Courtesy Adlabs Films

As the film adaptations of ‘Max Payne,’ ‘Super Mario Bros.,’ and ‘Doom’ have shown, the transition from video games to the big screen has lead to failure more often than not. With this in mind, the expectations for the newly released ‘Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li’ were less than stellar. Combined with the fact that the 1994 adaptation of the ‘Street Fighter’ franchise, which starred Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile, was a box office flop, the bar was set as low as possible for ‘Chun-Li.’

Unfortunately, the movie still failed to live up to that.

A movie that needed only to show off real-life versions of video game characters fighting, regardless of the reason, not only fails to do so, but sullies the franchise further by combining it with poor acting performances, a sluggish plot filled with holes and unimaginative side plots.

As the title indicates, ‘Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li’ focuses on the title heroine, played by Kristen Kreuk of ‘Smallville’ fame, from the kidnapping of her father when she was young to her ultimate revenge against the man who ruined her family.

The plot is simple: General M. Bison, a crime boss who expelled all the good from his soul, kidnaps the father of Chun-Li and, years later, the schoolgirl grows up and searches for revenge. What is frustrating, though, is the fact that little revenge is actually sought until at least 45 minutes into the movie. The action until that point was non-existent.

Unlike the 1994 version of ‘Street Fighter,’ which featured over-the-top fighting and as many characters as possible mashed into the cast, ‘The Legend of Chun-Li’ offers only a handful of characters from the franchise and, more importantly, little fighting.

In its attempt to establish a storyline independent of the games it draws from, ‘Street Fighter’ forgets to do the one thing that makes the franchise enjoyable: have characters fight each other. What the game lacks in fight it makes up in street, as fans are forced to bear witness to Chun-Li wander around the streets of Bangkok, Thailand because an old woman told her to do so. The movie is so bland at points that it simply leaves the viewer wanting to scream for someone to start fighting.

Fans of the franchise will be disappointed to discover that the movie only includes 10 characters from the video games. To make matters worse, a mere four of which are from the most widely-known installment, ‘Street Fighter II.’ These characters are Chun-Li, M. Bison, Balrog and Vega. The remaining six are lesser-known characters with even smaller fan bases.

Michael Clarke Duncan’s performance as the bruising ex-boxer Balrog steals the show. However, the portrayals of antagonist M. Bison in a plain business suit and his subordinate Vega, who is only in the movie for a mere 45 seconds, do not do the characters justice.

The most frustrating aspect of the movie is the inclusion of characters Charlie Nash and Maya Sunee as basically useless detectives who are after M. Bison’s criminal group, Shadaloo. Not only are these fringe character from the series, but they do nothing more than act ‘- poorly ‘- as detectives and bring out an annoying and unnecessary love plot.

Chris Klein, who plays Nash, offers up a performance that could be described as forgettable if not for the laughable uselessness of his role. The detective side plot is trite, predictable and only slows down a plot that involves Kreuk’s character narrating while she wanders aimlessly to find a man named Gen who somehow knows how to help her get revenge for her family.

The movie ends by revealing a quest to find other fighters around the world to compete in a ‘Street Fighter World Tournament.’ This is torture for fans of the video game series as they were forced to wait through 95 minutes of one character’s sappy tale only to be teased with a hint of the movie they wanted to see in the beginning.

However, ‘The Legend of Chun-Li’ was so poorly made that a sequel of that nature would only further disappoint fans.

‘Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li’ attempts to be both a fan-pleasure and a legitimate movie, but fails miserably on both levels. The story is uninteresting and the aspects that actually draw from the series are poorly done and, in most cases, inconsistent with the games.

This movie had only one job: make ‘Street Fighter’ characters fight. This did not happen. The result? A boring ‘action’ movie that leaves much to be desired ‘- the exit, for one.

Nick O’Malley can be reached at [email protected].