Street Fighter: The Movie Kicks Ass! - Positives - Rerez

Street Fighter was a massive hit in the arcades. I remember so many kids lining up around the arcade cabinet getting ready to play in some big tournament. It was pretty impressive and I think Capcom knew a bunch of us really liked the game too because they decided to turn that entire video game franchise we knew so well in the arcades into a movie. And it sucked. And I don't think many people realize that. So let's find the positives.

Now to be honest when I played Street Fighter in the arcades I really wasn't paying attention to the story. I just picked a character and fought my way through to the end if I could make it. When I went to go see the film I kind of didn't know anything was wrong the first time because I just assumed that was just what the Street Fighter story was about. But it's not. See Street Fighter as we know it today is a worldwide video game phenomenon but back in 1987 when the original game was released in the arcades no one knew what to make of it. Sure it was some kind of fighting game whatever that was and there were a hell of a lot of buttons. I mean six buttons each who knows what to do with that? Street Fighter was a game where you could play with two characters you could either be Ken a blonde American or Ryu a redheaded Japanese man. Then in 1991 Capcom released Street Fighter 2 to worldwide praise. This was a game that kind of influenced the way that video games are today. Controls got much much better, the Capcom team learned something special about framing and now special moves were easy to pull off. Now you've got a culture of competitive play which we'd never really had before in the arcade. Sure there was always people trying to beat each other's high scores but actually now directly competing with each other in fist to fist combat was something we'd never really seen at least to that level. Street Fighter was such a huge success that everybody wanted a piece of the pie and at a certain point when the offers started coming around Capcom did say yes to making a live-action feature film.

The whole video game movie thing which is quite common today was in its very infancy back then. The Super Mario Bros movie had come out in 1993 and there'd been several cartoon shows in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Zelda, Mario all had their own cartoons but to do a very large budget action film based off a video game franchise had never been attempted before. The film creators were breaking new ground and anytime you try something new there's going to be a few problems you have to work out. The problems with Street Fighter the movie are multiple and one of the most glaring ones right off the bat is the basic plot. Bison is the antagonist or bad guy of the movie and in the game's Shadaloo was his organization but in the movie Shadaloo is a country which is pretty confusing. To add to this the protagonist of the movie is not the protagonist of the game. In the game the main character is arguably Ryu. The main character in this movie is Van Damme. Now I say Van Damme and not Guile because anytime Van Damme steps in front of the camera it's Van Damme. Love him or hate him Van Damme is Van Damme. In the movie he is the lead of what is called the AN which is the Allied Nations. Good call movie makers and writers because the UN is a peacekeeping force and the AN not so much. In the game there were 12 characters and they all had their individual storylines which I understand is very hard to cram into a movie so they had to work some magic to make it work. So characters like Honda for example are now working for Chun-Li, Balrog a professional boxer is now a cameraman and Cammy an assassin for British intelligence is now working under Guile in the AN. So I understand that it's very hard to shoehorn all those characters in with their individual storylines from the game but it does get a bit bizarre especially with Blanka and Charlie who are now suddenly the same character which in the game they are definitely not. But one thing the movie did get right was Bison to a certain extent. In the movie he is a tyrant in the game he's also a tyrant. Motivations are a bit different. In the game he doesn't want peace and in the movie he does in his own tyrannical way.

The casting of Jean-Claude Van Damme was literally the best possible scenario that the makers of Street Fighter the movie could have possibly had. One thing the filmmakers had with Van Damme in the starring role was they had legitimacy. Now they had a major Hollywood star in this film. It was almost going to guarantee them at least a good opening weekend. Back in 1994 Van Damme was the pinnacle of action stardom. Sure we had Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone and Steven Seagal but Van Damme was the one guy that could really bring it. He punches people, he flexes his muscles and then he has some really cheesy one-liners. One thing I really love about Van Damme's performance is that in this movie this guy was having an absolute great time and a blast on the set. At this point he's basically at peak physical perfection. This is Jean-Claude Van Damme at like 100%. After this movie his career starts to go in this really weird downward trajectory but at this point in time when you're watching this film he still had it. Van Damme was a blessing in this movie he was the reason that I went to see it. So the first positive is Jean-Claude Van Damme.

