Video Game Movies to Watch After ‘Sonic 2’ This Weekend
With Sonic 2 in theaters, it’s a perfect time to have a video game movies marathon. This list includes some of the best and worst titles.
Rampage
Ryan Engle managed to turn an arcade game about city destroying monsters into a movie with an decent plot. Is it an Oscar caliber movie? No. Is it fun to watch with a tub of popcorn and some friends? Definitely. The Rock does his thing and Malin Maria Akerman makes a decent power hungry villain.
via Warner Bros.
Indie Game: The Movie
This award-winning doc follows some indie game devs as they release games they’ve invested years of time into creating. It’s an in-depth look at what it takes to create a video game without the support structure of a large company like Bethesda or Blizzard and really makes it clear that game design and programming is an artform.
Detective Pikachu
The plot doesn’t make a ton of sense and it can be hard not to think Deadpool has been mashed into a Pikachu, but that doesn’t make it any less of a fun ride. It’s got great visuals, some great comedic moments, and it’s really touching at at times. Good for kids and grown-ups alike.
via Warner Bros.
Edge of Tomorrow
Based on All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, this movie plays with the endless chances/lives you get in games by adding a time loop to its story. Aliens have invaded most of Europe and are trying to expand into more territory – little did they know they’d be fighting against a public relations officer with no combat experience (Tom Cruise). He takes advantage of a time loop to get good and figure out a way to defeat the invaders with the help of a war hero (Emily Blunt).
Resident Evil
The first and best of the expansive franchise keeps it simple. There are monsters. Everyone needs to run away from them to survive. Also: Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez kicking ass. Just don’t think about it too hard.
via Constantin Film
Free Guy
This super meta movie is great because of its cast and how it plays with its inside a video game setting. Free Guy definitely has it’s overdone fan service moments, but they mix in and don’t take over. Ryan Reynolds is Ryan Reynoldsy in the way we’ve come to love. Taika Waititireally steals the movie with his arrogant company owner, though.
via 20th Century Studios
Wreck-It Ralph
Wreck-It Ralph is tired of being the bad guy in his game. After decades of seeing all of the glory go to his opponent Fix-It Felix, he goes on a gam hopping journey through an arcade to prove he can be a hero. Fun for all and brings some classic video game characters along for the ride.
Avalon
From Ghost in the Shell director Mamoru Oshii comes this futuristic movie about an illegal virtual-reality game. The offline world is falling apart, and one of the most popular ways to make a living is playing Avalon. A woman named Ash loses her team and is pushed to on a solo mission to solve the game. It’s a live-action movie that was made in 2001 so it doesn’t have the best effects. Avalon has a solid story and a unique virtual world look, though.
Doom
Another Rock entry, but early career when he still had hair. This is a terrible movie with some shining examples of ugly CG from the era. Why am I including it? It’s a perfect bad movie to watch with friends and it passes the action test. I don’t suggest watching its sequels, they lose the charm. Doom‘s cast also includes Rosamund Pike and Karl Urban before they were household names.
via Universal
The King of Kong: Fist Full of Quarters
King of Kong is about what happens when you hitch your entire personality to holding a record. You will hate one or both of these men by the end of this movie. You may even grow to dislike Donkey Kong and Pac-Man over the course of its hour and nineteen-minute run time.
WarGames
The Cold War classic introduced the idea of computer hacking to the masses. And managing to be a decent anti-war movie. It changed the way the general populace looked at computers – they’re not just for word processing and Frogger. The premise even inspired the Reagan administration to take cybersecurity seriously and put more funds into the US strategic command and control infrastructure.
via MGM
Super Mario Bothers
It’s a movie that shares the name with a popular video game franchise. Beyond that, it is its own weird and slightly terrifying dystopian thing. I’m not sure what anyone on this project was thinking while working on it or how many different kind of illicit substances they were on.
