What a sad thing it was for this movie to be Raul Julia’s last screen performance. Julia, who died before Street Fighter hit movie screens, plays General M. Bison, the villain in the arcade game. Which is fine. The problem with this film is ostensibly the problem with any video game adaptation—the desire to please video game fans at the expense of narrative cohesiveness, character development, or visual beauty. It’s the reason there hasn’t been a single good video game movie yet.
Street Fighter, based on the fight-em-up coin-op, tries to use as many of the game’s characters as possible, resulting in a mish-mash of nonsensical combat scenes. And, in a moment reminiscent (in a bad, probably not even purposely referential way) of Carrie, Raul Julia’s fist smashes through a pile of rubble after he has been well defeated. Sequel!
Several of those involved consider this to be the single worst “creative” project they’ve ever worked on.
A Colombian (John Leguizamo) and a Brit (Bob Hoskins) play two Italian plumbers from Brooklyn. Dennis Hopper plays a half-lizard, half-man, which actually is only slightly different from the roles he usually plays. At one point, Hopper uses the Super Scope, an actual Nintendo game console peripheral, as a weapon. There’s so much wrong with this movie that The Wizard — which features a Rainman-like child savant trying to make his way to California to play Super Mario Bros. 3 — is actually the superior Super Mario Bros. movie.
The first video game movie, and possibly the worst.
As we prepare for the Game of Thrones finale, we recognize Joffrey and nine other baddies who showed us that terrible, horrible things can come in small packages
