Sonic-Fucking-Boom! : Street Fighter: The Later Years
mood: 
impressed
impressed
People of my generation will undoubtedly remember the Street Fighter franchise with fond (or not so fond) memories. After several years worth of story from games, comics, and cartoons, in 1994 Universal Pictures managed to produce an appalling movie starring Jean Claude Van Damme that was truly painful to watch. (Mortal Kombat, on the other hand, proved a pretty interesting watch-- but that belongs to a different review altogether.)
In any case, more than 10 years later, the folks over at CollegeHumor.com have put their resources together and produced the best non-game adaptation of the Street Fighter series in any medium. What's surprising about Street Fighter: The Later Years is not that they managed to do a Sandy Collora-quality indie flick, but that they managed to produce one with the a damned good story at the same time. Unlike Collora's breath-takingly shot (but ultimately devoid of any comprehensible storyline) BATMAN: Dead End, SF: TLY is witty, reverent, and bitter, all at the same time.
I don't want to give much of the story away, but suffice to say that 10 years after the Street Fighter tournaments ended, our heroes and villains are not /quite/ living up to the glory of the old days. If you're not hooked after seeing an aging Zangief mopping up the floor of a crap arcade... you have no sense of history whatsoever. ;)
Currently at seven episodes (with one new release per month), you can catch SF: TLY at College Humor's website here: http://www.collegehumor.com/tag:streetf