Street Fighter (1994)
The ultimate battle.
Games haven’t gotten the best rap for being live action movies in the past. There’s a few that are great examples of it, including tonights. Now, I would like to point out that sometimes a movie can be a bad adaptation but still really enjoyable. Some movies, like Jurassic Park, might even be more enjoyable then the book you know? So, as a person whose played a bunch of games, maybe this time around I can have a little extra zazz to throw on the write up since I can point stuff out. Then again, it might be a case where it’s a better scenario for me to ask “why bother?” Check out the movie for a game that my wake up alarm is from, let’s get ready for Street Fighter.
This is back in the day when nobody believed a games plot could stand alone in the movies. Look at what happened with the Mario Bros original movie - that was bonkers. As such, the idea of a bunch of fighters trying to be the best of the best is completely thrown out in favor of a more classic approach - the big bad evil terrorist dictator Bison is out to rule the world or crush it under his thumb, and the good United Nations stand in led by Guile is out to stop that from happening. After Bison kidnaps a bunch of hostages and sets them for ransom though, Guile doesn’t have the most time to save the day. Along the way, we meet a pack of folks negatively effected by Bison and his shadowy organization out for revenge, as well as various smuggler types that all get wrapped in one way or the other. In the background, Bison is working on a super soldier program to really amp up his power trip against the world. What does this have to do with the games? Well, there’s some fights, and some of the characters look like they should, and admittedly I haven’t played every game and the plots do tend to mix it up a bit, but I feel that scale-wise this one went more for a hard action flick plot then it really did a super in-depth dive into what makes Street Fighter itself.
You may expect me to talk about how all the actors phoned it in and it’s an absolute travesty here, but in all honesty they got a good deal of actors whose names people will recognize from one film or another. Most of them actually do a wonderful job, although even if they aren’t doing the best I’m not positive it’s not what was requested of them. Van Damme, for example, has this weird way of delivering all his lines in this and ends up coming off very Shatner-ish. Raul and Wen both do a wonderful job, particularly Raul who has a ton of crazy evil villain lines with his role as Bison. Wen gets plenty to do as well, including a little background drop where she flips things around. Of all of them, there does get to be a few who get to have their own chemistry, like the reporter crew.
Characters are there, and it’s varying levels of worth and benefit to them. Wen’s character - for example - gets this big old backstory to give her all this motivation towards why she hates the main bad, whereas the rather bumbling duo of Ken and Ryu are kind of just good-guy crooks looking to score that get to have a heart by the end of the movie. Bison is evil, and stays that way in classic glorious villain fashion - no real reason delivered on why he one day decide he wants to rule the world, no grand turning point to try and make him feel like anything other than a guy twirling his moustache - and I can appreciate that simplicity. Guile wants Bison, because he kidnapped and killed his friends and comrade soldier guys. A lot of the background characters are just there to do what they have to do because they have to. It can lead to it being a bit of a mess at times - not like the story or characters get overly complicated, but you’ll start getting that feeling of “this is just thrown in so we can reference something and try to appease the nerds that we so far really don’t feel like we’ve even thought about,” you know?
Enjoy a game of guessing characters that you think might be right.
So story and acting and characters don’t sound like they are too horrible right? Where did this thing go wrong that everyone hated it? Well - mostly it feels like it doesn’t care at all about what it’s based on, which is somewhat strange when you start feeling all these little easter egg type moments around. Yeah, the characters of Ken and Ryu may as well just be some random schmucks off the street instead of their game characters - but then you get all the random moments where people yell out or use a move from the game. It almost feels jarring too - this isn’t played like some mystical kung fu flick with fireballs and flying bicycle kicks, it’s guns and biceps and a unexpected amount of comedy. Like, someone equated a game with kids, and decided we need to just blast this thing in the face with comedy of all sorts - including a fight between the big Russian and the sumo wrestler that plays out a hundred percent with Godzilla sound effects for no gosh dang reason at all. Sometimes it all works out really good for the movie - like the big Russian being an idiot that leads to my favorite line during a scene where a truck with bombs is rushing towards a weapons stockpile and it’s shown on a little television so he shouts “someone change the channel!” There’s also a great “you’re getting payed?” moment in there. It does fit more towards that type of comedy than it does slapstick though, even though there is a few physical comedy moments.
Hows the costumes and stuff? Well, settings are kind of neat, ranging from normal ho-hum, underground street fighting arenas, and even super-secret high-tech underground base. Costumes range from generic army guy all the way up to pretty game accurate - granted for how much they may have nailed something like Bison’s iconic look, you also get something that end up just being a bit “at least you tried.” For the most part the only costume that ends up being not great is Blanka - which is really a scrawny dude in green paint with some forehead work and what looks like is a really teased up wig. Shall we call it a mixed bag? Yes, yes we will. There is a bit of an effort at least towards making it so that you can recognize a character, even if you can’t recognize them (although by the end it’s trying real hard on the visual side regardless of how much logic it makes). It does lead to some real weird call outs though - like Guile asking T. Hawk about his bandana out of the blue so that we can proudly announce that yes, we didn’t forget that character is a Native American despite having him in generic army costume the entire movie. Oh yeah, they also all randomly bust a big group victory screen pose at the end.
The movie is at a weird spot where it might fare better with audiences if it wasn’t anything to do with Street Fighter at all. That said, I’d also wager that the only thing that really feels bad (besides maybe that Blanka costume) is how Van Damme chooses to deliver all his lines in here. Yes, some of this stuff is a stretch to the source, but by normal family action movie standards it’s mediocre at worst bar being a little busier than it might need to with the character density. How about some depth though eh? By now I highly doubt anyone is really expecting me to talk about anything for the brain-folk out there, and I’d like to say you are mostly right there. I mean, we have the basics like revenge, good versus evil, and other tangents that go along with it. What I do kind of want to mention though is that the movie has moments where the lines and their deliveries almost feel like they were pulled from something else - for example, after delivering her entire (to marginalize it) sob story to Bison and how he killed her dad, he slams out this marvelously deep line of “For you, it was the day I graced your village but for me it was just Tuesday.” For everything going on in this movie, that sudden perspective-laiden line is way deeper than it has any right to be, but it also works so dang good. Likewise, our scientist delivers a wonderful usage of the “when good men do nothing” line that also feels way more weighty than the base chunks falling down around them.
Every good game has a freebee.
So what’s the verdict? As a movie, I’ve watched way less enjoyable movies. The fact if feels like it’s meant for little kids makes for plenty of moments of entertainment or well spirited enjoyment. Things never get too overly complicated despite all the movie parts, and it has moments where it plays out really well. There’s some decent fights in there, although nothing compared to some of the absolute crazy stuff that gets shot in modern movies. It’s quite a bit “of it’s time” in that way. Also in that line - it’s not the best if you go in expecting the title, Street Fighter. Of all the movies of this franchise I’ve seen (which to my knowledge is all of them except the Chun Li movie), this one is probably the worst as far as being tied to the franchise. It makes a bit of sense that anime, both in style and place of origin, would treat the franchise with more respect - but even then there are little elements in there that remind you of the franchise one way or the other so it still did a better job than that initial live action Mario did. Turn of your fanboy, get a bunch of buddies together to watch with (unlike me) and some brewskis and you’ll probably be having your self more laughs than the movie originally intended.