Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

More often than not, when a video game is translated into a film, the process doesn't turn out to be a success. Sure the films are interesting enough to garner an audience, and the excitement of the "possibility" that they will be good usually makes some money at the box office. The problem is that the films usually lack a few important qualities, which include a good cast of actors/actresses, a strong story that will remain believable, and a distinct way of making sure the movie doesn't look cheap. When I was in high school, Street Fighter 2 was a huge game, and everyone wanted to play it in the arcades as well as on the Super Nintendo. It was a pretty interesting game that involved 2 players each having control of one character, and fighting out a 1 on 1 battle. They each had their own attributes to make them original, and they each had their own fighting style, so each player had their own favorites. Seeking to take full advantage of the popularity that the game had created, as well as the success of the animated feature film out of Japan, it was decided that Street Fighter needed its own theatrical treatment in the United States. So, thinking ahead to appeal to an international fan base, Jean-Claude Van Damme was cast as a lead actor in the film, and Steven E. De Souza was brought in the write the screenplay. It's interesting to not that De Souza would later write a Lara Croft screenplay as well.

With many directions for the story to possibly go, they decided to make the character of Guile (Van Damme) a focal point for the story. Guile is a colonel who works against terrorism, and with the evil Dictator General Bison threatening the world, is called into action to put a stop to him. Falling into place among the supporting roles are all the other characters out of the video game including Ken, Ryu, Chun-Li, and E. Honda to just name a few. The names probably mean nothing to a viewer if you haven't played the game, but much as other franchises of video game / comic book movies try to cram too many names into a single film, this one follows the formula. There are various sub-plots within the story that help to tie most of the characters together, which include some of them being part of a television crew investigating Bison, some are rogue fighters doing it to earn a living, some are scientists, and of course some are members of armed forces divisions that are fighting for or against evil. Each of the characters is given back-stories, but they are very weak, and there is no exploration of any of the main characters. Instead we are just given a few words for each of them, and spoon-fed what their emotional states have become. This dumbs down the entire plot for the audience, and takes a lot away from the central themes.

With Bison threatening the world, Guile springs into action, and all of the characters begin to take sides with Bison or Guile, and the fight is on. There is no intrigue, there are no dramatic overtones, and there is no suspense in the movie. Instead those important pieces of filmmaking are exchanged for cheesy fight scenes to insure that each of the characters gets to show off their "special moves" from the video games. It gets boring after a while to watch them go through these motions, and you can see what is going to happen in the next scene far in advance from when it actually happens. Any semblance of entertainment is further ruined by terrible dialogue as each character tries to out-do the next with one-liners intended to be funny, but instead become tedious. Raul Julia is the only one in the entire cast that shows he knows how to act (as Bison), but he is wasted on a role that relied more on a presence than on the acting itself. Because of this, and because of the way his character is forced to interact with others, even Julia can't help raise this film above mediocrity.

There are those who enjoyed this film because of its campy feeling, and that it is simply an extension of the video game. I am of the mind-set that this was a true travesty of film making, and that there were no elements of the movie, which were interesting or worthy of watching. The screenplay was horribly done, and the action sequences were extremely fake looking with the lack of any kind of CGI enhancements to make up for the obvious wire-tricks. When you see Bison "flying" at the end of the movie, you can't help but put your head in your hands or roll your eyes continuously. It's hard to rationalize that this movie made so much money in the end, but sadly understandable because of the appeal of the video game attached to it. Van Damme is not a very good actor, and expecting much more than he gave to this film would be asking too much, but I think that even he could have done better than this performance. The film is really bad, and when I was younger it was one of the worst films I had ever seen. Street Fighter completely missed its audience with a terrible film that had a weak plot, and even worse writing attached to it. It is a film that should be shelved forever, and definitely is one I will not recommend.







Recommended: No

Viewing Format: DVD