The danger with wanting to go to the movies a lot is that you wind up going to see ones that you shouldn’t.  Such is the predicament that Rich and I found ourselves in last night.  Our movie choice was based on two criteria: it was about to start and we hadn’t seen it.  Going in, I told Rich that it had the likelihood of being awful.  After all, it had been 15 years since the first Street Fighter movie and that one was bad, to be kind.

The story of this one centers around a young girl named Chun-Li and her relationship with her father.  We meet the villains early on as they arrive to kidnap the father.  What follows is fairly formulaic — a mix of story and martial arts.

So what worked?

The movie was able to pull off keeping a story running that was engaging.  Not necessarily The Great Gatsby, but good enough in the style of Asian legends.  I liked the use of Robin Shou as the sensei for Chun-Li.  For those not familiar with him, he played Lui Kang in Mortal Kombat.

So what didn’t work?

Whoever was the casting director missed the boat completely by having Chris Klein attempt to play a hard-nosed cop.  Some guys can pull it off; others just don’t have it in them.  Klein should stick with the nice guy roles; he does not have the fire within to be able to come across as a Bruce-Willis type.  Remove every scene he was in and the story flows better.  Anyone could lead the final assault team and not affect the story.  I actually broke out into laughter at some of his attempts to be cool.

My advice:  Catch it on cable or cheap DVD; no need to see it on the big screen unless you are just dying to see something at the movies…