Street Fighter

I almost have too much to say about too little of a movie. First, I'm aware that it is subtitled The Legend of Chun-Li, but in my continuing battle to question why American cinema is becoming corner, I refuse to acknowledge it. I imagine someone somewhere finds these subtitles helpful- "so this movie will be about a girl named Chun-Li who becomes a legend, now I get it" or "so the movie will feature a tomb and a dragon emperor, now it all makes sense" or "revenge of the fallen, hmmm... GOT IT." Now this is a movie based on the famous video game series but there actually was an older Street Fighter movie with Jean Claude Van Damme. And that was memorably bad. So bad that it kicked ass. This movie is just bad. Razzie Award winner bad. The acting is so stale that nothing is ever given emphasis. Even good actors like Neal McDonaugh and Michael Clarke Duncan deliver their lines without a sense of emotion. Kristen Kreuk isn't even as sexy as she normally is (not to sound shallow but anyone who watches the train wreck that is Smallville knows that she can at least pull of the sexy damsel in distress to keep us entertained). This movie is just so stiff and I'm not even sure how it connects to the Street Fighter games outside of the names of the characters. The action isn't even inventive and it is all shot in the most amateurish of ways. Like the camera swinging to the left will make M. Bison's kick that more exciting. When the most emotional line of dialogue is "sorry Charlie," you know the Razzie award committee has already picked a Worst of the Year nominee.