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It goes without saying that the Street Fighter video game series is one of the best franchises of all time. Is it reasonable to assume that the movies would be of equal caliber? In the case of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, it isn’t. The movie, as a whole, was entertaining enough, but any real quality that the film may have delivered was repeatedly eclipsed by a deplorable performance from Chris Klein. Seemingly every screen appearance by his character, Charlie Nash, resulted in a dialogue sequence that distracted you from the plot and turned your attention to getting through the awkwardness of the cinematic moment. His over-enunciation and cliché gestures were a flashback to his equally goofy role in American Pie. Fortunately, it wasn’t enough to ruin the film for me. Michael Clarke Duncan played an excellent Balrog, and Neal McDonough took Bison in a slightly deviant direction from the classic red military garb to a more believable sharper image, which seemed to work really well.

I’d recommend the film to a game lover, but not an action film fan. It was good, but not that good. Besides, I can’t envision any new Street Fighter film topping the 1994 classic with Jean-Claude Van Damme!