Movies Based on Toys and Games, Ranked Worst to Best
Greta Gerwig's new Barbie film may be getting all of the attention this month, but it's far from the first film to attempt to bring a children's toy line to the big screen. While some of those adaptations have been dismissed as nothing more than feature-length toy commercials, others have been successful in spite of their origins. In the gallery on this page, we rank over three dozen such films from worst to best according to their Metascores, which represent the consensus views of leading professional film critics.
All of the films are based on pre-existing toys—including tabletop games and trading cards—though we have omitted any films for franchises that were already well established as television shows (or comics) prior to becoming toys. In addition, we have also excluded any films with fewer than four reviews from critics (our minimum required for calculating a Metascore)—a group that mainly includes direct-to-video features (including, by the way, most of the previous Barbie movies).
While the troll dolls were previously adapted into several TV cartoons—and even made cameo appearances in three of Pixar's Toy Story films—2016's Trolls was their first dedicated big-screen showcase. An animated jukebox-style musical featuring a mix of originals and pop songs first made famous by Lionel Richie, Paul Simon, Earth Wind & Fire, Cyndi Lauper, Diana Ross and more—you know, all the usual kids' favorites—Trolls featured an all-star voice cast mixing actors and singers, including Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, Gwen Stefani, Russell Brand, James Corden, and John Cleese. The formula proved to be an instant success for DreamWorks Animation, grossing nearly $350 million despite middling reviews, and was followed by (at least) two film sequels and (at least) two TV series spinoffs.
“Trolls is not break-the-mould brilliant like The Lego Movie or Toy Story, or a keeper like Frozen. But it’s a lovable and giddy guilty pleasure.” —Cath Clarke, Time Out London