8 Miscast Video Game Movie Roles That Ruined Great Characters

Oh, Jake... what the hell were you doing?

Prince of Persia
Ubisoft

With Alicia Vikander's Tomb Raider getting an unbelievablyflat trailer and Kong: Skull Island director Jordan Vogt-Roberts recently reigniting discussion on his Metal Gear Solid movie, we're returning once again to the age-old question of "Can a video game movie actually work?"

No, is the answer, but it's worth picking apart the whys and wherefores as to precisely what keeps going wrong. Mainly, it's the sheer purpose of the thing.

As Tomb Raider proved from top to bottom, there is zero reason to 'adapt' a cinematically-focused video game to the big screen when its cutscenes already do a bang-up job, and that's before you get to the fact that by changing an active medium to passive (removing the controller and the sheer 'essence' of a video game in the first place), it always results in a production feeling flat and lifeless.

Case in point: The actors. We have had some spectacularlymiscast roles over the years, and with 2018 aiming to erase Angelina Jolie's football-bussomed frame from our minds with the sleeker silhouette of Vikander, perhaps it's worth taking a look at all the other times things went a little sideways...

Advertisement
Gaming Editor
Gaming Editor

WhatCulture's Head of Gaming.