February 22, 2004

If you will, indulge me for a moment.

I realize sometimes that I have a nasty habit of turning my bad movie reviews into my own personal private confessional. I make a lot of confessions that I probably shouldn't, and that more or less goes against my principle that one person's bad movie watching habits should be kept in the home. Unfortunatly, I have found myself going against that principle and often I just have to confess my sins right out here in the open.

Having said that, I have this confession to make:

I have probably put myself through every video game movie that has ever been made. From Tomb Raider to Mortal Kombat to Super Mario Bros. to Resident Evil. All formulaic, all by the numbers, all houses built on sand, offering up such half-assed wittisms as "I'm a vegetarian, I don't eat anything with a face." and "I don't deal in chance."

I don't know why I watch these movies, maybe in my heart I know that the blow won't be as severe. Unlike putting in the cassette of Barn of the Blood Llama or Rock n Roll Frankenstein, I find that it is nearly impossible to watch a movie based on a video game and not know what I'm getting into.

The draw to want to watch Street Fighter is anybody's guess but the draw to want to make Street Fighter into a movie is understandable from a money-mongering standpoint. The name is established, the target audience is set into place and the story is as easy to snap together as a set of legos (by virtue of not having very many pieces to work with in the first place).

The story is beside the point, but I confess that I did follow it (there I go again) so here goes: It seems that a country in Southeast Asia called Shadaloo (yeah, I know) has a problem. The overlord General Bison (Raul Julia, unfortunately in his farewell performance) has taken relief workers from the Allied Nations hostage. He wants one of those ridiculous ransoms that Dr. Evil would asked for and just take a guess what he will do with the hostages if he demand isn't met.

Sent to overthrow Bison is Colonel Guile, played by our favorite non-actor Jean Claude Van Damme. How do we know he's the hero? Well, he's played by a marketable star wearing a beret and he runs around with his shirt open so we can ponder at the time he's spent in the gym. As if you had to ask.

From there you can pretty much connect the dots, Bison hides out in a secret underground stronghold while Guile and his men battle one henchman after another until get get to the subborinate henchmen, then the non-subordinate chief henchman, then the main henchman and then Main Boss Henchman and then to Bison himself.

I'm always kind of curious about the dialogue in movies like this. Knowing that the script isn't exactly packed with Bartlett's favorites we get an exchange like this:

Bison: "You have made me a very happy man."
Guile: "And next, I'll make you a dead one."

I am skilled as bracing myself for lame quips but that's the first one that ever gave me heartburn.

Street Fighter is more routine then just plain horrible. My mouth wasn't as agape as it was in, say, Super Mario Bros. because the one positive credit is that at least SF didn't include a scene with John Leguizamo introducing himself to a clog in the sewer drain. Although Street Fighter avoids such an indelicacy, I should note that it also doesn't get much better.