Mortal Kombat (1995) is definitely my favorite. It‘s cheesy fun and when I was 9 years old, it was the coolest movie imaginable. I always have a good time revisiting it and whenever it feels like a storm is coming and there’s a lot of wind I think “IT HAS BEGUN” to myself. The CGI has aged poorly, but there are still a lot of practical effects (Goro is a giant puppet!) so the CGI is just a nice layer of cheese.
Double Dragon is another one I like a lot and doesn't get a fair break. It's absolutely cheesy as hell and definitely not as cool as Mortal Kombat, but it has some even more goofy comedy which I appreciate. The visual design of that movie is over the top in a really great '90s way and it has some really fun special effects. It's a dumb movie but for my money, it's way more fun than Super Mario Bros.
And if we're counting anime, the Sonic OVA is extremely good. I dream of an HD remaster, but I assume Sega doesn't want it to get re-released? It's weird that it's been out of print in the US for well over a decade and AFAIK has never been released in Japan on anything but VHS.
finally saw Street Fighter: The Movie recently and I actually unironically liked it a lot? then I watched the Mortal Kombat movie for the first time since childhood and couldn't stand it lol.
shout out to the especially terrible single-episode Panzer Dragoon "OVA" and it's amazingly dorky English dub. I have a sealed VHS copy for some reason but in Japan it even got a proper LaserDisc release!
The first two thirds was pretty good, lots of fun. It follows the events of RE 1 and RE 2 and is a horror/action flick. I think some parts are overly faithful to the game's story but at least there wasn't an hour long section of running around the police station. I mostly mean the monsters, the CGI didn't look good and they probably could have used the generic zombies instead. Although I did like that it commited to being set in '98, Wesker gets secret messages from a pager and then uses a PDA.
The cast was good. Claire is the main hero while Leon is a nepotism failson. The Police Chief was my favourite and while Jill was cool, it'd be cooler if she had the beret.
The main letdown was the story, it was a bit all over the place as it was cutting between the games. I don't think the clock was neccesary, it added tension, but also signaled how close the end of the movie was.
I'd recommend this movie to anyone who likes RE. I haven't even played any of the games (I watched a couple though) but I really enjoyed most of it.
I saw today whilst browsing Netflix that a Dynasty Warriors movie exists. I'm going in expecting a middling-to-good action film with not much to do with the actual games over the original narrative source material.
I was recently exposed to “Relaxer” through one of @fortninety‘s streams and while it’s not for everyone I would highly recommend tracking it down and giving it a watch.
It's very play-like in that it all takes place in one room. The characters are pathetic and contemptible. The film centers around a man who can't leave the couch until he "beats" Pac-Man (an impossible challenge, because of the kill screen), and it all takes place under the looming turn of the millennium. I don't want to spoil the end but ||the world ending due to the Y2K bug|| is not even the most surprising final turn.
If not, then I'll go with Mortal Kombat (the first one), mostly because it played the theme over and over again and was just like "yeah, this is dumb, but in a good way".
Like all the best formative content for me, I remember having to watch this on YouTube in multiple parts, labeled 1/8, 2/8 etc. Just like how I watched Advent Children (and then watched an anime music video of Advent Children to Vertigo by U2 hundreds of times) (I know I’ve mentioned that before but it’s just so stupid).
Anyway, I thought I remembered watching this, but I think when I tried circa 2008 or whenever, not all the #/8 videos were up, and I don’t think there were English subs! So I had no idea what was going on! Anyway, it’s cute!
Those cgi Resident Evil movies are alright. Not great, but worth probably one watch if you're a fan.
I actually really enjoyed the Prince of Persia movie. I know it gets talked down on a lot, but if you can get passed the not very good accents, the actual movie is pretty good.
Who would I be if I didn't say something fighting game related..
Street Fighter Assassin's Fist is really awesome. It was a webseries with like 3 hours of content, but you can find it in movie format.
It follows the younger years of Ryu and Ken. They train to learn their special moves and has an origin story for Akuma too.
I also like the Mortal Kombat movie from 95, but I wouldn't necessarily say it's great.
As a kid, I remember catching a Battle Arena Toshinden anime on the Action Channel. I thought it was great, but anything anime related was rare to see and extra exciting to me at the time.
Gonna back up SF2 Animated being an unironic banger. The director Gisaburo “Night on the Galactic Railroad” Sugii is hilariously overqualified for the material and the result is essentially a B-movie that totally splurges on animation and art, honestly just some all-time anime fight scenes. I tried watching one of the Street Fighter Alpha OVAs and it was awful!
OG _Mortal Kombat_ movie is a lot of fun imo - we’re talking about a film where the _very first_ thing you hear on the soundtrack is the “MORTAL KOMBAAAAAAT!!!” scream, followed immediately by the iconic theme song. And the entire score sounds like that!! One of the better _Enter the Dragon_ ripoffs out there, I think.
