Street Fighter Blu-ray Edition
Jean-Claude Van Damme and Raul Julia star in this video game turned movie flick that comes close to the video games story but lacks anything worthy of calling it good.
Film making 5/25
Cinematography 55/25
Audio 15/25
Bonus Features 5/25
Total 45/100
Street Fighter tried desperately to resemble the popular video game series Street Fighter but lacked a cohesive direction to create a movie worth watching. While the stars of the film and probably the crew as well tried their best this is your more than typical video game turned movie that just does not entertain.
The movie stars Raul Julia as M Bison, a mad man out to rule the world using a scientist who can alter a human and turn him into a fighting machine bent on destruction. Jean-Claude Van Damme pays Colonel Guile, an Allied Nations soldier who is out to destroy Bison and free the hostages Bison has taken who are relief workers.
Bison takes over a country called Shandaloo in South East Asia and is holding relief workers hostage for billions of dollars while he also turns a few captured soldiers into crazed monsters. One of the soldiers captured is a friend of Colonel Guile so Guile has another reason to want Bison dead along with his past history with Bison.
At first other Street Fighter characters are introduced like Chun LI Zang, Cammy and Ken Masters but the story is a bit convoluted with plenty of characters to muddle the story. Simply put Bison is out to rule the world and Guile and many of the others who all have a past reason to want Bison dead are bent on fighting him one on one.
The movie plods along with Raul Julia being the more than average dictator who ends up fighting Jean-Claude hand to hand in a so one sided fight it is a wonder they picked Raul Julia for the part. Most of the scenes are pretty standard action fighting with some good tries at acting but the general story and direction could have been much better.
If this had been a bit more serious or taken in some other direction it could have been a good film but as it is it goes from one unbelievable scene to the next. The whole story tries to follow some kind of main theme along the lines of the good guys against the bad with Bison being the main bad guy but it is full of dumb side jokes that fall flat and a meandering story.
The Blu-ray edition of Street Fighter is a smorgasbord for the video game fanatic as well as some good content for movie buffs but it is heavily geared toward the video game of the same name. The Blu-ray edition contains a game trailer for the Street Fighter IV game and a Game Teaser Trailer as well as a trailer for the Anime Street Fighter IV.
The Blu-ray edition includes a making of Street Fighter as well as outtakes, deleted scenes, storyboards, video game sequences and the usual commentary track. There is a good amount here but you would have to enjoy the movie or the game to get any value out of the Blu-ray edition additional content.
Street Fighter is one of those Blu-ray releases that make me wonder why they are re-releasing it on the better format only to include more and additional content not seen in the DVD release. When the movie is not that good, ratings range from bad to worse, having all the extra content does not make the movie any better.
Movies made from video games may be gamer’s idea of a good flick but Street Fighter just does not entertain even in high definition.