Movie Review: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li - Starring Kristin Kreuk & Neal McDonough
Movie: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (PG-13)
Released: February 27th, 2009
Runtime: 1 hr. 36 min.
Ticket Price: $5.00 Early Matinee
Refreshments: Peanut M&M’s
Starring: Kristin Kreuk, Chris Klein, Moon Bloodgood & Neal McDonough
Director: Andrzej Bartkowiak
Rating: Check it Out When it Hits the Likes of HBO or Showtime
Synopsis: A crime boss is ruthlessly grabbing power and land in the slum districts of Bangkok. A young woman trains to put a stop to him. Based on the video game.
Review: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is not a good movie. It has some pretty cool fight sequences, but they are not enough to save it from its many bad points.
First, Chris Klein (American Pie) is absolutely terrible as an Interpol agent that has been tracking the shadowy Shadaloo crime syndicate for years. You never buy him for a second in this role. It is partly bad scripting, but mostly bad acting that causes this.
Second, Moon Bloodgood (TV’s Journeyman) isn’t bad, but how she is used is. She is basically just extra eye-candy, no substance. This is too bad, cause she is more than just a pretty face.
Third, the script was just plain bad and I’m not just talking about the dialogue, which was almost laughably bad at times. There were too many places where a character discovered some information that they had no reason to know how to find. You can’t go from knowing nothing to looking at a picture on the computer of the person you’re looking for. You had to have some information to be able to connect the dots and arrive there.
I know it’s a movie based on a video game, but that doesn’t mean it has to suck. I wasn’t expecting much going in either, but was still disappointed. Well, that’s enough with the negatives, even though there were plenty more.
On the positive side of things, they did take the time to introduce the major storyline and Kristin Kreuk’s (TV’s Smallville) Chun-Li. She was actually pretty good, although had to deal with delivering some bad lines like everyone else. She was, however, able to pull off the fight scenes, the one decent part of this movie.
Unfortunately, those fight scenes are not nearly enough to make this worth seeing at a theater. You’d be better off waiting until it hits the likes of HBO or Showtime.
I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. Did you like the fight scenes?
Movie Review: The International - Starring Clive Owen & Naomi Watts
Movie: The International (R)
Released: February 13th, 2009
Runtime: 1 hr. 58 min.
Ticket Price: $5.00 Early Matinee
Refreshments: Peanut M&M’s and Popcorn
Starring: Clive Owen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl & Brian F. O’Byrne
Director: Tom Tykwer
Rating: Wait for the Rental, if Not Longer
Synopsis: An Interpol agent has teamed up with a New York prosecutor to try and take down a major international bank that seems to be the hub for handling the money of terrorist groups, crime lords and rogue governments. Anyone that gets close to exposing them ends up dead, along with anyone else that gets in their way.
Review: The International is billed as an action thriller, but unfortunately it lacks a lot of action and is less than thrilling. It truly is one of those movies where all the action is in the trailer.
I went in with medium hopes and still came away disappointed. The cast is very good, the story idea is interesting, but the movie really drags. The movie does build to a crescendo, but by the time it did, I didn’t care anymore. If you’re looking for a way to make two hours feel like three, then you should definitely check this movie out.
There is one really badass, bullets flying everywhere, action sequence that takes place in the Guggenheim museum. But, I have problems when someone is able to shoot like 12 times without needing to reload a revolver. Yet, that one action sequence isn’t enough to recommend you go see this at the theater. You should wait for the rental, if not longer.
There is another sequence at the end of the movie that made the guy behind me breakout laughing, but this isn’t a funny movie. It was something that would just not be able to take place like it does. It is another one of those occurrences that takes you out of the moment.
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on The International. Did you find it thrilling? Were you able to stay awake?
Movie Review: Push - Starring Dakota Fanning & Chris Evans
Movie: Push (PG-13)
Released: February 6th, 2009
Runtime: 1 hr. 51 min.
