Let’s say you’re a video game fan, specifically a fan of fighting games. Well, if you want to loathe the entire genre and perhaps video games as a whole, have I got the movie for you.
Street Fighter features Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile. Guile is American—even has a tattoo of the American flag on his arm. Van Damme has a thick French accent. And this is only the beginning of our problems. Raul Julia makes his ill-fated final acting appearance as M. Bison, a raging lunatic who bases his world-dominating schemes out of a half-finished movie set and wears a gigantic hat and gigantic pants. Also he can launch himself towards you while suspended from a wire, but he only travels fast enough to bump into those with sloth-like reflexes, such as Guile.
This film probably features the worst ensemble cast in the history of cinema. Well, make that worst-looking. This is not necessarily due to inherent bad looks—I mean, Kylie Minogue is not exactly someone whom I would refuse to go out with to a viewing of Street Fighter followed by a Kylie Minogue concert. It has more to do with costumes that appear to have been made of raw materials from Vinyl Outlet.
Here is some sample dialogue as spoken by Bison: “The temple above us was the wonder of the ancient world. Bisonopolis shall be the wonder of my world. But I think the food court should be larger. All the big franchises will want in.”
Yeah, I’ll go ahead and end this now. Street Fighter gets 2 crumbs out of 5.