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• 10Jul 09

  Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li is an emetic

  Movie producer: I want you to make a Street Fighter movie.
  Screen writer: Um... ok. What do you want it to be about?
  Movie producer: I dunno, here's a list of names from a Street Fighter game
  (movie producer hands screen writer a list of names)
  Movie producer: The rest is up to you.
  Screen writer: Um... I need more than-
  Movie producer: No you don't. Oh, don't bother finding a good director, either.
  Screen writer: But.. isn't that yo-
  Movie producer: Just get writing!
  (movie producer leaves the office)
  Screen writer: Uh... ok. I have no idea what I'm doing....
  (screen writer unscrews the cap off a bottle of gin and pours himself a shot, then downs the remaining fifth instead)

  I'm pretty sure this is exactly what happened when the concept for this movie was being developed. I always thought it would be impossible to make a Street Fighter movie worse than the 1994 version starting Jean-Claude Van Damm and the late Raul Julia, but by some horrendous act of God, it has come to pass. I don't even really know where to start about this movie. Uh.. I'll just say everything's wrong.

  I guess I can start with the acting. It's bland. It's poor. It's exarbated by the aweful dialogue. Charlie Nash (Guile's friend who ****SPOILER**** is killed in the game universe by M. Bison, but somehow doesn't get killed by him in the movie before Bison dies at the end ****SPOILER*** , played by Chris Klein (American Pie, Just Friends) is perhaps the worst link in an already rusty and broken chain of acting. Oscar nominee Michael Clarke Duncan plays a bald and boxing glove-less Balrog, and proves that being nominated for an Oscar doesn't not prevent a director from being incaple of directing you in how to act your role.

  Speaking of roles, Kristin Kruek does not fit the role of Chun Li very well. For starters, her phsyical profile just simply isn't big enough. She simply does not look the part. When it's time for her to perform action on-screen, it's also just not convincing, but that isn't necessarily her fault, because the choreography in general is pulled off rather poorly. Even the fight between her and Vega (played by Black Eyed Peas member Taboo) fails to really be exciting, and for a fight containing one of the most heated rivalries in fighting game universe history ends all too quickly.

  Then we have Bison, played by Neal McDonogugh (The Hitcher, Traitor). Yet another victim of lousy directing, McDonough fails considerably playing Bison. Unscary, unconvicing, uninteresting. Hell, had it not been for his name being said in the movies, you'd have no idea the character he was playing was Bison. Perhaps the biggest affront of this movie is Bison's origin, which ties into the plot of the film.

  ****SPOILER**** Bison grew up in Thailand in the slums, and had to take what he wanted to survive, but he had an insatiable greed. The only thing that stood in his way from obtaining everything he needed was to get rid of his conscience. Legend has it there was a cave that had a power which allowed a person to transfer all the goodness of his soul into another being, so he took his pregnant wife to this cave, and tore into her stomach and transfered his conscience into his daughter. It is prehaps the most gruesome and offensive thing I have EVER scene in a video game movie, and I really despise the screen writer for doing it. ****SPOILER****

  Another awakard moment was a short dance off between Chun Li, and Bison's assistant Cantana. Seeing Kruek try to pull off poplocking moves in a club scene was just embarassing and painful to watch. One last character to mention is Gen, played Robin Shou, who also played Liu Kang in the Mortal Kombat movies. He's yet another example of the director's ultimate goal to turn every cast member of his movie into soulless beings. Seriously, he had so much energy in the Mortal Kombat movies. Where was that energy here?

  The story was also a mess. The special effects were very mediocre. The choregraphy and stunwork were amatuerish at best. The pace was all over the place like a hastily put together sloppy joe. Whatever cheese factor that could have been enjoyed from this purposefully aweful movie was killed during the Bison origin scene. The first Street Fighter movie at least had a goofy, non-serious fun factor that could be appreciated when you're under the influence of questionably attained substances, but this movie doesn't even have that. It's by far the worst video game movie I've ever seen, and I feel like I've just ingested an emetic.

  Score: F. No, let me rephrase that. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.....!

  • Posted Jul 10, 2009 5:36 pm PT
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• 9Jul 09

  Lucas had a bad day...

  Well... I've had worse, but I feel like blogging about this particular one. Anyway, it starts off with my new LG Xenon giving me problems. When I try to plug the charger in, it acts like it can't make a solid connection, and constantly beeps to say somethign's plugged in, then out, then in and out. So that's really annoying. I'm going to have to get that looked at this weekend. Plus, my new laptop's keyboard is getting some nasty scarring and I've only had it since April. Technology and me just don't mix, apparently.

  When I got to work, it was just a mix of all sorts of minor irritations and inconveniences, and the phone problem just magnified everything. Plus, I couldn't get my mind to stop dwelling on the fact that I'm going to be at this place for at least another month. So anyway, people getting in my way was the most common occurance. Wherever I wanted to go, someone was there. When I wanted a computer to use to tag some books (radio frequency identification), both computers were used. When I went to file holds, people kept interrupting me to ask where certain things were, not to mention the operation was just a complete mess.

  When a computer was finally free for me to tag, I grabbed a cart and headed to a section of books, seconds after a customer arrived at that very same spot to browse. When I finally got the books to the computer, I was asked by the senior librarian to cut it short so another clerk could get in her scheduled time of tagging (all employees must put in an amount of tagging time equal to their hours per week). Not to mention, I've been dropping books all day. Coordination just wasn't there. Also, to top it off, the staff bathroom ran out of TP and paper towel, so I had to use... *shivers* the public restrooms.

  The worst thing that happened today had me totally embarassed. It's kinda funny now, but I didn't feel like laughing at that time jokes were being made. There were four cards that were being passed around to sign, and when I was given them, I thought they were just birthday cards. So, I signed them all with Happy Birthday - Lucas, but as it turned out, they were ****ing sympathy cards! We whited them out, but ****! Ugh.. well, I know for a fact tomorrow will be better.. and it better be.

  • Posted Jul 9, 2009 9:28 pm PT
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• 9Jul 09

  Striving for perfection will take years off your life

  Perfections know what I'm talking about. These are the guys who replay certain things again and again and again because they just HAVE to get the best score, or the best ranking, or the best time. My current poison are the events in Prototype. At first, I didn't spend too much time getting gold on the ones I had unlocked, because I was eager to play through more of the story, but now that every move and power upgrade costs so freaking much, I decided to go back and get golds on the ones I haven't already achieved.

  This brings me to tonight. I was doing an even called Fire in the Sky, and what it required was 300 points or more to get the gold. Well, easier said than done. I spent more than an hour trying to accomplish this, because I was struggling with the target system. For some reason, it likes to keep targetting things off screen and instead of immediately selecting what's infront of you, it cycles through whatever targets are still off the screen until it finally gets to what you want. It also kept targetting military personnel when all I wanted were the infected enemies. The waves are also completely random, and sometimes, I wouldn't even get any of the bigger enemies that were worth more points.

  After I finally got the gold, someone told me that I shouldn't even bother with the targetting system, and to just shoot straight down at the infected civilians. Wish I would have known that sooner. Anyway, I got it, and I have two more events to try currently. Funny thing is, the next event I attempted, I got gold right away. Feels good to finally take a break from the game, I must say. Now off to bed I go.

  • Posted Jul 9, 2009 1:04 am PT
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