When you think about it, there’s no earthly reason why movies based on video games should, as a class, be so atrocious. For one thing, the games themselves are largely cinematic in conception and style; the biggest problem of most adaptations from other media — of imposing a three-act framework on material that lacks structure — is largely absent, since the source game is most often already organized as a series of escalating encounters. Backstory and characterization, however rudimentary, are already in place. And coming from such a design-intensive medium, game-based movies arrive pre-packaged with a deep sense of environment, of atmosphere. The ingredients for success are in place.
And yet, the record speaks for itself. The history of the genre is a grim slog of tax-shelter flops, assembled by Eurohacks for a one-weekend audience of insomniacs, craphounds, and ever-hopeful fanboys. Into this parade o’ crap now steps Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, dropping straight to DVD this week. A spin-off from the Capcom game (and a sequel or prequel or perhaps paraquel to 1994’s Street Fighter, featuring the once-in-a-lifetime pairing of Van Damme and Raul Julia), Legend has already — though the year is scarce half-over — been branded by several critics as the worst film of 2009.
And I, um — I kind of liked it.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, has demonstrated an ability to manipulate popular culture better than Quentin Tarantino. The pop-culture reference is a staple of modern entertainment. Television shows like The Simpsons take delight in finding ways to work a dozen clever references into each episode, and lesser shows like Family Guy owe their existence to pop culture cutaways. Two of the writers of Scary Movie (2000) have even managed to build an entire franchise of execrable films that consist of nothing but references to other films and stories. Tarantino is no stranger to this technique; his films are full of references and homages, even though they are often too obscure to be recognized by the average viewer. What truly sets Tarantino apart from the hordes of hacks who appropriate images and stories from other sources in order to stimulate an audience’s collective memory is that he has an unparalleled ability to weave these references (quotes, songs, even biblical verses) together in unique ways so that they instantly emerge as new memes in popular culture.