Double Feature Friday: Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat

Over on the Cavalcade of Awesome, I looked at 14 vintage ads for video games based on movies. So this week on Held Over, I'm looking at video game movies.

Today is Double Feature Friday so I'm looking at two movie adaptations for two very popular fighting games.

This is an ad for Street Fighter from 1994. It starred Jean Claude Van Damme as Guile and Raul Julia (in his final peformance) as Major Bison.  Also starring was Ming-Na as Chun-Li and Kylie Minogue as Cammy.  The movie is notoriously over the top and bad, but fun to watch.  Despite the notorious awfulness of this movie, it actually earned triple the cost to make it.  Van Damme tried for years to make a sequel but when the property changed over to 20th Century Fox, they rebooted the franchise with The Legend of Chun-Li in 2009.  Which is also notoriously bad and considered a worse movie than the original.

Street Fighter was written and directed by Steven E. de Souza.  Mr de Souza wrote the screenplays for Die Hard, Die Hard 2, Commando, Running Man as well as episodes of the TV shows Knight Rider, The Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman.  That sounds awesome, which makes you wonder how this guy could have written this horrible Street Fighter movie.  Well, Mr de Souza also wrote Jumping Jack Flash with Whoopi Goldberg, Beverly Hills Cop III, Hudson Hawk, The Flintstones and Judge Dredd.  So that's how.

Here's an ad for the Mortal Kombat movie adaptation from 1995. Jean Claude Van Damme was actually offered the role of Johnny Cage in this movie, but turned it down to play Guile in Street Fighter. Linden Ashby would replace Van Damme. Also in the movie were Christopher Lambert, Bridgett Wilson and Robin Shou who played Liu Kang. Robin Shou would reprise his role in the Mortal Kombat sequel, Annihilation. Shou would then jump franchises and play a character in the Street Fighter reboot, The Legend of Chun-Li in 2009.

Other video game movies:
- Joysticks (1983)
- War Games (1983)
- Cloak and Dagger (1984)
- The Wizard (1989)
- Super Mario Bros (1993)

See the Street Fighter trailer:


See the Mortal Kombat Trailer:

Super Mario Bros - May 28, 1993

Over on the Cavalcade of Awesome, I looked at 14 vintage ads for video games based on movies. So this week on Held Over, I'm looking at video game movies.

Here's an ad for the atrocious movie adaptation of the video game Super Mario Brothers. It starred Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo in roles that should have ended their Hollywood careers.

Other video game movies:
- Joysticks (1983)
- War Games (1983)
- Cloak and Dagger (1984)
- The Wizard (1989)

See the Super Mario Bros trailer:

The Wizard - Dec 16, 1989

Over on the Cavalcade of Awesome, I looked at 14 vintage ads for video games based on movies. So this week on Held Over, I'm looking at video game movies.

Here's an ad for the poster child of movies about video games, The Wizard. It features several popular Nintendo Games as well as the Nintendo Power Glove.

Other video game movies
- Joysticks (1983)
- War Games (1983)
- Cloak and Dagger (1984)

Watch The Wizard trailer:

Cloak and Dagger - Aug 10, 1984

Over on the Cavalcade of Awesome, I looked at 14 vintage ads for video games based on movies. So this week on Held Over, I'm looking at video game movies.

Here's an ad for 1984's Cloak and Dagger. Dabney Coleman plays the dual role of Henry Thomas' father and the imaginary super spy Jack Flack. Jack Flack is from the boy's favorite video game, Cloak and Dagger.

The video game that is central to this movie was based on an actual game. The game itself was in development before the movie and was named Agent X. When production started for the movie the game's gameplay was tweaked and the name was changed to Cloak & Dagger.  Screenshots for the video game in the movie came from the arcade version.  However, in the movie, the Cloak & Dagger game is a cartridge from the Atari 5200.  An Atari 5200 version of the game was planned but never released due to the home video game industry collapse in 1984, right after this movie was released.

Other video game movies:
- Joysticks (1983)
- War Games (1983)

Watch the Cloak and Dagger trailer:

War Games - Jun 3, 1983

Over on the Cavalcade of Awesome, I looked at 14 vintage ads for video games based on movies. So this week on Held Over, I'm looking at video game movies.

Here's an ad for the classic 1983 movie, War Games, starring Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy. In the movie Broderick's character, David Lightman, is a video gamer. You see him playing the game Galaga several times (it's even in the trailer below).

Other video game movies:
- Joysticks (1983)


See the War Games trailer:

Joy Sticks -- Apr 15, 1983

Looking at teen comedies from the 80s this week.

Today is an ad for Joy Sticks from 1983. I used to see the VHS cover for this movie all the time in rental stores. It featured the art from this ad.  I love this image which is also the poster for the movie.

Other 80s teen sex comedies:
- Fast Times at Ridgemont High

UPDATE -- Here's the trailer. I must watch this movie soon.