Street Fighter Alpha

Alpha is one of several animated films based on the popular fighting game series, and as you might expect based on that statement, not very good. I liked Street Fighter II well enough, but this one isn't quite as fun. It starts off promisingly, with some smoothly animated, enjoyable little fight scenes, but as soon as it starts trying to tell a story it slows way down. There's a lot of familiar faces, with Ryu, Ken, and Chun-Li predictable having the biggest roles, but some of the cameos don't make a whole lot of impact, and are just fan service. There's even a whole tangent with Akuma that's supposed to be dramatic or something but doesn't contribute to the plot or serve any purpose other than adding a few minutes to the runtime. If you're going to animate Akuma, at least have him beat the shit out of someone.

Anyway, it ends up being about some mad scientist guy having all the familiar guys fight so he can collect their data and eventually learn the "Dark Hadou" power from Ryu, so he can take over the world, I guess. There's a whole subplot with a little kid who claims to be Ryu's brother and also apparently has the power. But I kind of missed the explanation of what his actual deal was if it existed, because I was in and out for the last half. The problem is that once super powerful enemies get revealed, the action shifts from possibly well-choreographed martial arts to tired scenes of people powering up or writhing in crippling pain, taking a lot of potential excitement out of it. I would have enjoyed it more if it just stuck to what was working instead of going straight for the melodrama. It wasn't terrible, but I spent too long waiting until it was over.