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New Hitman Movie One of the Worst-Reviewed Game Films Ever

Even the Max Payne and Super Mario Bros. movies scored better.

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Movies based on video games don't have the best track record when it comes to quality. Now, it looks like the last effort, Hitman: Agent 47, is not going to help turn things around. The film hits theaters tomorrow, August 21, but reviews for it started coming in this week--and they were generally unkind to the picture.

Based on 25 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, Agent 47 currently sports a horrible 4 percent score on the site's "Tomatometer" scale. Meanwhile, the movie currently has a 27 percent score on GameSpot sister site Metacritic. Scores are expected to fluctuate slightly as more reviews come online, but it's not a good start.

By comparison, 2007's Hitman has a 14 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 35 on Metacritic.

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Agent 47 is on track to become one of the worst-reviewed video game movies of all time. Both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic have nice roundups that list off the worst movies based on games, according to critics, and Agent 47 would be near the bottom.

Movies like the famous failure Super Mario Bros. and Mark Wahlberg's Max Payne scored significantly higher--16 percent each on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic--than where Agent 47 sits right now. One of the best-reviewed video game movies to date was 2005's Doom, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Karl Urban. The movie boasts a 19 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 34 on Metacritic.

Agent 47 isn't the worst-reviewed video game movie ever, however, as 2005's Alone in the Dark, based on the Atari horror game series, sits at a 1 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 9 percent on Metacritic.

As for why critics aren't pleased with Agent 47, check out some review scores and editor opinions below.

The A.V. Club - D+

"Mostly it makes a clear, cogent case for why no one should ever make a Hitman movie ever again," - Jesse Hassenger [Full review]

New York Post - 1/4

"Impervious to everything, he glides through a series of interchangeably ridiculous mass-slaughter scenes in which, for instance, squadrons of assassins helpfully rappel down from the tops of skyscrapers to allow Agent 47 to shoot them. It's all as pointless as the asthma inhaler with which one character treats his advanced lung cancer." - Kyle Smith [Full review]

The Wrap - 3/10

"Don't expect this reboot of the Hitman franchise starring Zachary Quinto and Rupert Friend to break the curse of bad movies made out of hit video games." - Inkoo Kang [Full review]

The Guardian -- 3/5

"The story is baffling, the characters disappointing, and the twists anticlimactic, but this video game adaptation has violent energy." - Jordan Hoffman [Full review]

This is not the result that producer Adrian Askarieh would have wanted. He said in an interview last week that Agent 47 would be faithful adaptation of the franchise that fans would enjoy.

"Agent 47 doesn't do anything in this movie that he doesn't do or hasn't done in the video games," he explained at the time. "I think once they see it, they'll realize it's both--it is the character they love, and it is also a big, expansive action film."

Agent 47 stars Homeland's Rupert Friend as the murderous bald hero, alongside Star Trek's Zachary Quinto. Fast and Furious star Paul Walker was originally going to play the lead role, but Friend took over following Walker's death in 2013.

Commercials director Aleksander Bach made his feature film directorial debut with Agent 47.

Despite the poor reviews, Fox appears to have plans for a sequel, as numerous reviewers noted that the movie features an end-credits sequence that strongly hints at a follow-up. In addition, Fox has already signed Friend for additional, unannounced installments in the series.

It's also worth noting that even poorly reviewed movies often make a lot of money. We'll report back with box office numbers in the coming days for Agent 47.

The next Hitman game, meanwhile, was announced at E3 and is due out later this year for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC across digital channels.

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