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[email protected] Technique Entertainment Editor: Daniel Spiller 17 Friday, Assistant Entertainment Editor: March 6, 2009 Entertainment Jennifer Aldoretta Street Fighter !lm loses battle WATCHMEN with success FILM THE LEGENDARY GRAPHIC NOVEL COMES TO LIFE Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li GENRE: Fighting, Action STARRING: Kristin Kreuk, Michael Clarke Duncan, Neal McDonough and Chris Klein DIRECTOR: Andrzej Bartkowiak RATING: PG-13 RELEASE DATE: Feb. 27, 2009 OUR TAKE: !"!!!! By Robert Solomon Contributing Writer “Your father is the milk of my organiza- tion… but all milk has an expiration date.” — M. Bison. Having not learned their lesson with the Jean-Claude Van Damme !lm based on their Street Fighter video game series, Capcom ap- parently thought that enough time had passed to give it another go. "is time it is focused on Chun-Li, the undercover Chinese agent (who has legs that are as thick as her pixilated head). Guile and Ryu are nowhere to be seen. It will take longer than 15 years to forget this wretched mess, a debacle of truly underwhelm- ing proportions. It is very di#cult to know where to begin, so let’s start with Chris Klein, who is most famous for his role in the American Pie movies. Having been largely delegated to the Images courtesy of Warner Bros. straight-to-video slums since that series petered out, Klein apparently thought the challenge of his !rst role as an action hero would be a good one to resuscitate his career. FILM are impotent with even the ing massive power, holding ther and uses the superhero "ere are bad performances, and then there Watchmen hottest babe until they acti- great in%uence over society, framework to tell us the are bad performances that make you howl in vate their kinkiness in leath- having women who adore darker aspects of the human disbelief. Surely, this actor has to know how GENRE: Action, Fantasy, er costumes and where !fty- us even as we’d push them condition. bad his accent and delivery are. Surely, this ac- Sci-Fi year-old women still get o$ away for duty’s sake—while For some reason, it’s tor must be creating a parody of the action hero STARRING: Jackie Earle on the old Tijuana bible speckled with enough faults easier to accept a radioactive by exaggerating his swagger beyond any reason- Haley, Patrick Wilson, portrayals of themselves to make the superhero feel spider granting fantastic able plausibility (unless you are Brendan Frasier Matthew Goode, Billy from their sex-symbol days. human. strength than it is to accept in George of the Jungle). Crudup and Jeffrey Dean But let’s take a step back It’s this sort of transpar- a single murder being justi- Sadly for Klein, he does not realize how ter- Morgan for a minute… ent male wish-ful!llment !ed to prevent mass murder. rible his performance is; for the audience, ev- DIRECTOR: Zack Snyder Watchmen is a superhero quality that earns super- It’s a lot easier to accept a ery line of dialogue spoken by Klein as Charlie movie based on a famous hero comics their juvenile man in tights than it is to Nash is comedy gold. Unfortunately, the only RATING: R twelve-issue comic (and lat- branding from critics (that, accept that love can be born entertainment Street Fighter o$ers is of the un- RELEASE DATE: March 6, er graphic novel) that deals of course, and the target de- of a rape attempt. intentional variety. 2009 with superheroes from a mographic). At other times, Watch- If the !lm were not subtitled !e Legend of realistic perspective during "e emphasis in Watch- men shows us how easy it Chun-Li, you might not have any idea that she is OUR TAKE: !!!!! the Cold War era. men seems to be %ipped—it is for us to accept horrors the star of the movie. However, you would start We have certain notions doesn’t de!ne its protago- we would normally recoil to get an idea from the amount of voice-over By Philip Poole about the genre that we just nists by the fact that they’re against, such as the masked present as Chun-Li goes to Bangkok to hang Contributing Writer accept. We accept that there undeniably cool people do- protagonist Rorschach’s around the slums, always in fashionable clothes will be men and women ca- ing super-heroic deeds, but handling of a child predator and make-up as she talks of the di#culty of life As homoerotic as 300 vorting around in spandex, it instead relies on the usual- during his superhero iden- on the streets. Perhaps Kristen Kreuk was cast turned out to be, you would because that’s just