‘Twisted Metal’ Just Set A Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score Record
There are many high profile video game adaptations these day, from The Last of Us to Fallout in live-action, from Arcane to Cyberpunk Edgerunners in the animated world, but you might have overlooked one show in particular: Twisted Metal.
If you even knew that this show existed, you can find it on Peacock, and it’s just entered its second season. The adaptation of the famed car combat game stars current Captain America Anthony Mackie, Brooklyn 99’s Stephanie Beatriz and a combination of wrestler Samoa Joe’s body and Will Arnett’s voice to make Sweet Tooth.
It seemed like a recipe to be awful. Instead, it’s good. It’s very good. In fact it’s so good that it’s just become tied for the all-time audience score record among live-action video game adaptations. And really, it might be #1 if you take into consideration it had to get these scores across two seasons. The list:
- Twisted Metal (2 seasons) – 93% audience score
- Fallout (1 season) – 93% audience score
- The Last of Us (2 seasons) – 62% audience score
- Halo (2 seasons) – 61% audience score
- The Witcher (3 seasons) – 54% audience score
- Like a Dragon: Yakuza (1 season) – 30% audience score
- Resident Evil (1 season) – 26% audience score
There are more coming, and we’ve heard news about upcoming God of War, Mass Effect and Assassin’s Creed series heading to different streaming services. But that’s the list so far. Things have gone better in animation with those projects attracting more praise. However, even in that list, it’s only Cyberpunk Edgerunners that beats out Twisted Metal and Fallout with a 95% audience score. Even Arcane and Castlevania are lower. If we’re doing movies, we’ve got all three Sonic movies at 93% or above, so clearly that has gone well. The recent huge-earner, Minecraft, has an 85%.
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But as you can see from the TV shows, fans are notoriously hard to please. The Last of Us may have dozens of Emmy nominations but fans there have really laid into the show, especially in season 2. The Witcher, mainly an adaptation of the books, but heavily influenced by the games, has seen a rapid decline in quality. Fallout is the standout series, an adaptation of the world, not a specific game, with a dead-on vibe and a stellar cast with Ella Purnell and Walton Goggins.
Twisted Metal is great. It really is. I played all these games growing up, and this is exactly the sort of violence and comedy mix a series like this should be. A highlight is the brilliant combination performance of Samoa Joe and Will Arnett as Sweet Tooth, a completely creative idea. Also, while I don’t love him in all that much else, Anthony Mackie is fantastic here, and this, more than anything else, feels like a role he was born to play. If you’re a fan of the games, you will not regret checking it out.
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