Street Fighter movie review: "This reboot is far from a perfect knockout"

Capcom's had a helluva year. Resident Evil: Requiem, Pragmata, and Onimusha: The Way of the Sword are some of the best games released these past few months, and that's not to mention the latest, apparently greatest, Monster Hunter Stories instalment. Then, of course, there's Zack Cregger's brilliant Resident Evil, which set a new standard for video game adaptations at the theater.

But not everyone's perfect, not even Capcom. The latest attempt at bringing Street Fighter to the multiplex is an overstuffed miss – a hyper-edited, dick-joke-filled, tonally inconsistent movie that ends halfway through its own story. But rather than leaving you wanting more, you're left with a headache, caused by too many booming needle-drops and too few satisfying uppercuts. The character roster – full of hilarious wigs – is simply overstuffed, with four primary protagonists all given too little screen time.

First, there's Ken Masters, a once-respected fighter now doing adverts for Duracell and taking on novelty fights with polar bears. Ken's rich, jacked, and looks like Noah Centineo, but nobody wants to party with him, so he sings karaoke alone, belting out "What's Up?" by the 4 Non Blondes, a favourite of his missing brother, Ryu.

Speaking of which, Andrew Koji's solemn champion has gone into hiding after failing to save his and Ken's master, Gouken, from the evil Akuma. Like that beastly spirit, Ryu is possessed by a dark force, which comes out when he's fighting, so Ryu's swapped throwing hadoukens for selling noodles to tourists.

Fight club

That doesn't last long: M. Bison – an unleashed, high-camp David Dastmalchian – is hosting a second World Warrior tournament to lure out Ryu and capture his "hado" powers. Bison sends his best minion, Chun-Li, to seek out fighters from all over the world, but, to absolutely no one's surprise, she's not actually Bison's lapdog – she's an undercover Interpol agent whose personality boils down to wanting revenge and being hot, something that's mentioned a dozen times by multiple different characters.

Then there's Ken's agent, best friend, and former sparring partner Dan Hibiki, a metaphorical punching bag who, despite not having a grand entrance, is at the center of multiple major story beats and has an arc of his own. The marketing might not be drawing attention to Dan, but he has at least as much screentime as Chun-Li, if not Ryu.

That's not to mention the plethora of other characters, like Eric André's Don Sauvage, given ample air time to shout funny things, and Jason Momoa's green-skinned, hulking Blanka, who was brought up, we're told, by "eels… electric eels". Cody Rhodes' Guile has the most ridiculous haircut ever put to screen, while 50 Cent's Balrog, Vidyut Jammwal's Dhalsim, Orville Peck's Vega, Rayna Vallandingham's Juli, and Mel Jarnson's Cammy are all also… here. There's little more to each of these fighters than what you get from the character select screen; they are mere set dressing.

In order to juggle so many spinning plates, director Kitao Sakurai, a frequent collaborator of André, keeps things rolling at a bombastic pace, editing every scene like it's a TikTok, allowing nothing to breathe, and no emotional connections to be formed. Characters say their motivation out loud multiple times, just in case you were scrolling through reels while watching, like Ken, who we know is a loser, so everyone calls him one, until, suddenly, midway through a later-stage fight, he's cool again, just like that.

Another round

The actual fights suffer because of the pace. We've been living in a post-Raid and John Wick world for well over a decade, trained on visceral, sleek action that clearly shows every punch. Street Fighter goes in a different direction, using wires and CGI to recreate moves from the games, but they too often look janky. When something really cool happens, it's heavily signposted with slow motion. The recent Mortal Kombat movies got away with heightened, silly fighting moves because everything's a gory mess, but Street Fighter is squarely aimed at 12-year-old boys, so there's no blood, and therefore no distraction from some clunky-looking moves.

Street Fighter instead works best as a comedy. Sakurai's a great director of slapstick, which half of these fights are anyway, but your tolerance for the humour depends on how much you enjoy lowbrow jokes. Example: Ken gets punched in the cajones; someone shouts: "Yo, his dick is toast!" It's one of the movie's biggest laughs. The movie also shines during animated sequences, which are much more serious in tone and look stunning, like classic '90s anime. There's a clear vision behind these that's sorely lacking from the messy live-action movie they're stuck inside.

Were this entirely animated, it may have been another Capcom win, but sadly, that's not the case. Street Fighter's biggest flaw is simply trying to do too much, cramming three movies' worth of characters and plot into two hours, and then ending inexplicably halfway through a scene without resolving the main conflict. It's sequel bait when they really should have focused more on round one being perfect.

Street Fighter releases in theaters on October 16. For more, check out our ranking of the best video game movies and our guide to the many upcoming video game movies in the works.