Rifftrax's Video Arcade Theater Returns With Street Fighter

When Rifftrax had its annual Kickstarter campaign, it offered an mp3 riff for the 1994 video game movie Street Fighter. This was remembered as a really bad action movie. People would have preferred the original Street Fighter 2 game footage.
The riff is now available to everyone, and it's a worthy successor to the other lousy video game movie, "Super" Mario Brothers. 

Jean Claude Van Damme is the star as Colonel Guile, who battles your basic video game madman named M. Bison, played by Raul Julia. He wants 20 billion in three days or he'll destroy the world and rebuild it as Bisonopolis (which sounds like a ballpark Buffalo wisely never made). He even has a new currency system which will go into effect if the Queen gets kidnapped. 
The characters in the game have new roles to fit the movie. Chun-Li is a news reporter and part-time ninja (really), Honda and Balrog work with her. Ken and Ryu are con artists who have some fighting skills (Ryu mostly) and Dhalsim is a scientist instead of a yoga master.
As for Blanka, the big green mutant who's supposed to be Guile's adversary, the movie makes him more like "Carrot Top as Bruce Banner".
It was Julia's last movie before he died of a stroke, but it was also an attempt to make Kylie Minogue a movie star. Also, fans of Agents of SHIELD should look closely at Chun-Li, and realize they're looking at a mission Melinda May would rather not talk about (I was really surprised Ming-Na Wen was in this movie).

The Rifftrax crew spent a lot of the movie not being pleased about it, as usual. While they did talk about how this was Julia's last movie, and how all-American Van Damme was not (but not talking about how his drug habit affected production), they just wondered how over-blown and confusing the whole thing was. The movie still made a good chunk of cash, and it'll be interesting if anyone will suggest a 25th anniversary release later this year.

One thing, though: as Guile was battling Bison, how come the guys never said, "You may be a good fighter, Guile, but you still lost to a nerd from Seattle." Gee, that was a fat pitch they never got.

So, time for riffs:

M. Bison is walking around, threatening everyone
My father was M. Bison. Please call me Murray

Guile "interrupts" a fight by driving his Super Jeep into the ring
The Kool-Aid man got his driver's license

Guile tells Ryu and Ken to work for him. "The only way you two are leaving is over my dead body"
Good thing that wasn't Raul's line

Guile is "shot"
He died as he lived, unconvincingly.

Of course, he's OK, and has his big speech:
"Now who wants to go home, and who wants to go with me?"
Some fine war-mongering, self. now let's get some men killed.

Bison tries to get sexy with Chun-Li, gets almost clobbered by her
This is that Antarctic kung fu that she studied.

Bison floats around in a round desk
This is totally how Elon Musk sees himself, by the way

There's also riffs on Shane (which may divide movie fans), Kiss of the Spider Woman, Ed Sheeran, Virtual Boy games, Woodstock 99, Cynthia Rothrock and QBert.

Street Fighter is available at all the video streaming sites, while the riff is now at the Rifftrax site.

PACKERS! Rifftrax vs Giant Spider Invasion

Rifftrax celebrated its 30th live show this week by revisiting one of its episodes from 1997. It was also another reason for Mike, Kevin and Bill to mock Wisconsin with impunity.

The Giant Spider Invasion is known for many things, mostly uncomfortable. It was directed by Bill Rebane, who was also responsible for Monster-A-Go-Go (making what Servo said after that movie sadly inaccurate). It also featured Alan Hale Jr. and Barbara Hale, many years after their well-known TV roles. Mostly, it has this guy...

A grimy farmer named Kester who's not happy with his drunken wife but is sure happy to see her way-too-curvy younger sister. He's described as what would happen if  Deliverance was him. He's played by Robert Easton, who had a small role in The Touch of Satan and also co-wrote this "movie". Actually, there was no script according to this, and it shows.

Anyway, Kester, his wife and sister live in a rundown farm where something crashes from the sky.
They find a bunch of rocks that seem to have diamonds. They really have some spiders inside that crawl all over the place. Eventually one of them grows really big.
Meanwhile, two scientists head to town, thinking the Spider Meteor or whatever has created a mini-black hole that could open up our world to a dimension where monsters might invade. They don't, but it's an excuse for Barbara Hale to sound scientific for 90 minutes.

There's really icky deaths, and a very slow spider interrupting a county fair. As the Rifftrax guys say, it's the most accurate depiction of northern Wisconsin ever.

Compared to the original version on MST3K, the Rifftrax version wasn't as mean about Wisconsin. At least more MAGA jokes were expected, but it was a very good pummeling of a really cheesy (what else since it was made in Wisconsin) movie. It's also interesting the spiders were supposedly a sign of God's wrath since the movie has an intense preacher yelling fire and brimstone while they crawl all over.

Before the movie, the show featured a short called Adventures in Telezonia. It mainly talks about how great phones are, and they use the same marionettes that were featured in The Sound of Music. Some telephone sprites help a kid who thinks he lost his dog. The puppets are expressive, even if the story is not. There's one moment where Handy, the hero, says "take your finger out" and really makes it sound obscene. It's actually one of the best shorts they've done in a while. It shows us how far things have come in 60 years, from rotary phones to iPhones...and who remembers having a party line ("A party line is like a tree, and its leaves are lonely perverts")?

OK, let's feature some riffs, and we'll compare some between MST and Rifftrax:

"Hellfire and brimstone, that's what in store for you"
MST: Dennis Rodman, you've been listening?
RT:  Sounds good...what?

The spider lands
MST:  Hooterville was decimated by SCUD missiles that day
RT:  Just one of the normal fertilizer explosions

Kester shows up with a gun, wearing a union suit. True horror
MST:  He's lactating. What a handsome man
RT: Santa's gone through a rough patch

Then the spider eats Kester.
MST:  Does it matter the spider ate him with his butt?
RT:  He died as he lived, lusting after his wife's sister

There's also riffs on Samurai Cop, the Heaven's Gate cult, Chick-Fil-A, dad jokes, Marie Kondo and Charlotte's Web.

What also makes this movie special is that it includes a marriage proposal after the film in an outtake. Also, the pre-show slides actually do make good points. Quentin Tarantino's accent in Django Unchained was a big mistake, and the font for Stranger Things is the real star of the show.
But Stop of My Mother the Car Will Shoot? No.

The VOD for the movie is available for pre-order, and will arrive in mid-October. The MST version is in volume 10.2 from Shout Factory.