Metacritic's Highest Rated Live Action Video Game Movie Is Overlooked 2021 Horror Comedy

For those who have only known about home game consoles, it may feel wild to realize that the video game movie genre is still fairly new. The first film based on a pre-existing video game was Rocky Morton and Annabelle Yankel's, which was marred by studio glitches. movies “Super Mario Bros.” adaptation a massive box office flop that forced studios to hit the brakes on future excursions into this fledgling genre. Although 1995's low-budget “Mortal Kombat” was a big profit for New Line, video game movies weren't considered potential blockbusters by studios until “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” grossed $275 million worldwide in 2001. The floodgates opened the following year. decade, but films were, with very rare exceptions (Paul WS Anderson's first Resident Evil and Christoph Gans's “Silent Mountain”), about as bad as movies get.

The video game movie turns 32 this year, and surprisingly, you can count on two hands the number of movies in the genre that didn't end up in the trash can. Why have filmmakers failed so convincingly to create watchable, let alone great, cinema from a medium that, at its best, can be as engrossing as losing yourself in a classic novel? A-list filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro and Gore Verbinski have been attached to direct big-screen adaptations of games like “Halo” and “BioShock,” but they're first-person shooters with pedestrian stories. People would rather play these games than watch a filmmaker recreate a first-person experience using photorealistic visual effects. The movie “Doom” tried to do that, and there's a reason we don't talk about the movie “Doom” anymore.

Are there any truly great video game movies? According to review aggregator Metacritic, is at least very good.

With a MetaScore of 66Josh Ruben's Werewolves Within is currently the highest rated video game movie in existence, and for good reason! Based on Ubisoft's 2016 social deduction VR game, this adaptation written by Mishna Wolff is a witty, bloody delight. Sam Richardson stars as a ranger assigned to police a small community torn apart by a dispute over an intrusive pipeline. Richardson is coldly received by the locals, but finds a sympathetic ear in the perky mailwoman played by Milana Weintrub (better known as Lily in countless AT&T commercials). Soon, Richardson and the townspeople are forced to reckon with the apparent werewolf, who is picking them off one by one.

“Wolves Inside” is a monstrous riff “Clue” by Jonathan Lynn as well as spiritual brother and sister “Hot Fuzz” and “The Wicker Man.” The ensemble cast hits all the right weird notes, while Wolfe's super-smart script keeps you thinking right down to the last lycanthrope. It all works thanks to Ruben's deft direction, which, like Edgar Wright with Shaun of the Dead, strikes the perfect balance between the macabre and the silly. While I've never personally played the game, its clever, mystery-solving premise makes for a much more perfect movie adaptation than, say, Fortnite.

Unfortunately, Werewolves Inside wasn't as well known as those aforementioned titles, so it didn't get the budget or commercial boost that Sonic the Hedgehog or Angry Birds did. If you've never seen it, it's available now for you to discover on Shudder. Stop denying yourself the joy and go for it!