The evil warlord General M. Bison and his troops have kidnapped Allied Nations relief workers along with three U.N soldiers that were assigned to protect them. M. Bison demands that the United Nations pay him ransom money in exchange for the hostages, where M. Bison has given the United Nations 3 days and he threatens to kill the hostages if the United Nations fails to pay the ransom. Learning his best friend, Carlos "Charlie" Blanka is one of the hostages, U.N military commanding officer Colonel William F. Guile leads his army of troops against M. Bison. But Guile isn't the only man after M. Bison. Guile sends low-life martial artists Ryu and Ken Masters to infiltrate M. Bilson's one-eyed arms dealer Victor Sagat and his masked Spanish cage fighter Vega and discover the location of M. Bison's jungle fortress. News journalist Chun-Li Zang and her crew, former boxer Balrog and former sumo-wrestler Edmond Honda are out to settle their scores with M. Bison. M. Bison's unwilling chief scientist Dr. Dhalsim is transforming Blanka into a genetic mutated super soldier, in M. Bison's goal for world domination. Joined by martial artists and fighters from around the world, Guile and his troops engage in combat as they set out to defeat the evil warlord and rescue the hostages from his jungle fortress, before the 72 hours up, as Guile and M. Bison faces off in the ultimate showdown. Based on the popular video game, "Street Fighter II". Dictator M. Bison holds Allied Nation relief workers for ransom. Colonel William F. Guile leads his troops into battle against him. Chun-Li, Balrog and E. Honda are a news crew seeking revenge on Sagat. and his lackey, Vega. Ryu and Ken are two low-rent shysters who get caught in the middle between sides. Zangief and Dee Jay kiss up to Bison, who holds Dr. Dhalsim hostage to create Blanka, a genetic warrior. Cammy and T. Hawk second Guile. Flicks based on video games don't get as bad as this one. Ok, maybe thats not true- Double Dragon was even worse. But lets face it, when you go to watch a movie, there are plenty of elements that you would look for in a motion picture. It's either good acting, great direction, perhaps an involving plot, explosive action, or possibly humor. Street Fighter possesses absolutely none of these elements. Hence it totally fails in all catagories. Overall, the casting was terrible, save a few minor characters and Raul Julia as Bison. But I mean, the popular Ken and Ryu play limited roles (oh and their outfits are prison uniforms in the movie) and instead they substituted a Frenchman (JCVD) to play the heroic Guile as the main character. How stupid.<br/><br/>Not only that, but nearly all the characters in this movie are American (so much for the "World Warrior" gag). And half of them don't really fight. Perhaps the biggest problem with Street Fighter was that they tried to put too much of the game into the movie (and they didn't do a good job of that either). They tried to fit in too many characters, who mostly do nothing but let you know that they're in the movie. But there is one very retarded part in the movie that tried too hard to capture the essense of the game: Bison remotely tries to kill Guile using a "joy stick controller" with a large camera display (just like in the arcade), while Guile is in a hovercraft. Bison actually manouvers the joy stick in ways as if he's performing special tasks, just like a dragon-punch in the game (street figher fans know what I'm talking about!). When I saw this part, I was laughing my ass off (at the movie, not with it). After that, I knew that the rest of the movie would be pathetic too, which it was of course.<br/><br/>4/10 for Street Fighter! 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.
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345 weeks ago