Day 46- Movie 44. Street Fighter (1994)

Street Fighter is awful on nearly every level. I remember watching this in the mid 90s, and even then, I knew that this film pretty much sucked. It is just a stunning failure, further proving that it is nearly impossible to make a great movie based on a video game. I will mention a few positives for this film, but the negatives far outweigh everything else. The script is an absolute mess of ridiculous events and awful dialogue. There are so many cringe-worthy moments in this film that it nearly made me sick.

This movie tried very hard to stay true to the video game- so much of this film is spent winking at the fans of the video game, putting in little Easter eggs that hardcore gamers will immediately pick up on. That's fine to do, but not at the expense of the quality of the overall film. By trying to make this movie like a video game, the movie itself suffered horribly.

I want to quote two lines from this film that pretty much sum it all up to me:

Ken actually utters this line- "This sucks! Those guys are good guys, like us!"
That is one of the stupidest, worst lines of dialogue I have ever heard. I am stunned that more than one human being actually thought a line like that would work.

Later in the film, Guile says to another character- "I'm okay. I'm just half dead."
Again, the sheer stupidity of that statement is stunning.

I will admit that the one positive from this film is that it is kind of cool to see all those characters from the video game come to life on screen. I remember watching this movie while still playing the game, and it was very fun to see so many characters in fairly honest adaptations on the big screen. The movie even manages to get most of the characters in the very costumes they wear in the game. To achieve all this, the film had to sacrifice any realism or logic, but hey, trade offs do occur. Raul Julia gives a good performance, simply because it is so over the top and ridiculous that you have to give him credit for committing to that level of insanity.

I could talk more about this film, but I'm tired and my mind hurts from watching such a giant piece of trash. I remember being disappointed in this film when I was 13 or so, and now that I am a more experienced movie watcher, that disappointment has turned into disgust. I thought this film tried hard to weave all these characters into a coherent plot. It didn't exactly work, but the effort was there. I appreciate that effort, even if the end result was a massive failure.

I dare anyone to defend this movie. Video game movies typically result in crap movies (unfortunately, because I would love for them to work), and films like Street Fighter only further that belief. This movie sucks. 4.5/10.

Here's a pretty damn hard question- Best movie based on a video game?