Year: 2009
Director: Andrzej Bartkowiak
Screenplay: Justin Marks
Starring: Kristin Kreuk, Chris Klein, Neal McDonough, Robin Shou, Moon Bloodgood, Taboo, Michael Clarke Duncan
Childhood fondness of the Capcom franchise and morbid curiosity brought me to watching this. There was clearly something telling me that watching this would be a bad idea, however, but the urge was just too strong. I had to see if this was a train wreck or merely a little misguided. By the time Chris Kelin utters his first line...I couldn't stop laughing. I was laughing because of Kelin's dreadful performance. I was laughing because of the films half baked storytelling. I laughed at many things I wasn't supposed to, but one of the main reasons I laughed is because if I didn't...I would have been in tears.
Legend of Chun Li is a bad movie. It's close to Uwe Boll bad. It is a film which has the Interpol having no idea how to trace the main villain Bison (McDonough voicing his role in his best Oirish accent) but anyone off the street can merely use an Internet cafe and gather ALL the information anyone would need on him. It's a movie in which the main character "seduces" a female for information with a atrocious dance moves set to a dire gangster rap soundtrack. It's movie that has some of the worst narration this side of Blade Runner. It's a movie... I could go on.
This is a film seemingly fueled by bad decisions. Considering most causal gamers stopped following the street fighter franchise around the Alpha series, why on earth did the filmmakers consider it to be a good idea to involve characters from then? With a story so simple, why do we need Kristin Kreuk to narrate the movie for us? Why do all the actors in this film have the same dead eyed look? You know, the kind of look that someone who sold their soul would have?
It's clearly obvious a deal with the devil was made for this movie. I mean how else could a Black Eyed Pea get a gig "acting" in this film? (There must of been dealings in X-men: Origins and Nine also). Another, more important questions abound include is how on earth does Andrzej Bartkowiak keep getting offered movies? Why does he edit the shit out of his (admittedly not bad) action sequences? If these questions can be answers please...tell me.
After my review of Avatar and it's clunky script, I feel I may have to apologize. Cameron's film has it's issues but at least it's enjoyable. This...this is an abomination against action movies, a crime against good storytelling, a waste of time and effort, simply put....a bad movie.
Showing posts with label Street fighter: The Legend of Chun Li. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Street fighter: The Legend of Chun Li. Show all posts
Sunday, 20 December 2009
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li: Quick Glance
As Street Fighter 4 is on the verge of being released on home consoles everywhere very soon, I've decided to have a second look at the horrendous Street Fighter movie due out near the end of the month in the U.S.
After checking out the movie blog i found myself even more disappointed. As "camp" as Bison's (or Vega depending on area) uniform is or as ridiculous as Balrog's (or Bison)boxing costume is...i want to see it. As a fan of the video game, I'm not there for realism (a such) I want to see M Bison with no pupils and Chun Li turn UPSIDE DOWN, DO THE SPLITS, HOVER IN MID AIR AND KICK PEOPLE!
For me and many fans I don't think it's too much to ask. Reason why? Comic Books are beginning to be taken seriously. Although the market is being saturated with graphic novel after graphic novel, 2008 was pretty much own by one film: The Dark Knight. A film which managed to keep the tone and spirit of the comics, have a hero doing outrageous things without looking stupid as well as break box office records and garner a shed load of critical and commercial acclaim.
I still believe this can be done for the video game film, with adaptations such as Hitman and Silent Hill displaying that the cross over could happen but at a snails pace. But not when the filmmakers show so much disregard for the fans they say the make the film for. True I have only seen the Trailer and read the blog (with it's feeble excuse of why your favorite characters are missing) and there's still the matter of me actually seeing the whole movie.
But a trailer is supposed to draw you into putting your hard earned cash down into watching a movie and by creating a film that has no feel of a street fighter game in any sense of the word (oh there's a hint of a fireball near the end of the trailer) will only cause those in two minds to most probably steal the film illegally.
Reading an issue Sight and Sound today had a review for Transporter 3, the magazine stated that with all the Bournes, Bonds and Batman striving for realism, Transporter becomes strangely endearing. I found myself thinking about Transformers and realizing that Micheal Bay's toy movie manage to do a similar thing with a lot of people. Although I hated it, I still respected Bay's cynically clever abuse of childhood nostalgia which gave the movie alot of it's praise. Maybe if the filmmakers looked more towards the absurd and the loony aspect of a Fighting Tournament people would warm towards it a lot more.*
* After more research I found out that the filmmakers are basing the film on the street fight alpha series. If your scratching your head and asking yourself "wha?" It's a series of SF games which came out after SF2 but is based on events which happened before it. While this may explain away some of my incessant moaning, it doesn't give good reason to why the drastic change of tone.
After checking out the movie blog i found myself even more disappointed. As "camp" as Bison's (or Vega depending on area) uniform is or as ridiculous as Balrog's (or Bison)boxing costume is...i want to see it. As a fan of the video game, I'm not there for realism (a such) I want to see M Bison with no pupils and Chun Li turn UPSIDE DOWN, DO THE SPLITS, HOVER IN MID AIR AND KICK PEOPLE!
For me and many fans I don't think it's too much to ask. Reason why? Comic Books are beginning to be taken seriously. Although the market is being saturated with graphic novel after graphic novel, 2008 was pretty much own by one film: The Dark Knight. A film which managed to keep the tone and spirit of the comics, have a hero doing outrageous things without looking stupid as well as break box office records and garner a shed load of critical and commercial acclaim.
I still believe this can be done for the video game film, with adaptations such as Hitman and Silent Hill displaying that the cross over could happen but at a snails pace. But not when the filmmakers show so much disregard for the fans they say the make the film for. True I have only seen the Trailer and read the blog (with it's feeble excuse of why your favorite characters are missing) and there's still the matter of me actually seeing the whole movie.
But a trailer is supposed to draw you into putting your hard earned cash down into watching a movie and by creating a film that has no feel of a street fighter game in any sense of the word (oh there's a hint of a fireball near the end of the trailer) will only cause those in two minds to most probably steal the film illegally.
Reading an issue Sight and Sound today had a review for Transporter 3, the magazine stated that with all the Bournes, Bonds and Batman striving for realism, Transporter becomes strangely endearing. I found myself thinking about Transformers and realizing that Micheal Bay's toy movie manage to do a similar thing with a lot of people. Although I hated it, I still respected Bay's cynically clever abuse of childhood nostalgia which gave the movie alot of it's praise. Maybe if the filmmakers looked more towards the absurd and the loony aspect of a Fighting Tournament people would warm towards it a lot more.*
* After more research I found out that the filmmakers are basing the film on the street fight alpha series. If your scratching your head and asking yourself "wha?" It's a series of SF games which came out after SF2 but is based on events which happened before it. While this may explain away some of my incessant moaning, it doesn't give good reason to why the drastic change of tone.
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