Review of Street Fighter (1993) by Ryan K — 01 Nov 2010

Video games and movies have a rocky history together. First, there was Super Mario Bros. I have never gotten over that. We have pretty much anything Uwe Boll has been involved with, the focus being on House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, and Bloodrayne. And we also have Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which lost millions upon millions of dollars despite being better received by both critics and fans of their respective games. Even a movie that just has video games as part of the plot, The Wizard, is seen as a disgrace.

There are some exceptions to this general dislike. The Pokemon movies (we're on number 13 right now) were more warmly welcomed by fans, since they were also an extension of the anime. The Resident Evil and Tomb Raider movies were huge box office draws for their blazing action sequences and the fact that attractive women were kicking tons of ass. And Mortal Kombat has one pretty good movie and one really bad movie to exhibit this inconsistency (the franchise is even up for consideration of a reboot). Even so, this review is not about such movies. This review is about Street Fighter.

Street Fighter II is probably the first game that comes to mind when someone thinks of a fighting game. Capcom was able to combine beat-em-ups and one-on-one brawlers into a single game type, with a bevy of playable characters and fighting styles. It didn't even have a plot. It was just one person traveling the world, fighting others to claim the title of champion. So, as you can imagine, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood execs wanted to dump millions of dollars into a movie adaptation.

It should have worked. You had Jean Claude Van Damme, whose automatic overacting is perfect for action movies, and you had Raul Julia, a respected actor whose kids really wanted him to do the role. You even had veteran action film writer/director Steven E. De Souza making the film. What's the worst that could happen?

Well, it took me a while to find and watch this film online (how else would people be able to make web video parodies of it?), so that was one flaw. There is so much wrong with this movie that it's a wonder how it even managed to get made.

First, there's the misappropriation of the characters. Second, there's jamming so many of them into a 97-minute film that there is no room for development. Third, there's the ludicrous writing and acting that exploits every cheesy line and action movie cliche that you could think of. Lastly, the production values are so overwrought that it may be the biggest tribute to superfluous set design, costume design and special effects since film version of The Flintstones (oddly enough, both films had Steven E. De Souza as a writer and were released in 1994).

How over-the-top is this movie? People aren't hurling energy blasts, but every costume and actor actually fits nicely when the fighting scenes come in. The moment I saw Bison's armor with the built-in life support system, I could have sworn that I was watching the Adam West Batman TV show and not a $35 million movie about a video game.

Street Fighter is not technically a good movie, but I admit Universal did try to put out something that would attract the fans of the fighting game (Street Fighter fans should watch it anyway). It's clear that the actors in the movie (especially Raul Julia, who died prior to the film's release) had a lot of fun making the movie, especially since the last 35 minutes are one giant fight scene. Unfortunately, you don't really get the fun, since it leaves you feeling like you could have enjoyed yourself more playing the arcade game in the lobby of the theater. "OF COURSE!".

Street Fighter gets 26 Hadoukens out of 100.