And so Loading Screen comes to an end, as a regular feature at least. There's been one or two pleasant surprises along the way, but mostly the films have been fairly awful, though perhaps not as irredeemable as you might have heard.

I think next up is either Dante's Inferno or Halo in anime form, but until then enjoy Street Fighter, it's something of a classic

There is one reason to watch Street Fighter, and that reason is Raul Julia. If you’ve seen the film then you already know this, if you haven’t then you cannot appreciate how good his performance was in comparison to the quality of the film until you accept defeat and watch it.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that Street Fighter is not a great film, though bizarrely it’s a better one now than when it was released. It also doesn’t take a hardcore Street Fighter fan to know that the source material hasn’t been treated with the greatest of respect. I’m sure most fans would be willing to let Chun-Li being a reporter rather than an agent slide, but E. Honda and Balrog being her assistants? Balrog is particularly galling as he should be working for Bison, unlike DJ who shouldn’t. It gets worse, Guile’s friend Charlie is apparently Blanka, and I’m not sure which is worse out of Dhalsim now being a scientist, and Ryu and Ken being conmen.

So it’s not even as though you can claim this is a film for the fans, as they’re likely to be the most annoyed by it. What I do think has become clearer as time’s passed, or perhaps time itself has added the perspective, is that the film is incredibly camp. Almost every other line is some stupid wisecrack, there’s ridiculous slapstick, toys as weapons, a Godzilla parody, and even words like ’Bisonopolis’. The problem is that there’s the inescapable sense that it was played serious rather than as farce.

Julia is undoubtedly the star performer, but it’s not as though the rest of the acting is all that bad. It’s not great, but performances are hampered by the script more than the actors ability. Van Damme is hard to like, but he fills the screen with character, unfortunately without Guile Street Fighter might have been a more cohesive film. Balrog and E. Honda on the other hand are very watchable, as is Zangief surprisingly. None of the performances (bar Julia’s) are award worthy, and I don’t mean to give that impression, but there’s only a handful of genuinely bad performances.

While Street Fighter undoubtedly gets a lot wrong, it does make a few nods to the games. Towards the end of the film there’s special moves a plenty, and some of them are done quite well too. Guile’s flash kick is a highlight, Ken’s dragon punch is not, and Bison’s hovering brings us one of the greatest lines ever (“It levitates bullet trains from Tokyo to Osaka. It levitates my desk, where I ride the saddle of the world. And it levitates... Me!”). There’s also the nod to E. Honda’s stage in the gym, a few quotes from the game, and even the full collection of win poses at the end.

I can’t believe I’m writing this, maybe it’s a sign that I’ve been doing this too long, but I actually enjoyed Street Fighter this time round. That’s not to say it’s good, more that it’s come full circle and can be enjoyed ironically, like the 60’s Batman film. It’s sad that this was Raul Julia’s final film, and even sadder to see how thin he looks, but at least he left us with a special performance. If by some miracle you haven’t seen Street Fighter I do suggest you give it a watch, if only because it’s a ‘classic’ of video game adaptations.

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