Street Fighter - Extreme Edition (1994/Universal Blu-ray)
Picture:
B Sound: B Extras: B- Film: C-
The first
question that should come to mind when thinking about the Street Fighter movie is, why?
There is no reason for it, at all.
The game that the film is based off of has no plot! As audiences have seen time and time again,
even when games have solidly established plots like that of the Resident Evil game series, Hollywood
still manages to mess it up; so you can only imagine how bad a film based on a
2-D fighter series would turn out. The
second question is, how did they get Raul Julia to be in it? Sure, Jean Claude
Van Dame was just sitting at home doing pushups when they called him to be in
the film, but the late, great Raul Julia?
I don’t get it.
The film
stars Jean Claude Van Damme, Raul Julia, Kylie Minogue, Byron Mann, and a large
cast of others who probably wish they had burned the script. To be fair the film is one of those flicks
that is so bad it is good; but it must be watched in the right setting with
plenty of others around to laugh with.
The film is ridiculous and ponderously awful. The 1994 Steven De Souza film has Colonel
Willia Guile (Van Damme) taking a team of fighters into the country of Shadaloo
to stop the evil tyrant General Bison (Raul Julia) who has taken some of
Guile’s men hostage. Bison is using one
soldier in particular, Charlie Blanka (Robert Mammone), in his genetic
experiments and quest toward world domination; turning Blanka into a green
monster. The team as well as a reporter
named Chun-Li on a mission of revenge (Bison killed her dad) set out on a race
against time to stop Bison before he kills the hostages; which he will do
unless he gets his ransom of 20 billion dollars. The film becomes more of a heinous mess with
each random string of action sequences that are supposed to collectively be a
film. Raul Julia does the best that he
can with the material he is give and for the most part turns lemons into
lemonade; though the film certainly leaves the viewer feeling sour. There are a plethora of atrocious fight
scenes that eventually morph into epically bad sci-fi moments toward the films
end. Unless you want to suffer 1hr and
42 minutes of mind numbing pain, jump, punch, and kick Street Fighter to the curb.
The
technical features put up a fight as they are better than the previous DVD
release, but overall still lose the Blu-ray battle. The picture is presented in an 2.35 X 1
Widescreen, 1080p High Definition that has a degree of gain throughout, as well
as a weak color presentation; though the flesh tones are quite consistent. The image is crisp, but could still use some
work. The audio presentation is an
English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 that is fluid though lacks solid
directionality, nor doe sit use the full range of the surrounds. The sound effects are almost as bad (and
certainly as laughable) as the film itself, the only thing missing is canned
laughter; so it is good we can hear all the badness so cleanly.
The
extras include The Making of Street Fighter featurette, Outtakes (seriously?),
Deleted Scenes, Storyboard Sequences, Video Game Sequences, Cyberwalk,
Archives, Feature Commentary with Director Steven De Souza. Whereas it is nice that a substantial amount
of extras are present on this Blu-ray, but at the same time it is a wash
because you are watching extras on a film that is down right bad.
What
makes the film so bad is how serious it takes itself. Every utterly ridiculous line that
Jean-Claude Van Damme seems as if he is attempting to deliver an Oscar worthy
performance; it is enough to make you tight-chested. As previously stated, the only shimmer of
light in this dark, horrid film is Raul Julia who knows what the film is and
has fun with it; even going over the top at times to create a caricature of the
video game persona he is portraying.
This is Street Fighter- Extreme
Edition Blu-ray; but the truth of the matter is that it has always been
extreme, extremely bad.
Have fun
with it and maybe there is hope; otherwise prepare for the worst.
- Michael P. Dougherty II
