Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Movie Adaptations of TV Shows Ranked

Welcome to the latest editon of the "Ranked" series, where I rank a franchise, ultraspecific category of movie or the filmography of an actor from worst to best and hand out related accoloades. This week, I'm focusing on Movie Adaptations of TV Shows.  

Movie Adaptations of TV Shows Ranked:
Note#1 : This list excludes adaptations featuring characters from TV shows (MacGruber, Good Burger),  shows based on properties that originated in other forms of media (Pokémon, The Muppets) or projects featuring groups that started on TV, but later went onto to do things that had nothing to do with the material from their TV series (Monty Python).

Note #2: Given the large volume of titles that fall under this umbrella, it's entirely possible that I missed some. If I do discover that I missed something, I'll promptly add it and acknowledge the mistake.

64.The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (F)
63.The Crocodile Hunter: Collison Course (D-)
62.Inspector Gadget (D-)
61.The Dukes of Hazzard (D-)
60.The Last Airbender (D)
59.McHale's Navy (D)
58.Scooby-Doo (D)
57.The Brady Bunch Movie (D+)
56.The Flintstones (D+)
55.George of the Jungle (D+)
54.The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (C-)
53.Fantasy Island (C-)
52.The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (C-)
51.Charlie's Angels (2000) (C)
50.The Addams Family (1991) (C)
49.The Equalizer 2 (C)
48.The Rugrats Movie (C)
47.Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (C)
46.Rugrats in Paris (C+)
45.Edge of Darkness (C+)
44.The Honeymooners (C+)
43.Teen Titans! Go to the Movies (B-)
42.CHiPs (B-)
41.State of Play (B-)
40.Star Trek Beyond (B-)
39.S.W.A.T. (B-)
38.The Addams Family (2019) (B-)
37.The Equalizer (B-)
36.Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (B)
35.Charlie's Angels (2019) (B)
34.Baywatch (B)
33.Wild Wild West (B)
32.The Green Hornet (B)
31.I-Spy (B)
30.Mission-Impossible (B)
29.Mission-Impossible: Rogue Nation (B)
28.Ali G Indahouse (B)
27.The Simpsons Movie (B)
26.The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (B)
25.Serenity (B)
24.The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (B)
23.Mission-Impossible III (B)
22.Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Colon Movie Film for Theaters (B)
21.Widows (B)
20.Entourage (B+)
19.Reno 911!: Miami (B+)
18.Starksy & Hutch (B+)
17.Get Smart (B+)
16.Power Rangers (B+)
15.The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (B+)
14.The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear (B+)
13.The A-Team (B+)
12.Mission-Impossible: Ghost Protocol (B+)
11.The Naked Gun: From the Files of the Police Squad (B+)
10.Star Trek Into Darkness (B+)
9.Mission-Impossible: Fallout (B+)
8.South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut (A-)
7.Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie (A-)
6.Jackass 3-D (A)
5.Jackass: The Movie (A)
4.Jackass: Number Two (A)
3.21 Jump Street (A)
2.Star Trek (2009) (A)
1.22 Jump Street (A)

Top Dog: 22 Jump Street (2014)
The only thing that's more surreal than a manic, self-aware comedy that takes shots at cop shows/movies with consistently inspired, hilarious results getting a sequel is the fact that said sequel ended up being better than the original. The meta notes hit harder as the film spoofs the repetitive nature of sequels, the central buddy pairing (Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum) is even more in sync and the supporting cast (Ice Cube, Jillian Bell, Peter Stormare, Wyatt Russell, The Lucas Brothers) goes above and beyond to pull their comedic weight. Is this wildly successful formula enough to make it the greatest comedy sequel ever made? No question.  

Lowlight: The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000)
The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas is the worst movie I saw in theaters as a kid and it's honestly not even particularly close. The level of garbage acting (Stephen Baldwin is so bad here that he probably cost Alec gigs for a few years), horrific jokes and eye-rolling cornball crap that occupies this debacle makes stuff like The Master of Disguise, Cats and Dogs and Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams look like revelatory pieces of cinema.

Most Underrated: The A-Team (2010)
In terms of sheer faithfulness to the source material, The A-Team is a runaway triumph. Everything that made The A-Team a small screen hit (the buddy camaraderie, playful tone, over-the-top action sequences) is present here while the greatly increased budget and decades worth of innovations in technology allowed the action to be bigger, louder and more satisfying than it ever was on the NBC airwaves. It suck that this ended up kind of bombing at the box office because there was potential for this morph into a really fun, long-running franchise.    

Most Overrated: Star Trek Beyond (2016)
Now here's an instance where honoring the original vision didn't work for me. Star Trek Beyond jettisoned the Star Wars-esque epic tone that J.J. Abrams brought to the prior two entries in this leg of the franchise and brought back the stoic cheesiness that was synonymous with every iteration of the series. While this pivot back to the classic way of doing things delighted fans that viewed what Abrams did as sacrilege, the hammy overacting, melodramatic storytelling and flat one-liners just reminded of why I could never get into the OG Star Trek.    

Greatest Beneficiary of the Movie Format: Jackass
This answer was a layup. As great as the Jackass crew's MTV series was, the lack of censorship that comes with the movie format allowed their stunts/pranks to reach new heights of vulgarity, insanity and hilarity.

Most Surprised I Was To Discover That A Movie Was Based on a TV Series: Widows (2018)
Widows came out roughly 18 months ago and I didn't know it was based on a TV series until I was doing my research for this piece yesterday. Even more shocking was finding out after reading the synopsis that Steve McQueen and Gillian Flynn's adaptation more or less just added some social commentary and melodrama to the core narrative arc of the series-which ran from 1983 to 1985 in England. While I have no intention of seeking the show out, hopefully it found a way to tell a tighter, more focused story than the movie did.  

Property That's Begging for a Proper Movie:  ALF 

Given that the likes of Fantasy Island, The Mod Squad and McHale's Navy have all made their way to the silver screen, it's kind of stunning that ALF hasn't. A comedic project revolving around an alien that crash lands in the garage of an American family and almost immediately starts living with them  has the potential to be hilarious. Hell, it could even work as a horror movie in the right hands, although the idea of a lighthearted comedy where the title character gets integrated into a human family is much more appealing to me than turning him into a murderer or some shit. To finish this off, here are some hypothetical castings combos that I thought of for the top 3 billed characters:
Eric Andre/Tiffany Haddish as The Tanners, Seth Rogen as ALF
Andy Samberg/Aubrey Plaza as The Tanners, Danny McBride as ALF
Chris Hemsworth/Issa Rae as The Tanners,  Keegan Michael-Key as ALF
Pete Davidson/Billie Lourd as The Tanners, Nick Kroll as ALF
Randall Park/Ali Wong as The Tanners, Craig Robinson as ALF 

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