Ticket Price: $5.00 Early Matinee
Refreshments: Starburst
Starring: Dakota Fanning, Djimon Hounsou, Chris Evans, Camilla Belle, Cliff Curtis & Ming Na
Director: Paul McGuigan
Rating: Wait for the Rental, if Not Longer
Synopsis: Some people are born with psychic abilities and a group is out to find and enhance those abilities to create an unstoppable army. A young girl that can see the future and a guy that can move things with his mind team up to stop a vial of the enhancing serum from being retrieved by the nefarious group after it is stolen from them and hidden.
Review: Push is a convoluted sci-fi action flick that starts off interesting and then makes you say, “Well that doesn’t make any sense, why would they do that?,” way too many times.
When I saw the trailer for Push the first time, and given the similar release date as well, it made me think it was going to be another Jumper. A bunch of cool sci-fi fight scenes wrapped up in a movie with very little story and even less back-story.
Yet, Push sucked differently. It gives you an interesting premise and actually has a back-story that they late out in the opening voiceover. The problem is that the story being told within that context doesn’t make any sense. I heard one fellow moviegoer tell another on the way out of the theater that it was good, but confusing. I wondered if this could be the case, cause I sort of felt the same way.
After having pondered it a little over the last few hours thinking about what to say in this review, I came to the conclusion that Push couldn’t be both good and confusing.
Unfortunately, Push reminded me of the last volume of NBC’s Heroes. It seems that it is hard to come up with new and compelling ways to tell stories about people with superhuman abilities. This one had a good premise, but fizzled in the execution. It is one of those movies where none the events in it would have ever taken place, if the covert group of bad guys had just done one thing differently in the past. Something that makes more sense to me for them to have done given what they are trying to do. So, for me the movie ends up being almost a total waste.
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on Push, cause mine are pretty much as convoluted as the movie was.
Movie Review: Wanted - Starrring James McAvoy & Angelina Jolie
Released: June 27th, 2008
Runtime: 1 hr. 50 min.
Ticket Price: $5.00 Early Matinee
Refreshments: None
Starring: James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, Terence Stamp, Thomas Kretschmann & Common
Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Rating: Worth a Matinee
Synopsis: A young man coasting through life in obscurity comes to find that he is one of a few with special abilities. He is told that his father, who left just after he was born, was one of the greatest assassins to ever live. A group calling themselves The Fraternity wants to recruit him to take revenge on the man that killed his father. He begins training to learn how to use his dormant abilities. The group lives by an unbreakable code that has been handed down for a thousand years. The young man starts to enjoy his new power, but comes to learn that the group he is working for might not be all that it is cracked up to be. He comes to the realization that only he can truly control his destiny.
Review: Wanted has all the action you can ask for from a big budget summer movie, it just could of used a better story. The movie is based on the Wanted graphic novel
While there’s not much story involved here, and what little there is, is actually kind of lame, the theme of the movie is a good one. You can and should choose your destiny. Don’t just muddle through life, get off you ass and do something. Stop wasting your talents and pursue something that you want to do. It just tells you that while bullets fly and things blowup.
James McAvoy (Atonement) plays Wesley Gibson, a nobody whose name doesn’t even register any results in Google. He works in a dead end job that he hates and has a best friend and girlfriend that are seeing each other behind his back. He knows all of this is happening, but just continues to coast through life in obscurity doing nothing about it. His transformation from office drone to badass assassin is quite a trip. The best scene is when he tells off his annoyingly bitchy boss and then cracks his best friend upside the head with his ergonomic keyboard and the keys spell “F**K YOU” as they go flying through the air.
Angelina Jolie (Mr. & Mrs. Smith) is the perfect person to play Fox, the female assassin that recruits Wesley into the Fraternity. You can’t imagine anyone else lying across the hood of a car and steering with her feet, while shooting at a guy following behind. She does really well with her one small scene of character development, as well. Other than that, Fox is all about exuding a wicked coolness, which Jolie pulls off very well.
Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch) directs and gives the movie a frantic pace. From the opening car chase to the closing gun battle, the movie barely stops to breathe. Yet, this and the special f/x is why you are going to see Wanted. It is something to behold on the big screen.
Unfortunately, Wanted falls into the ranks of 300, an almost great movie that spends the vast majority of its time creating cool special f/x fight scenes and battles and spending little on everything else. It’s worth a matinee, mainly because this type of movie should be seen at a theater, whether it has a story or not.
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