapled in-J-C threatening an army of gun- wielding bad guys in Darth Vader helmets with a puny hunting knife, say- seem even funnier than they would be if you didn't feel as though you were trapped all night in a video arcade with only 50 cents to blow. D"

# Mortal Kombat (1995)
Mortal Kombat It's not that Mortal Kombat was better than the rest of the video game movie ilk, it just did it with better style. Seeing these movies before it go down like a led zeppelin, Paul Anderson (not to be confused with Paul Thomas Anderson) opted to go the MTV route ... style over substance. The movie is awful, but will probably be looked at more favorably than it's ludicrous sequel. The story isn't too far off the mark, but at the same time, doesn't even come close. The best thing going for the movie is it's soundtrack.

Entertainment Weekly Says: "For a plot that essentially consists of a trio of hard-bodied good guys beating the stuffing out of a supernaturally evil army of bad guys, this contentedly empty-headed extended advertisement for the joy of joypads (filmed in cheesily ornate cinema de Hong Kong style) is notably free of blood and gore. And although director Paul Anderson treats the story with appropriate deadpan respect, there are enough sparks of humor (particularly generated by Linden Ashby as a shallow martial-arts actor who worries that he's a fake, with good reason) to amuse the adults accompanying the 10-year-old boys in the audience. The guys in the recording studio who made the ooofff! augghhhh! sounds are the ones who really had all the fun. C+"

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)
Mortal Kombat 2 Let's face it, they only made Mortal Kombat: Annihilation to make the original look like a work of modern art. To say that Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is the worst video game movie is a gross understatement! Some of the cast returns to do battle with characters people STILL don't care about. And to make matters even worse, they opted to completely rewrite the movie and not base it at all on the video game. This is only recommended if you are trying to commit suicide, and you need that extra push.

Entertainment Weekly Says: " It would be nice to report that there were a few exciting fight scenes within the abysmal incoherence. Alas, the hopped-up ninja battles are incoherent too. There are lots of special effects--in fact, too many. The monsters, liquid fireballs, and gelatinous purploid skies ooze by in a visually synthetic sludge. D-"

Wing Commander (1999)
Wing Commander After Mortal Kombat Annihilation you will need a good movie to wash it down with ... too bad Wing Commander is not that movie. Here we have Freddie Prince Jr (the cute one from Down to you) and Matthew Lillard (the cute one in Hackers) dueling over which is cuter in outer space. Both of the actors appear to have done all of there work in front of a blue screen, and they sound like they are reading their lines from cue cards (which wouldn't surprise me). The only reason this movie was made was to show off what special effects they are able to do now, and the only reason the movie made any money is that Fox put the Star Wars Episode I tailor before it. You will know the end of the world is near when the sequel comes out!

Entertainment Weekly Says: "A preposterously dull and labored hack job. It plops us into a ballistic space war in which the enemy soldiers remain a faceless abstraction (at least, until they're revealed to be heavily armored versions of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats) and the production design has all the future-shock splendor of a 26th-century airplane hangar. The two stars, She's All That's Freddie Prinze Jr. and Matthew Lillard, are encouraged to act like the last two college dorks in America who still fantasize about being Tom Cruise in Top Gun. F"

Make sure you check out the Entertainment Weekly Web Site, and make sure you subscribe, too. It really is a great magazine.

IN THE FUTURE
Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within In the future there will likely still be movies based on video games, but will they always be so bad? This year we will see both Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy within weeks of each other, though, both are set for completely different audiences. And then next year we will see a brand new Resident Evil film starring Mila Jovovich (Fifth Element). And will they ever release Doom? How about some of the other exciting licenses? Donkey Kong? Crazy Taxi? Strider?

Perhaps only time will tell.