High scores (and low)
Champs and noobs of video-game films:
• “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” (2010) — It survived a casting controversy and a 34 critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes to become the highestgrossing video-gamebased film so far with $335 million worldwide.
• “Resident Evil: Afterlife” (2010) — The fourth in what is by far the most successful series in the genre, is its highest-grossing entry, with $296 million. To date, the series has $916 million in worldwide receipts. A sixth, and supposedly “Final Chapter,” is in the works.
• “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” (2001) — It was the first massive hit of its kind, stamping Angelina Jolie as an A-list action star. It made $275 million and spawned a sequel that made only 57 percent as much money, despite marginally better reviews.
• “Mortal Kombat” (1995) — This was the first $100 million grosser of the genre. It’s now best remembered for its platinum-selling soundtrack, including the game’s is-ita-death-match-or-is-ita-rave theme song by the Immortals.
• “Postal” (2007) — It may be the lowest-grossing video-game movie to date, with $146,000 total. The film unseated “Double Dragon” (1994, $2.3 million), despite having stalwarts such as Dave Foley and eventual Oscar winner J.K. Simmons in its cast. No, Simmons didn’t win for “Postal.”
• “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within” (2001) — The film eked out a genre-high
44 percent positive critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, largely because of its groundbreaking animation.
• “House of the Dead” (2003), “Silent Hill”
(2006) and “In the Name of the King: A Dungeon
Siege Tale” (2008)— All share the low critics’-rating watermark of 4 percent on the Tomatometer. “Silent Hill: Revelation 3D” (2012) bested its predecessor to the tune of a 5 rating. Relatively speaking, that’s a 25 percent improvement.