Mortal Kombat (1995)

Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019)

Detective Pikachu sent the internet into a frenzy before it hit theatres. The first-look images of a CGI Pikachu with all of his yellow fuzz in a Sherlock Holmes hat were so hyper-real that they were too cute to handle. And then there was the fact that when he opened his mouth in the trailer, Ryan Reynolds’ voice weirdly came out of his tiny body. None of the fervour around this adaptation of a Pokémon adventure game could anticipate just how wonderful the blockbuster really is, though.

The second highest grossing video game adaptation after Warcraft, Detective Pikachu excels in making its splashy, whimsical world not just a dream come true for franchise fans to lay their eyes on, but the setting for a whirlwind of a mystery. Half the fun is basically being able to throw a Poké ball at the screen every time another life-like little guy appears, but insurance adjuster Tim (played by the charming Justice Smith) and titular investigator’s quest to save the Pokémon and their harmonious life in Ryme City keeps you as engaged as a Trainer in battle. Some characters and plot points fall flat in typical kid movie fashion-and there’s a fundamental strangeness to Reynolds’ voice work-but it all pays off in the end for what’s no doubt the cutest video game movie out there.-Sadie Bell

Resident Evil (2002)

Silent Hill (2006)

Your mileage will vary on Christophe Gans’ loose adaptation of Konami’s survival horror/demonic cult game Silent Hill, specifically the first in the studio’s notoriously creepy franchise, depending on your tolerance for wonky video-game logic and excessive gore. The 2006 film’s strength is not its script or plot-about a young girl, Sharon (Jodelle Ferland), who goes missing after becoming lured by the mysterious siren call of the abandoned West Virginia town Silent Hill, and her mother Rose’s (Radha Mitchell) fraught quest to find her-but in replicating the game’s unsettling tone and saturated, high-contrast visual language that directs its characters to their next clue with a crack of light shining in just the right spot or a door left ajar.

Be warned about what comes next, though: Silent Hill doesn’t mess around with its psychological torture, using swarms of giant bugs and flanking its copious chase scenes with some of the games’ more iconic characters (helloooo, nurse!!), or body horror, stringing up mutilated bodies with barbed wire or ripping someone’s entire epidermis off in one go. It’s far from a perfect movie, and the two hour-plus runtime drags in places, but if you’re looking for the promise of seeing some fucked-up shit, Silent Hill delivers.-Leanne Butkovic

Tomb Raider (2018)

The 2018 Tomb Raider reboot starring Alicia Vikander was not an enormous box office success, and its sequel has been languishing in development hell since then. But this is-dare I say-an understated take on the Indiana Jones-esque hero previously embodied by Angelina Jolie in two bombastic films that didn’t always reach their potential. Tamping down the gunplay, this Tomb Raider, directed by Roar Uthaug, casts Lara as a millennial bike messenger who gets into a life of adventure to search for her father, played by Dominic West. The Oscar-winning Swedish actress was seen as an unconventional choice for the character who has been unfortunately defined by her boobs more than anything else, but Vikander’s Lara emanated strength and determination and grit. The best set pieces were just her against the elements.-Esther Zuckerman

Warcraft (2016)

If any movie on this list deserves another shot, it’s Warcraft. Duncan Jones’ adaptation of Blizzard’s long-running franchise was perhaps too ambitious, too dense to have been a hit with fans or with critics, but it’s much more than the weirdly uneven epic fantasy it seems to be on the surface. When the home realm of the orcs dies, their leader, an orc warlock named Gul’dan (Daniel Wu) who wields sinister green fel magic, opens a portal to the world of Azeroth, populated by humans, dwarves, and elves. Obviously, the humans can’t have this, and the armies of men declare war on the invading orcs. Because Jones wasn’t interested in a rote humans-vs-monsters movie, the story is deliberately told equally from the perspective of the humans-warrior Lothar (Travis Fimmel), runaway mage Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer), Stormwind’s King Llane (Dominic Cooper), and the Guardian Medivh (Ben Foster)-as well as the orcs-Frostwolf Clan chieftain Durotan (Toby Kebbell), his pregnant mate Draka (Anna Galvin), and half-orc Garona (Paula Patton).

It all results in an overly complex plot that’s enough for three or four movies, and the huge downer ending practically begs for a sequel that will probably never be made, given Warcraft’s lengthy production and its lukewarm reception when it finally opened. Warcraft relies heavily on CG, with entire environments and cities created with computerized imagery and motion-capture transforming half its cast into beefy orcs. The post-production alone took almost two years to complete, but those two years were absolutely worth it. Every bit of visual effects is so striking you forget you’re not looking at something real; the orcs themselves are distinct individuals, the mo-cap cameras capturing and rendering even the most subtle micro-expressions to give depth to characters that, in other movies of this kind, would be relegated to disposable villains. Warcraft may have jumped the gun with its plot, trying to put so much into one movie it turned out bloated and messy, but there’s enough to appreciate in that mess to make it worth revisiting.-Emma Stefansky

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