The music of Street Fighter was something that completely took me off guard. It's done by Graham Revell and this guy's actually famous for doing the music to Sin City, Pitch Black and The Crow and more recently he now does the music to Gotham. The score elevated the scope of the movie. I actually think that it would have been a disservice to the movie had the original Street Fighter music played in key action scenes. In fact they rarely if at all go and touch the score from the video games in any way. The opening track alone if that doesn't get you excited for the movie I don't know what will. The universal logo sinks into the screen, the Street Fighter logo takes over and there's a sudden blast of music that just gets your heart pumping like crazy. It's literally the perfect soundtrack and it's the one that Street Fighter the movie deserved. Sure they may have been lazy on plot in some instances and some very questionable choices in casting and style and design and direction and editing. They did a really good job at the score. So positive number two is that the movie has a great score.

Now we come to the big climactic ending of Street Fighter the movie and this is where the filmmakers wanted everything to happen all at once. Basically the climactic battle sequence is epic. It was chaos personified. You see up until this point all these elements have been thrown at you and all these little features are playing here and there but they really don't mean anything. The last act puts it all together and starts to take all the characters and turn them into what they are, fighters. Fights everywhere, action everywhere, all these conflicts are finding resolution. There's explosions, crazy one-liners, the moves from the game are in there, Bison starts flying around with a psycho crusher, it's really almost too much for your brain to handle. You couldn't ask for a better ending of a movie. Everybody has their little fight sequences, they're doing their finishing moves and fighting moves and everything you'd see them do in the video game. I absolutely love the fight scene that happens between Guile and Bison. It was the best. It's so crazy as all hell but it's enjoyable and I think that's what they really wanted to pull off here. My favorite scene of the film is the very last frame where you see all the characters get together and then they do their final victory poses just like you would have seen them do in the video game. This little shot here is the exact reason why I believe the people that made this movie actually did like the video game. Otherwise they wouldn't have thrown in a scene like this. So the third positive is this movie has a fantastic final act.

Everything aside what is the one main reason for watching Street Fighter the movie? It's Raul Julia. His performance is absolutely fantastic. No one could have prepared me for what I was about to witness. This is without a doubt one of the greatest performances this man had ever put to celluloid. He relished this role and gave it such conviction and sincerity. His performance elevated the movie for just the fact that he was there. You can nitpick the movie here and there or make fun of it but what's the one thing everyone always comes out saying? Raul Julia is phenomenal. Even the cheesy as hell lines that no actor on the planet could make work he finds a way to make it work. Every single line he says has passion it feels like he actually believes that he is this character. How he emoted when he was attacking with the lightning or when he's coming in with the psycho crusher and how he delivered lines was amazing. You can see it in his eyes how much he just loves being on set. His game over speech and even when he's trying to fight, which is great because Raul Julia is obviously not a fighter, you can just tell he loves what he's doing. There's nothing like this in any other video game film I've ever watched. His performance is groundbreaking and honestly if everyone else in the film acted half as good as he did this movie probably would have gone a lot farther and would have probably been acclaimed as one of the greatest video game movies ever made. So the final positive is Raul Julia's legendary final performance.

Street Fighter was never known for its story. It was known for its gameplay. To make a movie out of that is quite the predicament. The creators for this film really went out of their way to add elements and make everything work. To make a movie taking all these different characters and incorporating them into two hours is almost impossible but they achieve their goal. Maybe it's not the best film ever made but you know what it's a really enjoyable film to watch. So if you ever see this thing around you have to pick it up and watch it. I promise you it might not be the Street Fighter you're expecting but it is one hell of a fun movie.

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