![]() Wahlberg's stiff and unconvincing performance scored him a Razzie, forcing the actor to compete against himself, as he was also nominated for his turn in M. In his review, EW's critic described movies based on video games as "hollow, hyperactive FX-laden blowouts," adding that Max Payne "has the hollow part down pat, but there's nothing active about it." He's right in that the film is less an assault on the senses than a sleeping pill, with a series of "glum interrogation scenes" subbing in for the game's relentless gunplay. In 2008, a film adaptation starring Mark Wahlberg hit theaters, carrying over the game's story about a rogue cop in search of his wife and child's murderers. They were so impressed by it that they made the device one of the central gameplay components of the popular 2001 shooter, which went on to spawn a pair of sequels. Like everyone else, the developers of Max Payne were impressed by The Matrix's popularization of "bullet time," a visual effect that offers the impression of time slowing down to help facilitate a multitude of perspectives. Still, they were created using practical effects instead of CGI, so there's something oddly endearing about them. In the games, they were a race of refined, feline-like aliens, but in the film, they're hairless, blubbery, clunky blobs. On the bright side, the costumes for the movie's villains, the Kilrathi, are laughably adorable. When they arrived on set, however, they were given an entirely new script that was, in his words, "a piece of s-." He went on to say that both he and Lillard signed on after reading a script they loved. admitted that he "can't stand" Wing Commander. ![]() In a 2000 interview with Movieline, Prinze Jr. The film didn't just receive pans from critics, it was also derided by its cast. (pre-live-action Scooby Doo) manning the ship. Hamill also lent his voice to the 1999 film adaptation, which found Matthew Lillard and Freddie Prinze Jr. By the third and fourth games, there were even full-motion video cutscenes starring Hamill, which really brought Wing Commander to life in a way most gamers had never seen before. In the early '90s, Wing Commander was a popular spaceship combat game that took on a cinematic quality thanks to Mark Hamill lending his voice to the action. A few years later, he'd admit that the "humor in Postal is not always, let's say, hitting the target," but, he adds, "some scenes are the best in comedy I saw in the last 15 years." "If comedy cannot be in a way insulting for some, but other people have a blast out of it, where are we? It's freedom of speech," he said specifically of the 9/11 sequence to EW following the film's release. It's spirited in its efforts to offend, but it's also exhausting.īoll seemed to enjoy discussing the film's controversial aspects in interviews. There's gags about American politics, nuclear war, mass shootings, bestiality, racism, and, most famously, 9/11. Uwe Boll's Postal is a loose adaptation of the bloody, tongue-in-cheek video game of the same name, which encourages players to "go postal" in a world afflicted by a "hate plague." It's less an adaptation, though, than a sandbox where Boll can troll his audience with off-color jokes about every taboo topic he can pluck from the cultural consciousness. Nintendo cartridge, a VHS copy of Ghostbusters, some magic mushrooms, and a Komodo dragon into the molecular transporter in The Fly and you're watching the abomination that came stumbling out. Instead, imagine someone threw a Super Mario Bros. Just don't go into it thinking you're going to see a recreation of the classic Nintendo game. ![]() EW bashed the film back in '93, calling its setting " Blade Runner as imagined by a 2-year-old."īut, if watched with an open mind, the movie has a demented appeal. ![]() The villainous goombas, meanwhile, are now massive, fanged brutes with tiny reptile heads. Yoshi, a friendly dinosaur companion in the game, is changed from a chubby-cheeked lizard into a raptor. On the other hand, it felt like a far cry from the video game series in both tone and style - and that pissed off a lot of gamers. Its subterranean, punk-inspired world was clearly crafted with care by directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, even if its story of plumbers tasked with saving a princess from the spiky-headed tyrant of a parallel universe doesn't make a lick of sense. On the plus side, the movie's genuine oddness and sci-fi edge helps it stand out from its contemporaries. The reality is that it sits somewhere in between, being a film that was derided with such a ferocity upon its release that it was basically primed for cult status. is, depending on who you ask, either the best or worst video game movie of all time. Easily one of the most polarizing films on this list, 1993's Super Mario Bros.
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