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Audiences have found themselves more frustrated than intrigued by the saturation of sequels, reboots, remakes, and adaptations of already existing media. It represents a significant shift in Hollywood, which goes back to 1998 when audiences were furious that Gus Van Sant remade horror classic Psycho (1960; Alfred Hitchcock).1 Now, over half of the top ten highest-grossing films of all time are sequels or based on existing media.2 A key form of this existing media that seems to get the adaptation treatment time and time again is the video game.
Hollywood seems to have had a recent affinity for adapting cinematic, story-based video games into film, which undermines the original medium in favor of cheap cash-grabs. Many of these films are financially and critically unsuccessful, yet Hollywood still feels compelled to push them out to moviegoers. Video game adaptations are a dime a dozen these days.
When previously no one would dare adapt such an interactive medium into film, Hollywood’s growing eagerness to push lackluster adaptations of games to audiences is another way in which original cinema is growing sparse.
“From Pixels To Premieres” — The Evolution Of Video Game Film Adaptations
The first live-action feature film adaptation based on a video game was 1993’s Super Mario Bros. (Rocky Morton, Annabel Jankel). The film was released to critical and commercial failure, with the biggest problem being its unfaithfulness to the iconic game on which it is based.
Since then, iconic games such as “Mortal Kombat” and “Street Fighter” have been adapted into film to mixed or negative reception. Nowadays, games like “Detective Pikachu” and the “Sonic The Hedgehog” series have been adapted into films to achieve better critical and commercial success.
For example, Sonic The Hedgehog 3 (2024, Jeff Fowler) has a whopping 85% Critic score and 95% Audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. The common consensus with a video game adaptation like this is that it is faithful to the source material and the fans that made the original game successful.
This is proof that good film adaptations of video games do exist, but are scarce. Many video games lose their personality and prestige when adapted to film, creating a subgenre plagued by mediocrity more often than not.
Tomb Raider (2018) — A Bland Reimagining Of A Gaming Icon
The third feature film outing for Lara Croft depicts her as a completely different character than her previous ones. Tomb Raider (2018; Roar Uthaug)3 adapts the more recent reboot series of the games into film, introducing Lara Croft as a resourceful young woman before she becomes the fearless explorer seen in the original 1990s games.
Oscar winner Alicia Vikander portrays Lara Croft, and does it flawlessly. Easily the most intriguing part of the film, Vikander is able to capture Lara’s vulnerability and determination at the same time, understanding the difference between this Lara and the character from the films starring Angelina Jolie.4 Despite the rest of the film feeling bland, her performance is the one consistently good piece of the puzzle.
Tomb Raider falters in its plot structure, taking too much time to introduce Lara before placing her in the great unknown. This is something that could have been fixed with a simple re-edit, but the finished film has way too much exposition and not enough of the globe-trotting Lara that audiences pay to see. Furthermore, the plot cruxes completely around the possibility of Lara’s father still being alive, which gives her less agency in the story and does not allow her to exist in the film on her own.
The visual identity of the film is nonexistent, with uninteresting shot choices and consistent use of the handheld camera, which makes an action film of this scale feel cheap. Many nighttime scenes are too dim, with the film having a general lighting issue that makes even Lara hard to see at points. These visual issues should not exist for a nearly $100 million film, but it is evidence of Hollywood caring less about compelling cinema and more about turning a profit.
Tomb Raider is a wildly inconsistent film where the bad severely outweighs the good. Alicia Vikander’s dedication to the role of Lara Croft is promising, but the boring visuals and unbalanced plot structure are too much to bear. One would think the third time would be the charm with these films, but with Tomb Raider, that is not the case.
Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City (2021) — Faithful, But Not Good
Johannes Roberts‘ 2021 film based on the “Resident Evil” game series is not the franchise’s first foray into live action. Pioneered by Paul W.S. Anderson in 2002, the original film series based on the “Resident Evil” games is known for including characters from the games but focusing on an original character named Alice, played by Milla Jovovich.5 Nearly two decades after the original film adaptation, the franchise would be reborn in a far more faithful way with Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021; Johannes Roberts).6
What makes Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City so ambitious right away is the fact that they chose to adapt two games into one film instead of just one. The film follows two groups of survivors (each from one of the first two games) during a sinister zombie outbreak in Raccoon City, which may or may not have been caused by the nefarious Umbrella Corporation. The film does a good job of keeping each group distinct and has them come together at the end of the film in a crowd-pleasing moment for audiences and fans.
Welcome to Raccoon City further pleases audiences because of how faithful the film is to the games it is based on. Countless shots, set details, and costume decisions are pulled directly from the source material and show the dedication the production team had to faithfully adapting the games. Despite the film’s faithfulness to the original games it is based on, there are glaring problems in the film that hold it back significantly.
Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City has a very haphazard script filled with spoken exposition and awkward lines that break the immersion the film aims for. Many characters explain who others are directly to the audience instead of visually representing that or representing that through their actions. A cardinal rule of filmmaking is to show and not tell. Welcome to Raccoon City fails in this capacity because the characters’ descriptions, motivations, and emotions in each scene are spoon-fed to the audience.
Another aspect of Welcome To Raccoon City that detracts from its reception is the glaringly obvious CGI throughout the film. The film certainly makes an effort to highlight practical effects largely through the zombies and the design for Lisa Trevor, but for more complex Lovecraftian monsters such as the Licker, CGI is used to achieve their translation into live-action.
This very well could have been due to budgetary constraints (the film has a relatively low budget of $25 million), but the finished product for these monsters begs the question of whether or not their inclusion is even worth it. Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is a film that, while having a relatively distinct visual identity, cannot save itself from the pitfalls of clunky dialogue and digital effects.
