Street Fighter: Legend of Chun-Li: Review By T.Clark

God awful...those two simple words describe this movie, but I must emphasize on that to give a proper review. I'll start by saying I am completely clueless as to what Street Fighter is, other than the fact it's a fighting game that has spawned numerous crap-tastic flicks, The Legend of Chun-Li being the latest. I hadn't the slightest who the characters' names were until I, unfortunately, took time out of my not-so-busy schedule to grab a bag of Doritos and watch this turd online. I watched it because I was basically expecting to have a good time. I was hankering for a movie that is so bad, it's fun just to watch and have a good time...not necessarily good, but entertaining...this movie wouldn't be good if you had a bong handy.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li's excuse of a plot is this: Chun-Li(Kristin Kreuk) leaves her past life and friends in order to find a guy named Gen(Robin Shou), who teaches her to fight and control her anger. Gen also leads Chun-Li to business man/criminal "mastermind" Bison(Neal McDonough) and his associates, including strong man Balrog(Michael Clark Duncan). Bison and his men kidnapped Chun-Li's father when she was a girl, and have been holding him prisoner. He feeds Bison information in return for the safety of his daughter. Meanwhile, Charlie Nash(Chris Klein) and Detective Maya Sunee(Moon Bloodgood) have been on the Bison case and are following leads in Bangkok. Some fights ensue, ladi-da, but in the end...nothing happens. The whole movie feels completely useless story wise.

It's called Street FIGHTER, and yet we are slapped in the face with a dozen annoying Kristin Kreuk voice overs, horrible acting, and an uninteresting plot. The fight scenes are pretty cool, but don't last long. They are very disappointing to the say the least. I'm not saying that I wanted it to be all action, but when you have a crap story AND crap action...what's left? Some hot women, basically, but don't go rushing to the theater, boys...it's PG-13, and, quite ironically, I don't even think a 13 year old would find this satisfying. On a side note, they did at least try to make it realistic...but it's hard to take it seriously when you have people using unexplained powers like frigging fireballs from your hands. I assume this is a Street Fighter trademark and it's cool, but if they want realism, they can't just assume people are going to be happy seeing the fireballs(or BALL, because it's only used once). It wasn't just Street Fighter fanatics seeing this movie...well, according to the box office numbers it might have been. Non-fans, like me, probably watched it online. I AM glad I watched it though...it gave me a chance to bash a movie relentlessly.

The guy who wrote this plot was Justin Marks. He's been making a name for himself in the biz, getting gigs on writing screenplays for flciks such as Voltron and the Green Arrow centered film Super Max. I thought I could trust this guy if he was getting so many good deals...now I don't know why he is. Seriously, this movie is chock full of goofy one-liners. They don't even make you giggle...they just make you role your eyes, and when your eyes are back in the right position, you hear another one...it's continuous eye rolling. It's not even that long of a movie either(about an hour and a half), and I couldn't wait for it to get over. From the first scene when I hear Kreuk narrating, I know it's gonna be bad. I mean, judging from reviews, I knew it would be bad, but I didn't think it would be bad from the start...it was. From then on, it's just horror before your eyes, more scary than if Jason popped up from behind your seat in the theater. That would at least get you excited...Legend just gets you bored. Justin Marks has proven he's just a fanboy, a wannabe writer who needs to get canned so his other movies actually have potential.

Now for the acting: honestly, Kristen Kreuk, despite her voice overs, is the best thing about this movie. I think she was the right choice and given a better script, I think she could have proven that. It's a shame her first theatrical debut post Smallville is such a load. Hopefully she'll make up for it in the future and learn to choose her roles carefully. Neal McDonough gets the honor of expressing most of the aforementioned cheesy oneliners. He's supposed to be the big bad, but he's one of the worst performances in the film(but not THE worst). He's not menacing at all, he's just annoying and I swear he was trying not to laugh when reciting his nightmarish lines. I'm glad he gets his neck broken. Yes, he dies, and if you're mad I spoiled it for you, don't be. You weren't actually planning on seeing the movie anyways, right? Once Oscar-nominated Michael Clark Duncan is reduced to this garbage. "Hey, we need a big black guy...let's get Duncan!" Just say NO, MCD. Bad movies are like drugs...just say no. Moon Bloodgood actually does a decent job...nothing spectacular, and she's eye-candy. She was definitely good compared to the others, though. The worst performance, however, goes to Chris Klein as Nash. He tries way too hard to be the cool guy and just becomes the guy nobody wants at the party. When Nash sees Bloodgood's Det. Sunee he says "man, I love this job." Well, we HATE YOU. Nash out.

Overall, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is not worth your money and isn't even worth an online viewing. It's unexciting, cheesy, and annoying...just an overall horrible film that is best left forgotten. The sad part of it is, it hints at a sequel about some Ryu guy...Ryu something...only SF fans will know what they are referring to, but I don't even know if those fans will be anticipating it. I won't be.