Kristin Kreuk desperately looks for a new career path in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
Terrible performances. Uninspired writing. Loose, uneven direction... these are things you would expect from (great cinematographer-turned lowly action director) Andrzej Bartkowiak. But one would also expect a guiltily-fun, action-packed B-experience, and this new turn on the popular Street Fighter franchise doesn't even do that—it can't even have fun.
The notorious 1994 Street Fighter had fun. Jackie Chan's great parody from City Hunter had fun. But no, no fun here as, like with anything in the new millennium, the premise of the game is taken in a 'grittier, more realistic' direction while still trying to hold on to the original palette of what ultimately is a video game, and at least where I come from, video games are supposed to be fun, right? All of Bartkowiak's other directorial works (Romeo Must Die, Exit Wounds, Cradle 2 the Grave, Doom) have frequent comic relief, and even when a good portion of it doesn't work, some of it does, and some of it does wonderfully (the great comic pairing of Tom Arnold and Anthony Anderson comes to mind, as well as Doom's self-parodying moments). In any given action movie, you expect there to be a lot of bad jokes, but Chris Klein's douchebag interpretation of Keanu Reeves just doesn't work and his tough-slut counterpart, played by Moon Bloodgood, doesn't either. The only thing is funny about the movie is Michael Clarke Duncan's voice (which caused a few initial laughs in the theater) and the way Neal McDonough's Bison is somehow super-fly when making an entrance.
And speaking of Bison, where the hell is Guile anyways? Was Justin Marks to scared to write him into the script after the picture-perfect casting of Van Damme? A lot of the characters are left out, possibly for a hinted-at potential sequel, but also possibly because they just didn't want to mess up their (unsuccessful) plan at making Street Fighter 'real.'
Propelling TV-star Kristin Kreuk to the silver screen seems like a good idea—and I say 'seems' because her acting talent, even in action terms, cannot be judged by this passable, mediocre throwaway of a film. Rounding up smaller actioners such as Robin Shou, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Neal McDonough also 'seemed' like a good idea, but that didn't exactly pan out either. In the end, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li seemed like a good idea, but ultimately, it wasn't.
* out of ****
~ Patrick Fryberger
