Ciné Files: So Bad It’s Good? So Bad, It’s Street Fighter Sublime
There’s a certain kind of movie that may well be the best social lubricant known to modern society (outside of a tall, stiff drink); the so-bad-it’s-good kind. My fellow editor, Rachael Maddux, has made the case that Troll 2 stands as the tallest pillar of this underappreciated (sub)genre. And Troll 2 is surely a worthy contender for that crown; so is Starship Troopers, Total Recall, Reefer Madness, and a whole host of others. But for my money, there’s one flick that stands head and shoulders above these: The 1994 Street Fighter movie.
As the über-nerdy webcomic xkcd handily points out, so-bad-it’s-good can be a delicate balancing act. Stray too far into “bad” territory, and you wind up with a just-plain-bad movie, as it goes for the majority of films adapted from video games. (Thank you, Uwe Boll.) But the Street Fighter movie hits that ultimate b-movie sweet spot—it’s laughably under-rehearsed and under-coreographed, every single line of dialogue could charitably be described as “stilted,” the special effects are reminiscent of a high-school theatre club production, and Jean-Claude Van Damme’s accent is gloriously, gloriously indecipherable.