8 Unforgivable Errors Every Video Game Movie Makes

By design, most video games feature an antagonist that the player needs to vanquish in order to complete the story. From the cartoonish Neo Cortex to the nightmare-inducing Pyramid Head, you can always count on games to provide a highly entertaining and diverse rogues gallery.

This seems to be something that’s bypassed the people that take on the task of adapting video games. For a shining example of this failure you need look no further than both attempts to turn Silent Hill into a credible horror franchise. Essentially, they underused the most visually striking creatures and foregrounded a cult of angry elderly people.

It’s something that’s happened time and again: Super Mario Bros. turned Bowser into an angry Dennis Hopper, Mortal Kombat Annihilation made Shao Kahn a bald-headed goon and the less said about Tomb Raider’s outrageously boring villains the better.

Solution

In stories of ‘good triumphs over evil’, effective villains are crucial to providing the hero motivation to step up and save the day. There’s a reason most people talk about Hans Gruber more than John McClain, if done right, an antagonist can be the most entertaining thing about a movie.

Video game adaptations need to move away from the cut and paste evil stereotypes and start giving audiences characters with real depth.