Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

"This movie walks through the raindrops."

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
Directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak
Written by Justin Marks
Starring Kristin Kreuk, Chris Klein, Neal McDonough, Robin Shou, Moon Bloodgood, Josie Ho, Taboo and Michael Clarke Duncan

Expectations can be a dangerous beast. Good buzz and fevered anticipation are craved above all else by advertisers and marketing men, particularly when dealing with a fan-favourite property, but all too often it is these expectations that can be a film's worst enemy. Nothing prompts more despair than shattered hopes, and the pain of seeing something turn out badly is often as nothing compared to the feeling of loss over what might have been.

In case you haven't guessed, none of this preamble is even remotely relevant to Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. As a Hollywood videogame adaptation, this film crawled into cinemas early in 2009 with precisely one hopeful objective; to better the horrendous Jean-Claude Van Damme Street Fighter movie that was vomited onto our collective faces in 1994. That The Legend of Chun-Li manages to fail to reach even that meagre target is at once astonishing and deeply hilarious.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

"...Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Become The Goddamn Batman."

Batman: Arkham Asylum
Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC
Developed by Rocksteady Studios

Batman: Arkham Asylum is a game which functions far, far better than anyone could have reasonably expected it to. A licensed superhero brawler from a largely unknown gamemaker, it seems like the sort of game which was just waiting to show up and let everybody down, even despite the impressive budget it has clearly commanded.

Yet Rocksteady Studios has acquitted itself with flying colours, with Arkham Asylum debuting to strong sales and a critical welcome warm enough to net the title a (spurious) Guinness World Record. The praise, however, is justified.

Welcome, welcome!

...and welcome to Maus Talks with Maustallica, an amateur but enthusiastic reviewer of undefined things. Over the course of the coming weeks, I will be using this site to post thoughts, musings and analysis of whatever comes to my attention, be it a game, a film, a TV show, a toy, or an anything.

As such, I cannot promise that content which appears here will be a) regular, b) consistent or c) of interest to anyone other than myself; I will, however, always try to compose my thoughts in as articulate and considered a manner as I can before I vomit them into your brains.

In the unlikely event that anyone reads any of this, please feel free to comment or share your thoughts. If even one person finds what I have to say informative or interesting, that's good enough for me!

I HATH CREATED LIFE

...or a blog, at least. Let's see how this goes.