It is clear that the director has a passion for the source material, which shows in many aspects, but recreating iconic imagery from the games cannot save the film from its own painfully uninspired narrative decisions.
Uncharted (2022) — Star Power Can’t Save A Hollow Narrative
After over a decade in development with countless directors and stars attached,7 2022 brought the “Uncharted” series to the big screen for the first time. Uncharted (2022; Ruben Fleischer)8 follows Nathan Drake (portrayed by Tom Holland) and his right-hand, Victor “Sully” Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg), across the globe in a race against time to find a mysterious treasure. The film received a 41% Critic Score and an 89% Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes, indicating heavily mixed reviews across the board.
Fleischer’s Uncharted is a largely bland, uninspired action-adventure with little substance or soul. Aside from its clear lack of originality in story or visual identity, the film is one of the clearest examples of mediocre adaptation filmmaking crafted to do nothing else but turn a profit. Clearly, it worked, as the film made over $400 million worldwide and a sequel is reportedly in development.
An immediate problem with Uncharted amongst fans is the casting choice for Nathan Drake, the protagonist of the games and film. Many were confused and shocked by Holland’s casting, alleging that it fails to accurately represent the character made popular by Nolan North.
Many assert that the best person for the job would have been Nathan Fillion, who portrayed Drake in an unofficial fan film from 2018. An article by Stacey Henley for TheGamer in February 2022 discusses the problem fans have with the choice:
“[Holland] is best known for his role as a high school student even if he’s playing his actual age of 25 here. Holland also has an obvious rival – many fans, off the back of his age and the unofficial fan film, will accept no other Drake but Nathan Fillion.”9
Another aspect of the cast that confused fans was the casting of Mark Wahlberg as Sully. The same article from TheGamer asserts that fans universally disliked Wahlberg’s casting, arguing that he is not even the same character fans know and love. The casting of Holland and Wahlberg is a clear example of Hollywood prioritizing profits over genuine storytelling, as they would rather have recognizable names that drive profit rather than someone who does the source material justice.
From Blockbuster Potential To Mediocre Misfire
Outside of the uninspired casting decisions, Uncharted simply fails to craft a cohesive and interesting story. The games are simple action-adventure titles, but they contain compelling cinematic writing and gameplay that make the experience entertaining for the player. The film loses these aspects of the games in favor of one-dimensional characters and a shallow, basic narrative. This downgrade is a massive disservice to the source material that makes it so well-known.
Visually, the film has little to offer, often feeling like a video game in the worst way, with uneven CGI. At times, a few of the action sequences contain dynamic choreography and camerawork, but the film feels like a vacation commercial rather than a globe-trotting adventure. This refusal to explore interesting visuals in favor of green screens and meaningless cinematography exhibits the biggest problem with modern video game adaptations.
Similar to the previous films, Uncharted is a film that came and went with little cultural impact. Its controversial casting choices plummet the film’s chances of resonating with fans, instead seeking profit from big names. Its uninteresting visual identity, writing, and general narrative make for a forgettable film that adapts one of the most popular modern game franchises ever into a bland, boring shell of itself.
What The Saturation Of Video Game Films Means For Hollywood
Hollywood has seemingly resorted to mediocrity with live-action video game adaptations, wanting to simply make money off of existing IP rather than meaningfully adapt games that are loved by people around the world.
Over the years, video game adaptations have shifted from interesting but unfaithful takes on characters to bland dime-a-dozen action films with little to offer cinema beyond a single interesting fight sequence or performance.
Hollywood’s excessive willingness to adapt existing works (specifically video games) asserts that they would rather take ideas that have already been explored and do the same thing again. It is a safe bet for executives, as there is little financial risk compared to something original that could be crafted by an up-and-coming filmmaker.
The lack of care for source material or the copy-and-pasting of that material results in disparate reactions from fans and general moviegoers. The best video game films take the best parts of the source material and do something different with the cinematic medium that is not achievable with a video game.
With films like A Minecraft Movie (2025; Jared Hess) being released to mixed reviews, similar to the films previously mentioned, it seems Hollywood is comfortable making video game films that fail to be genuinely good works of art. Instead, many of these films prioritize profit as their biggest indicator of success.
Lowering the bar for successful video game films and thus lowering audience expectations for these films is clear evidence that Hollywood has lost the ability to care about meaningful stories. These examples of live-action video game film adaptations bode a sinister omen for the future of cinema, as many other factors threaten original and creative storytelling.
Footnotes
- Alonso, Guillermo. “A useless $100-million copy: When they dared to remake ‘Psycho’.” El País, 9 Dec. 2023. Accessed 3 April 2025. ↩︎
- “List of highest-grossing films.” Wikipedia. Accessed 4 April 2025. ↩︎
- Uthaug, Roar, director. Tomb Raider, Warner Bros. Pictures, 2018. ↩︎
- “List of Tomb Raider media.” Wikipedia. Accessed 9 April 2025. ↩︎
- “Resident Evil (film series).” Wikipedia. Accessed 3 April 2025. ↩︎
- Roberts, Johannes, director. Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City, Screen Gems, 2021. ↩︎
- “Uncharted (film).” Wikipedia. Accessed 3 April 2025. ↩︎
- Fleischer, Ruben, director. Uncharted, Sony Pictures Releasing, 2022. ↩︎
- Henley, Stacey. “Uncharted Makes The Case For And Against Loyal Casting.” TheGamer, 14 Feb. 2022. Accessed 3 April 2025. ↩︎