Street Fighter : L'Ultime Combat

STREET FIGHTER (1994)

This movie has aged surprisingly well. It's always been bad but now it's so bad that it's kind of amazing. Based on the kick ass video game the makers do a crappy job of trying to string together a plausible storyline. But it does manage to have some over the top action sequences and some truly cringeworthy moments like Ming Na Wen delivering her best Chun Li speech before fly kicking a charismatic Raul Julia as Bison. Van Damme is also pretty hot and fun as "super american" Guile. The movie is overly fun and best of all there's never a dull moment.

Budget: $35m Box Office: $99m

7.5/10

Some people claim this is a bad movie... true. Some people claim this movie is a bad translation of the video game it's supposed to be based on... true. Some people claim it's the worst ever... trust me, I've seen worse.

While it does have its Christmas list of bad things (poor script, ugly sets, subpar acting), it's good for a laugh or two because of the negatives... at the same time however, any dedicated fan of the Street Fighter games will find this as an insult because it does not properly adapt the video game...

Is it a bad movie? Sure it is... but I've seen my share of bad movies and I can tell that this isn't the absolute worst!

It's really dangerous to make a movie out of a video game, especially when the characters in the video game are cartoony. STREET FIGHTER is a terrible movie. The characters are a joke, and ACT like it's all a joke. The movie looks cheesy (study Bison's "hovering" command pod - it's obviously hooked to some kind of crane), and committing the famous Street Fighter martial arts movies into live action just looks stupid. What do you expect from DeSouza when the only things he directed before were a "Tales From The Crypt" episode and some shows of "Bowling For Dollars"? (No joke) Even the few Van Damme fans that are still left (after he's made countless bombs like this) will be embarrassed for their onscreen hero.

I first saw "Street Fighter" in theaters with my older brother and a few of his friends, and, as a four year old, I was upset by the lack of hadokens, yoga fires, hundred hand slaps, and sonic booms. Now older and (slightly) more mature, I can point out some of these movie's flaws accurately. First off, the campy style, as funny as it may be, takes away from the gritty and dark attitude that video game of Street Fighter II conveyed. Too many one liners, and predictable reactions are present. POSSIBLE SPOILER ---When Bison tells orders Chun-Li be taken into his personal quarters, E Honda and Balrog struggle harder in the same cliché way most heroes do when a villain is taking a female member of the team---- Some of the choices for actors were also under par, like Van Damme being Guile. I understand he's a kick@$$ action hero, but the guy is not all American, which is what Guile was all about. The portrayal of Sagat was disappointing; he's supposed to be a terrifying 7 foot tall menace, not some weak looking failed businessman. Removing Fei Long altogether was understandable, but Blanka should've been more prominent, rather than some odd rehash of Charlie and the Brazillian beast. Making Dhalsim a doctor, with NO powers at all, does not do justice to the real Dhalsim. I liked this doctor, but I want to see Dhalsim! Some of the characters were okay though; Dee Jay made a surprisingly good villain, Bison was well chosen, and Zangief was hilarious, but that's about as good as it gets. This movie also lacked any special moves at all, I mean understand they were on a low budget, and it was nearly 12 years ago, but come on, you can have a corny movie with cool colors, a cool movie with no colors, but you can't have a corny movie with no colors and expect people to love it (colors means ha-do-kens by the way). The only move they tried to portray was Bison's psycho crusher, and that kind of failed. Although the game was amazing, this movie should only be watched if you're not expecting the glory of the game, and can take this crap lightly. I feel like a teacher who has failed a student...

This movie suffers from the same problem as most video game or comic book adaptations in the '90s. The people making it just don't take the source material seriously so the whole thing comes across as one big garish cartoon with no attempt at characterizations or an intelligent plot. It's supposedly for teenagers and adults but it's intellectually on a level only pre-teen children can enjoy. There is some entertainment here, but only in that disreputable "so bad it's good" guilty pleasure way. Most of the actors ham it up, particularly a slumming Raul Julia in his last film. Jean-Claude Van Damme is about what you expect, only with ridiculous dyed blonde hair. I did enjoy Ming-Na Wen as Chun-Li but the rest are lame. This is also the disappointing film directorial debut of Steven E. de Souza, who had written the screenplays of some of the '80s best actioners. He also wrote this mess but unfortunately it's missing much of the wit that Die Hard, Commando, or Running Man had.