what they ly secondary personal issues tity’s moment of birth. for her ability to cry (something that Chun-Li think director Zack Snyder do. We accept that super- and drama to de!ne them. As he adapted Alan does more than actually !ght)—a sad devolu- would play up those ele- heroes always prioritize the Undoubtedly, this will be Moore’s famous graphic tion from the character in the video games who ments in Watchmen. Still, threat of the greater good an issue with some !lmgo- novel into !lm, director once intoned “I am the strongest woman in the Watchmen is less about before their own personal is- ers who expect the type of Zack Snyder clearly under- world!” Kreuk was certainly not cast for her sexuality and more about sues, no matter how unlike escapist fantasy that super- stood the juxtaposition of ability to !ght, which is a big problem when sex. Written in 1986, the humanity that is. hero movies are known for. Watchmen’s superheroes to your movie is based on a !ghting game. graphic novel was intended, We accept that there’s "ere’s a simpler truth traditional superheroes. Perhaps the producers thought going with in part, to showcase the na- a line of morality that the about Watchmen’s protago- For instance, in the Andrzej Bartkowiak would supply needed cred- iveté of Reaganism, and so superhero may walk very nists. "ese characters aren’t graphic novel, Moore de- ibility, or what passes as credibility in the low- it takes every opportunity to tightly, but ultimately he meant to be who we aspire picts the superhero Adrian budget action !lm. You can be forgiven for not explore how vanilla sex just won’t fall over the audience- to be—they’re meant to Veidt with the typical comic recognizing the name, as he toiled for Joel Silver doesn’t exist in contempo- de!ned wrong side of it. be who we are. "at puts book utilitarian, ‘put-the- by directing urban crime !lms with Jet Li and rary society. Traditionally, the super- Watchmen squarely in the greater-good-!rst’ view- an assortment of hip-hop stars. I had some gen- Instead, we live in a world hero is the audience-iden- territory of dramatic art point. uine hope for this movie, believing that Cradle where 30-year-old men leave ti!cation character because that seeks to tell us some- "e director has com- 2 !e Grave is a schlock movie masterpiece, par- their wives for teenage jail- he is the image of what we thing about ourselves, but ticularly when DMX shows up to growl. Sadly, bait, where 40-year-old men would like to be—wield- the !lm takes it a step fur- See Watchmen, page 18 See Fighter, page 18 t.BSDI tTechnique ENTERTAINMENT Watchmen from page 17 downtown New York reads a copy the words on one page of a comic of this comic about a haunted fairly quickly, so there’s an illusion monly referred to the Watchmen pirate ship. While a structurally of lost exposition when your script graphic novel as his bible during stylistic part of the graphic novel, sticks so closely to the graphic #lming because of how close he these scenes were prime bait to be novel. tried to stay to the source mate- cut from the #lm and banished to "e major change to the script rial. But while Snyder gets the big the realm of DVD extras. involves the expansion on the concepts, he misses some of the By removing them, the audi- theme of alternative energy sourc- smaller moments from the novel ence misses out on the newspaper es, along with a particular part that most e!ectively deconstruct headlines and the exposition of near the end that many a fanboy the concept of superheroes. the news vendor that serve as our have cried foul about already. But "ere’s no conversation be- primary source of information on once again, Snyder shows his im- tween Nite Owl II and Silk Spec- the progression toward nuclear pressive command of the source tre II on how every hero has lost war between the United States material by recognizing that a a crime bust because they had and the USSR. Snyder attempts to change must be made in order to rush in the bathroom and show us the countdown to mid- for the story’s message to be rel- couldn’t get out of their tights night through new scenes with evant in modern times; he’s able to quickly enough. "ere’s no line egregious Nixon and Kissinger make that change while maintain- from original masked avenger look-alikes within the president’s ing the themes that Moore set up Hollis Mason about standing in a war room but fails at keeping the in the graphic novel over 20 years ridiculous out#t with tears in his audience grounded and showcas- ago.