Negative reviews for the new Street Fighter movie have prompted a video-game-movie veteran to speak up in defense of his previous works. The Boll is back.
German filmmaker Uwe Boll shared Variety's mixed review of Street Fighter on social media, adding: "Don't ever bash my movies again," seeming to imply that his own adaptations actually aren't that bad. Strong words from the man who achieved a 1% Rotten Tomatoes rating for his take on Alone in the Dark.
The top reply to Boll's post asks him to "shut the f**k up," calling him "trash," to which Boll replies: "That’s what they said when you were born," a comeback that would be more commonplace in an elementary school playground.
Ironically, Variety's review states that Street Fighter was "enjoyable" at first and laments that the film's quality took a dive midway through. That's a more generous appraisal than what most critics give to Boll's work. GameSpot's own review of Street Fighter called it "entertaining for some silly, mindless fun, but also a very messy movie" with tonal issues.
Street Fighter currently scores at 45 on GameSpot's sister site Metacritic, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. By comparison, Boll's hot streak of video game adaptations, including House of the Dead, BloodRayne, Alone in the Dark, Postal, and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, have Metacritic ratings of 15, 18, 9, 22, and 15. But hey, if you add all of those numbers together, that's more than 45, which must mean something, right?
Earlier this year, Boll was teeing up another video game movie (albeit an unofficial one) in the form of Castle of the Dead, originally announced as 23 Years Later: Return to Zombie Island. The film was slated to be an unauthorized sequel to House of the Dead, but Boll ultimately canceled the film unceremoniously.
Meanwhile, box-office returns for Street Fighter are trending slightly below those of Mortal Kombat 2, but the film still has a full opening weekend ahead. Audiences can decide for themselves if Boll is worth forgiving.