Tag Archives: opinion

6 Worst Video Game Movie Adaptations… Ever

Posted in Entertainment, Movies, Video Games by

As a gamer — not a hardcore, intense gamer, but a gamer nonetheless — I always finish a (good) game and sit there and think “Man, I wish someone would make this into a movie so I can see it unfurl in live-action!” Hint hint, Last of Us. In saying that, there are sometimes when I think about punching myself for ever letting such a thought enter my head.

The following list compiled by myself are the worst excuses of live-action video game film adaptations ever made by humankind… ever. With these movies, maybe it was best left to the imagination… potentially change “maybe” to “definitely” and you’ve got yourselves a deal.

6. Mortal Kombat (1995)

Sonya and Cage having a heart to heart. Naw.

Sonya and Cage having a heart to heart. Naw.

Of all the fighting game series that I have been introduced to in my twenty-year life span, Mortal Kombat is without a doubt my favourite, what with all the blood, gore and flying fireballs. And then they made a live-action movie. Granted, I was two when this movie was released but this movie is so atrociously bad that I enjoy it. The acting is really terrible saved only by the staunch badassness by Bridgette Wilson. The graphics are so cringeworthy, Ed Boon must’ve been rolling around in his grave. And he isn’t even dead. Also, why is Goro made out of plastic?

5. Max Payne (2008)

Why so serious, Marky Mark?

Why so serious, Marky Mark?

I’ve played maybe one Max Payne video game in my entire life and didn’t find it all that enthralling to be honest, but I at least had a fair idea of what should happen if it were made into a live action movie. Noting that they cast one of my personal favourites (Mark Wahlberg), I was expecting a pretty badass movie. What I received, however, was a cluster of confusion and “what the hell is going on?” I literally do not understand what happened in the movie – at all. People were shooting on a drug called valkyr which made the user hallucinate and see valkyrie flying in the air… and then they’d die. And Mila Kunis was in there somewhere. The solid acting of Mark Wahlberg is probably the only thing that is watchable about this film. God bless you, Marky Mark.

4. Street Fighter (1994)

The evil castle just blew up... let's pose!

The evil castle just blew up… let’s pose!


Another solid fighting video game series that decided to go the mile and make a live-action film was Street Fighter. With the casting of Jean Claude Van Damme who was probably the biggest Hollywood star at the time, what could possibly go wrong? Hmm, maybe everything, as it turned out. The acting, even on behalf of JCVD, was terrible. The characters were so far from the actual characters from the game, you wouldn’t even know who they were – Ryu and Ken, the main badass guys from the series, were made out to look like obnoxious teen dweebs. Let’s not forget to mention the blatant sexism in the movie; whenever Cammy and Chun Li interacted with each other, a comment about the other’s physical appearance was made like they were catty high school girls. Was that absolutely necessary? The saving light of this movie? JCVD is amazing.

3. Tekken (2010 film)

At least Roger Huerta was something to look at?

At least Roger Huerta was something to look at?

Speaking of fighting video game movie adaptations that got characters so wrong that it was sometimes hard to watch… here’s Tekken! Ever since Tekken 4, Christie Monteiro has been my go to gal, what with her cool capoeira moves and “Go easy on me!” starting line. Everyone and their dog know Christie’s fighting style is capoeira, so when (movie version) Christie announced she done some form of mixed martial arts… needless to say I was very disappointed. Not only that, but the serious no-bullcrap Nina was replaced by a promiscuous, Maxim covergirl lookalike who enjoyed her sister’s company – none of which are apparent in the game. Also as a sidenote, the storyline and fighting were atrocious. I was very, very unsatisfied by this film so much that I was angry that I had spent time watching it.

2. Alone in the Dark (2005)

You go girl!

You go girl!

One of the pioneers of the horror genre of video game, Alone in the Dark has had a cult following since its inception. When it was announced that Christian Slater and Tara Reid were cast, you would expect a pretty good movie. Wrong! So wrong! This movie had several plot holes, shotty acting and Tara Reid’s role in the movie was rather unnecessary other than something to look at and a romantic foil for Slater’s character. It had absolutely nothing to do with the video game series besides the character’s names and, just like the Tekken movie, I was angry that I had sat down and spent time to watch it.

