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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘PRINCE OF PERSIA’
The Lion of Central Casting Disney’s Prince of Persia was a bold endeavor. With a $185 million price tag, it shattered the ceiling for video game adaptation budgets. The House of Mouse made a bet, and it was a big one. Unfortunately, it was also a bad one. The Prince of Persia franchise is popular, but general audiences have rarely flocked to movies based on games. Thus, despite it being the most successful of the bunch—grossing $336.4 million worldwide—its receipts weren’t enough to warrant a sequel. Poor reviews, 37% on Rotten Tomatoes, coupled with a soft domestic opening, under $91 million, doomed its franchise prospects. What it’s really remembered for, though, is its bizarre…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘RESIDENT EVIL: WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY’
Itchy, but Not So Tasty Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is the seventh live-action iteration of the storied video game franchise. Sadly, like its predecessors, it fails to live up to the legacy of the series. Yes, folks, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is yet another uninspired video game adaptation. But unlike the Paul W.S. Anderson saga, this at least sticks close to the source material. Raccoon City is a reboot, carrying no connection to the insipid six that came before it. In fact, it is essentially a narrative retelling of the first two games. In principle, that sounds like a good idea, but there’s a reason there were two of them.…
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REVIEW: Neo: The World Ends With You (Nintendo Switch)
Disclaimer: For those gamers that are photosensitive, be warned that there is a boss in the game who could potentially cause seizures. Though not game-breaking like Balan Wonderworld before it’s day one patch or similar to those found in the re-release of Sonic Color Ultimate. But it is enough that it’s worth mentioning. Neo: The World Ends With You takes place three years after the events of the previous entry, The World Ends With You. Meet Rindo, a socially awkward teenager that gets dragged into a mysterious game of life and death. After covering the anime adaptation of The World Ends With You over at The Amateur Otaku, picking up…
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REVIEW: The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles
Editor’s Note: This review is for the Nintendo Switch version of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. As someone who played the first three Ace Attorney Games, and loved them, I know giving The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles a chance in the west was a no-brainer. Just like Ace Attorney, this is a port of a previously released title. The original arrived on Nintendo 3DS, although it never got a western release. The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles follows the ancestor of defense attorney Phoenix Wright. The main character is a Japanese student named Ryunosuke Naruhodo who studies law in Great Britain. During his time overseas, Ryunosuke gets included in several causes,…
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REVIEW: Monster Hunter Stories 2 Wings of Ruin (Nintendo Switch)
When the guardian species known as Rathalos begin disappearing, the world is turned upside down, with monsters running rampant and strange lights appearing around the world. It is up to the grandchild of a legendary rider to investigate the mystery and save the world. In a world where turn-based combat systems are almost as rare as Activision games not named Call of Duty, my attention always draws to a title when they use a turn-based combat system. Enter Monster Hunter Stories 2, Wings of Ruin, the second installment in the Monster Hunter spinoff franchise. Here, the player controls a Rider, who instead of hunting monsters keeps them as companions. These…
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REVIEW: Pokemon Unite – An Easy to Learn MOBA
When Pokemon Unite was revealed back in 2020, the fandom went on a rampage. Fast-forward nearly two years later, and the pocket monsters have their own version of League of Legends. The gameplay is exceptionally simplistic. Each match contains a fight between two teams of five players, using different fighters. There is an option of either playing randomly or having enough friends to form a squad. During these 10 minutes battles, each team needs to fight wild Pokemon and gather points to throw in the opposing team’s goalposts. While it is a requirement for every playable character, for characters like Venusaur, Gengar, or Greninja, those players start as the first…
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REVIEW: Mario Golf Super Rush
After close to 20 years, we’ve finally been given another Mario Golf title on a Nintendo console: Mario Golf: Super Rush. During the reveal trailer, they introduced several modes such as a campaign, like the fan favorites on Gameboy Color and Gameboy Advance, on top of two new methods of play called Speed Golf and Battle Golf. In comparison to previous versions, Super Rush‘s way of incorporating a story mode is rather disappointing. Unlike its predecessor, there are no original characters. The closest thing to a newly introduced character is the Mii that players can choose for their savefile. In this story mode, the player gets access to different challenges…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘DOOM’
Dull, Dark, and Dumb Doom carries on the proud tradition of terrible video game movies. It’s bad, folks. Real bad. Most offensive, it basically does nothing to harness the insanity of the property that inspired it. This is a Doom movie in name only. Sure, the BFG is in it, sort of; and there are hellacious creatures. They are just mostly uninspired fare. Well, maybe they’re inspired, but you can’t see them because the whole film is so dark. Outside of the first-person shooter scene, which channels the spirit of the game excellently, this thing is as boring as they come. With a poor script, trope-tastic characters, and aimless direction, Doom opened the portal to…
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Hops and Box Office Flops: ‘MORTAL KOMBAT’
A Head Smashing Good Time Mortal Kombat marks the return of the legendary video game franchise to the big screen for the first time in 24 years. Considering its wild success on consoles, the gap is hard to fathom. Certainly Annihilation sort of poisoned the well, but the 1995 original remains popular, as does its techno theme song. The one thing most would agree on, though, is that 95’s lack of an R-rating kept it from truly being a Mortal Kombat film. That is no longer an issue. 2021’s film boats buckets of blood, and gruesome fatalities that are as true to the game as is probably acceptable for theaters. This is the adaptation die…
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Mortal Kombat Review – A Flawless Victory? (Mike and John)
In the latest episode of Mike and John At The Movies, we discuss the new Mortal Kombat film! Is it a flawless victory, or do video game movies suffer from yet another fatality? We have the answers for you in our spoiler-free discussion. Mortal Kombat is in theaters now and available to HBO Max subscribers at no additional cost.
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