From “Mortal Kombat” to “Dead or Alive” to “Street Fighter,” the unfortunate reality is that to date, the only thing that the watchable video game movies have in common is that they’re so bad, they’re spectacularly entertaining.
Oddly enough, they’re all based on fighting games as well. Using this logic, I saw “Tekken” as a prime candidate for feature. We’re talking about a fighting game with a roster that consists of a man that transform into the devil, an alien swordsman, a robot who’s special moves include the ability to spank people to death, and a corporate executives pet bear. Unfortunately, where the live action adaptation of the Tekken series excels in being bad, it fails hard at being entertaining.
This movie is like watching the result of a story cliché themed Mad-Libs game. A teenager raised by a single mother enters a battle tournament in the dystopian future in order to avenge the death of his mother. The orphan in question is Jin Kazama, played by Jon Foo, a scruffy young street fighter living in the slums of post-apocalyptic and tyrannical Tekken City. Tekken City is run by the evil Mishima Corporation, as opposed to all of those nice corporations that run dystopian cities of the future. After blowing up his home, which consequently kills his mother indirectly, due to his breaking of the citywide curfew, Jin seeks to seize control of Tekken City to ensure that its tyranny never harms its lower class again.
How does he accomplish this? By competing in a fighting tournament that conveniently offers control of the city to the winner. Why would you want to give control of government to somebody whose only qualifications are the ability to beat the pulp out of somebody his own size? Who cares, it provides the only thing you’d actually care for in a movie this poorly written, the action. Yes, the action, the true star of the show, which is pretty damn sad. It’s not that the action is particularly bad but it’s far from memorable. All of the fights not featuring Jin look like decently shot UFC matches, which is to say interesting to look at, but not particularly engaging on a cinematic level.
By comparison, Jin’s fights boil down to one-sided matches that involve him losing pitifully until he flashes back to his memories of dear old dead mommy, which may or may not have a lesson related to the fight he is currently in, after which he makes a comeback and beats down his opponent to victory, rinse and repeat.
The formula is followed through 3 times and gets very boring, very quickly.
Even the acting is as bland as can be. Every performance just seems to be phoned in. The corporate executives, the other fighters, Jin’s love interests, hell, even Jon Foo himself didn't seem to perform with an ounce of care. Special note to his love interest in the movie, Christie, whose sole purpose seemed to be to have a girl in low riding tight leather jeans dance with a camera located behind her and focused on her lovingly for about a minute.
Writing this mere days after viewing it, I honestly can barely recall anything that I actually saw once the general annoyance of the film settled in.
“Tekken” wasn't horrible or anything but it was so bland that I kind of wish it was just to evoke some sort of reaction out of me. The best way I can describe my experience is that it was a lot like getting a nail hammered into your brain. It hurts like a bitch at first, but after the first couple of minutes or so, you grow kind of numb to it.
It's not exactly comfortable, but it at least stopped being excruciating.
1 Shatner out of Four
Bottom Line: The only thing saving Tekken from sitting in the same corner as the worst video game movies ever made is that it still looks like "The Godfather" compared to dreck like "Doom" and "Alone in the Dark."
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