1. Super Mario Bros. (1993)

They're so happy, probably because the movie's over.

They’re so happy, probably because the movie’s over.

One of the best things to happen in the year of 1993 was the birth of yours truly. One of the worst things to happen in that year, however, was the Super Mario Bros. live-action film that was so terrible, I would much rather eat a chilli soup than sit down and spend the near hour-and-a-half watching this. If there was one video game (series) that was pretty much destined to NOT turn into a live-action film, it was Mario and his whacky adventures. There was absolutely nothing right about this movie, besides the fact that Mario wore red and Luigi wore green. Definitely, in my humble opinion, the worst video game film adaptation ever. So far, at least.

So a quick wrap-up note to all the budding directors out there who may want to turn one of my favourite video games into a movie (cough cough Last of Us). Do so at your own peril, because if you portray it wrong, a bunch of nerds will be on your case so fast you won’t even have time to scratch your buttocks.

– by The Black Widow

Ridiculous Social Media Commenters

Posted in Lifestyle by

You may not notice it when you see it, but everyone has been subject to the viewing of ridiculous and sometimes stupid comments on all forms of social media. I was originally just going to write a post about the commenters who clearly have English as a second language and, regardless of the language barrier they face, still submit a comment in broken English that makes them look ignorant, even though it’s come from a good place.

Think before you write. Please.

Think before you write. Please.

However, after much pondering, I’ve realised there are several types of commenters that need to be charged for their crimes. Let the name and shame… begin!


The Clueless Commenter
As touched on above, the clueless commenter, whether that be for language barrier reasons or just plain ignorance, tend to make foolish comments, whether that be incidental or accidental, on publicly accessible posts, videos or pictures. Examples I tend to see a lot are on Facebook fanpages of celebrities.

Example: I am on Velvet Sky’s Facebook fanpage where it clearly states in the bio and the info that it is strictly a fanpage. I’m looking through the comments for an example to use and see an influx. Here are a few samples:

“I love u baby i wanna know you lover”
“you look good and like you”
“I love u u love me”
“I like your sexy body and want more sexy photos of your’s. Love you baby.”

I could keep going and going and retrieving examples of comments that come from a good place but are just so unnecessary. There were even several pictures posted on the wall of this fanpage of a guy posing… like, what relevance does that have with Velvet Sky? Sure, there’s a chance that Velvet Sky may one day visit this page and read the comments, but some of these comments seem to be addressing Velvet as if that’s her personal page. I don’t mean to be a bitch but it’s just embarrassing to read.

Please, users of social media, do not abuse the right to comment with such stupidity.

The “Like My Comment” Commenter
These commenters tend to frequent YouTube a lot and boy George do they get on my nerves. I don’t even have to go looking for a comment to get an example because you are bound to see one in every second YouTube video you watch. These are the ones that write obnoxious comments like “Like if you’re still listening in 2013!” and “I heart Love and Theft. Like my comment if you do too”.

On Facebook, they don’t come out as often as they do on YouTube but unfortunately, they are still there. “Like if you think the Broncos will make it to the top 8!” I don’t see why I have to justify my thoughts by liking someone else’s comment, but anywho.

People: don’t do this. Please, just don’t.

The YouTube Dislike Commenter
A close relative of the Like My Comment Commenter, the YouTube dislike commenter also seeks attention in the form of an ignorant comment. If you don’t get what I mean, here’s an example: the music video of Love and Theft’s Runnin’ Out of Air is on YouTube, you’re watching it, appreciating their musical genius, admiring how awesome they are… you scroll down to look at what others think of the song and video, and one of the first comments you see is “46 people are running out of air”. In reference to the fact that 46 people have disliked the video.

These commenters pop up everywhere unfortunately. If people want to waste their time trolling the Internet by disliking videos that have no real reason to be disliked, let them.

Also, if I may repeat myself, don’t do this. Please, just don’t.

