SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Better Late Then Never

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

This is without doubt one of the best 'worst' movies of all time, or is the worst 'best' movie? Its a movie based on the video game Street Fighter, with John Claude Van Damme portraying Colonel William F. Guile. The majority of the films budget was spent of Van Damme, which is why the other cast members are little known actors, barring the odd one or two. Despite Van Damme's brilliant performance as Guile (yes he was good), in the video game Street Fighter Guile is actually American! So its a little strange seeing him in his US Military gear with a Belgium accent. The same goes for Kylie Minogue, who is supposed to be English, but at least she puts the accent on. Honda looks more Samoan than Japanese, and Sagat is about 5'9, whereas in the video game he is a giant of a man! Despite these (minor) niggles, the film and its cast actually work, with the characters proving to be quite likable. The one character i wasn't keen on however was Ken Masters (Damien Chapa) who wasn't a very convincing Ken to the one i'm used to in the games, and he was actually quite annoying. After getting through the first few scenes and his chemistry with the brilliant Byron Mann, who plays perhaps the most iconic character in the games at least, Ryu. Byron is a very talented actor who has gone on to work on some great things, such as DC's Arrow. Ken was played very poorly in my opinion, and he was more goofy then bad-ass, which would of suited him better. Again, this is down to the low budget cast. Ming-Na Wen plays the hugely popular Chun-Li, probably the most famous female fighting video game character. She does a decent enough job, and pulls off her trademark moves from the games (like the fast kicks), and looks especially gorgeous in her battle dress. Her calibration with on screen characters Honda and Balrog was unusual to say the least, but it worked for the most part. They somehow managed to drag poor old Simon Callow into this film, albeit briefly for some comedic scenes with Van Damme. I feel he brings the credentials of any film up with his presence alone, however long the duration. I can't talk about this film without mentioning the brilliant Raul Julia however, and his extraordinary performance. This was to be his final appearance in film, as he sadly passed away shortly after the films release. I do feel that the success of this film is largely down his portrayal of M. Bison, and boy did he nail it. Raul is absolutely amazing in Street Fighter, and without question the best actor in the film. Van Damme may have been the star and the highest paid, but Raul Julia steals the show with his performance. Getting down to the film itself, it is without question a cheese-fest from start to finish, and everything a 90's action movie should be. So many films from this era followed the same pattern, bad guy takes hostages and has a list of demands, and hero saves the day, but it nearly always worked, at least in terms of entertainment. If you've never played the video games, you will still like this film, as its pretty self explanatory and easy to follow. If you do like the games, you will easily recognize the characters and their trademark moves which are taken straight from the games. Give the film a chance, it may surprise you, and its worth watching for Raul Julia alone, and his screen time with Van Damme is priceless. My only gripe is that they could of done more with the plot, and introduced a few more characters, but that aside the film is actually fun, just don't take it too serious.

I am a huge SF fan and read most of the backstory comics and watched this with a friend who doesn't know anything but the looks and names of a few characters. Neither of us liked it.As a fan its confusing, even baffling why they changed so many characters backstory (Charlie doesn't die, instead he becomes Blanka?!), looks and even ethnicity (Honda is Hawaiian), it gets to a point where it takes you ages to recognize certain characters, although they are some of the most iconic things in pop-culture. Why didn't they just take one of the countless stories from the universe and made it into a movie, there even is a fully fleshed out SF II story, which they claim the movie is based on. There are also VERY few SF moves, none of them have famous quotes from the games and bisons moves are artificially made with machines. I could go on for ages about this part, so lets just skip to the "not-fan-perspective"...Apart from the fact that this feels like a terrible secret agent plot there are much more severe things wrong. There are too many characters crammed into the movie, yet we don't get any motivation for the majority for them, it just feels like they are there, because they had to be in the movie, also we don't care about them. The action scenes weren't good, but not terrible either. Thats about the only positive thing I can say, because this movie isn't even the kind of terrible I can laugh at.

This cheesy movie is based on a video game and is often unintentionally hilarious. A totally wooden cast battle heroically with absurd dialogue to often amusing effect. The budget here has been totally blown on the scenery, special effects, and costumes (which admittedly look very nice, especially the natty blue soldier uniforms which Van Damme and his cohorts wear), so it 's all very colourful and visually stimulating. Unfortunately those expecting a serious film will be extremely disappointed as this movie is aimed squarely at children, never for once engaging the brain. The loose plot simply has loads of different characters moving from one situation to another and fighting a lot of the time. Sounds confusing? It is. We're talking bombastic here, not subtle.I actually like Van Damme's performance in this film. It's obvious that it's supposed to be a light, fluffy film yet he never once breaks into a grin, instead being commendably straight-faced. The only thing I didn't like was his red hair! Here he gets lots of tacky one-liners which even Schwarzenegger would refuse to speak, and they're often funny because they're so cheesy ("Only somebody out of their mind could attack Bison's island by boat." "That's good, because General Bison has driven me insane").There are a few familiar (and sometimes out-of-place) faces in an otherwise unfamiliar cast (picked solely for their physiques more than anything else, it seems, especially the lame Bruce Lee wannabe and the Marc Singer-lookalike who play Ken and Ryu). Raul Julia has a ball playing the evil dictator, and it was the actor's last film, as you can tell by the star's gaunt, pale appearance. The film is actually dedicated to him as well. A lot of people have commented on what a bad film it was to bow out on, but as I said, Julia looks like he's having fun in his over the top, overtly villainous role so kudos to him. Simon Callow pops up as a stuffy official for no particular reason and Kylie Minogue's role is still a mystery: her acting abilities are non existent, she has about two expressions and thankfully she's hardly in it.The action when it comes is supremely stylised and over the top, as you would expect. Characters battle it out for ages and do all sorts of quick, physically-impossible moves. The film loses some credibility when introducing the Blanka character - in the computer game a fearsome green monster, in the film a laughably poor and shoddy rubber suit which looks worse than the Incredible Hulk did. They do make up for things by having a hilarious ending battle between Van Damme and Julia, where dictator Bison gets hover boots and shoots Van Damme with lightning from his hands, RETURN OF THE JEDI style. Movie buffs will also notice a high number of references and in-jokes, some surprisingly subtle, some blatant (Godzilla-like fighting as two men flatten a model city). STREET FIGHTER is a really bad film, yes, but it's entertaining with it, and never boring. All right if you're in a silly, affable mood.

I don't understand how you can seriously write a bad review for this movie (or any JCVD movie for that matter). It's based on an 8-bit video game from the 1980s that has a witch doctor who breathes fire and stretches his limbs twice the length of his body, a Chinese schoolgirl who kicks at the speed of sound, and a radioactive electricity monster with orange spikes for hair. You wanted a Gary Oldman-esque performance from Jean Claude? You were expecting less random objects to explode for no reason? Maybe more verisimilitude when it comes to geopolitical crises? Come on. Have a sense of humor. This is one of the most fun films you'll ever see as long as you don't try to take it seriously.