The Excessive Enter-Pressing Commenter
I admit that one of my best friends is guilty of this and I have let it be known to her that it grinds my gears. These are the people who feel the need to express themselves in multiple small comments as opposed to keeping it wrapped in one neat, singular comment. Example? Let’s use “Brad” and “Sarah”.

Brad: Hey Sarah, haven’t seen you in ages. How are you?
Sarah: Good.
Sarah: Just finished uni.
Sarah: What about you?
Brad: I’m just relaxing in bed. We should catch up some time. When’s good for you?
Sarah: I don’t know.
Sarah: I’ll get back to you.
Sarah: When’s good for you?
Sarah: Lol.

STOP. That twitchy finger that has to press enter… STOP IT. It’s annoying and time consuming.

The Selfish Commenter
Exclusive to Facebook, these are the people who comment on other people’s statuses and/or posts and make it about themselves. Let’s use Brad and Sarah for this example:

Brad’s status:
Just got off the plane in Switzerland. Going to have a good time!
Sarah’s comment:
Yeah like when I went to Switzerland, I done all this amazing stuff and saw all these amazing places and landmarks. I ate this and this and this and drank this and this and this. I bought so much cool things. I want to go back to Switzerland.

Seriously, if you want to recount about how much of a great time you had in Switzerland, write your own status about it. Don’t hijack someone else’s. It’s annoying. What’s even worse is when people seek sympathy on other people’s posts by posting something ridiculous like a sadface or sad comment like “wish my life was that good”.

Just don’t.

I’m sure that there are more types of commenters out there who grind my gears but I think these will do for now. The right of expression and freedom of speech is an amazing thing and I’m glad we all have it. But please don’t abuse that right by saying stupid things in a social media environment.

– by The Black Widow

Review: Fifty Shades of Grey

Posted in Books, Entertainment by

I know I’m about two years late on the Fifty Shades bandwagon, but I finally found the time and motivation to read it. It was always one of those things I was “going to get around to eventually”, except this time I actually got around to it. Anyway, I just finished it and am therefore going to review it.

Fifty Shades of Grey, the first in the series trilogy.

Fifty Shades of Grey, the first in the series trilogy.

If you are in the percentage that hasn’t read this book, allow me to introduce you to Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey, the female and male protagonists in this romance novel/series, although I’m not too sure if the word “romance” is the right word for it. Fifty Shades of Grey puts the reader into the perspective of Anastasia, a twenty-something just-about-to-graduate college student who gets thrown into an interview with the dark and alluring Grey which pretty much sets off the following chain events.

I’m just going to say it – I felt absolutely no connection with the characters whatsoever until the very ending, which I won’t recount in case of spoiling the events of anyone reading this. I found Anastasia to be really irritating and generic; I’ve read many o’ book of female protagonists who aren’t confident and aren’t “sure of themselves”. I also found her to be an unrealistic portrayal of a woman who falls in love with a man five minutes after meeting him. Anastasia brought nothing new to me in that aspect. When it comes to Christian, I think the general consensus was that the reader is supposed to swoon over him, but swoon I did not. I found him to be quite repulsive and if I were to encounter him, given he were a real person, I’d probably kick him in the pants.

The way it was written was both sophisticated and annoying. The use of language in this novel was smart and intelligent and sometimes even witty. The writing was engaging in that it kept me wanting more and more. In saying that, there were times when it felt like big words were used just for the sake of sounding smart and throwing big words into the mix. One thing that college has taught me is that, despite there being several words and ways one can write “She said, she said, she said,” it’s best not to stray too much. Fifty Shades of Grey didn’t follow that method, however, with a lot of uses of other words like cajoled, which was used several times.

One part of the writing that irritated me no further was the constant reference to Ana’s subconscious and her “inner Goddess”. At first, it was pretty funny seeing what both of these entities thought of Ana’s shenanigans, but when they were both brought up time and time again, it was a bit tiring.

The storyline was interesting to say the least. If I may make an Anchorman reference… “well that escalated quickly”. That’s the most I can say about that without spoiling too much so I will go no further.

Solst-o-meter
Storyline: 7.0/10
Style of writing: 5.4/10
Overall: 5.8/10

All in all, while it was a book I couldn’t for the life of me put down, I was pretty disappointed with it. I didn’t empathise with the characters and the writing wasn’t enthralling. The storyline was probably the saving light of this novel, it being the only really interesting part of the story. However, I will be eagerly hunting down the sequel as I am dying to know what happens with Anastasia and Christian next.

– by The Black Widow

It’s the Little Things

Posted in Lifestyle by

Living in such a fast-paced, busy world, it’s bound to happen that the small things that make your life so much better will go unnoticed. An alarm, for example, is a lifesaver – if it weren’t for that annoying sound constantly going off until you whack the button to tell it to shutup, I would guess that 98% of people in the world would have lost their job ages ago.

Because really, how good is toothpaste!

Because really, how good is toothpaste!

I’m quite hippy in the fact that I like to take the time out of my day to stop and appreciate the small things in my life that make it so breezy; I don’t do it as often as one should, but I’m only human with a much busier schedule than I’m used to.

This one instance I always refer back to was one day when I woke up – as usual – took a shower – as usual – and then went to brush my teeth. I had a different toothpaste than what I’m used to so, without too much thinking, I used it. Can I just say that it was the most amazing toothpaste that I have ever used? It had those little breath strip things within the toothpaste and it just done its job so well and much, much more. The usage of this amazing toothpaste literally made my day so much better than it would have been if I had used my normal, boring toothpaste.

Without spending too much time writing about the intricacies of toothpaste, instead of pondering about these little things, I decided to write something about it and name a few inventions and other tidbits that make my life so fantastical.

Drive-thru
I was getting Maccas the other night for dinner because I couldn’t be arsed to cook myself anything, and I was sitting in the drive-thru line which was pretty packed. I could see in my rear view mirror that the person behind me was getting rather impatient and here I was sitting there quite calm and reserved. Why? Imagine if there was no such thing as drive-thru and you had to get out of your car to get your fast food just to get back into the car and drive back home. Like, who has the time for that? Drive-thru is also handy for people like me who tend to drive half-naked so it saves you from getting out of the car. I get that I am praising an invention that was designed to make lazy people even lazier, but still, it’s handy, no?

Skype and other video call technologies
My brother, sister-in-law and nephew live in Brisbane, my oldest sister lives in New Zealand and one of my best friends is currently touring Europe by herself. While phone calls, Facebook messages and other forms of textual communication come in handy, there is nothing better than hearing them speak whilst having visual images to support that. I for one am so glad that Skype was invented so I get to see how big my nephew is getting without him actually being there and the opportunity to chat to my sister about pointless things.

Car phone chargers
I depend on my smartphone as much as everyone else does, maybe even more. So when I went to Hunter Valley for CMC Rocks for 3 days – which was absolutely amazing, by the way – I had to face the dilemma of ‘how exactly was I going to keep my phone charged, in a camp site, with no apparent method of charging’. The solution was simple once I thought about it – I sat in my car with the engine turned on to charge my phone. While I looked anti-social and somewhat materialistic, at least I had a way of documenting my time at CMC Rocks with pictures, notes and phone calls to my family.

Da Police
One thing I am absolutely sick of are people complaining about the police. Yes, there are some shady police workers out there, but there are shady workers in every work industry. It’s bound to happen. Human beings aren’t perfect. So when I see people complain about the efforts of police or the ethics of police, I sit there and think ‘Sure, that’s all fine and dandy, but if you have a teenage daughter who comes running to you saying that she was raped, who are you going to go to for help?’ Unless you’re Batman, you’re going to go the police you just damned for eating donuts on their well deserved break.

Clothes hangers
No one necessarily cares about clothes hangers… until you need them. Nekk minnit, you’re running around like a headless chook looking for spare hangers. As a compulsive shopper with an overflowing wardrobe, one can never have too many clothes hangers. Unless you’re perfectly fine with leaving your nicely ironed clothes on the floor in a messy-folded heap.

I could go on and on and point out more little tidbits in life that make the world a better place, but you’d be here for days. I implore you SolSat readers to stop and smell the daisies, for lack of a better phrase. It may even make your outlook in life way more positive.

– by The Black Widow