Kitao Sakurai's Street Fighter, for the most part, understood the assignment. The movie actually looks and feels like its ripped straight from the arcades and given a Hollywood budget—until it remembers it has a plot to follow.
But there's still a lot to like here, especially for video game fans. Street Fighter is visually stunning and adores the game's world, with everything from the costumes to the character designs to the overall aesthetic unmistakable from the source material. Sakurai knows he's making a movie about people who can throw fireballs from their hands, and he approaches the direction with the same verve and style as the games.
The casting is immaculate. Andrew Koji and Noah Centineo are surprisingly convincing as the noble Ryu and hothead Ken, two of the best martial artists in the world whose disparity and brotherly bond are the dramatic anchors of Street Fighter. Callina Liang is equal parts beautiful and badass, giving justice to Chun-Li and is sure to become a fan-favorite. Even the wilder choices like Cody Rhodes as Guile and Jason Momoa as Blanka are just even more icing on top of this over-sweetened dessert.
The fighting ain't no slouch either. There's plenty of flashy action scenes and callbacks to the original Street Fighter games that would pop many a fighting game fan.
But then the movie remembers it has a story to tell, and it all comes tumbling down. Street Fighter is saddled with a bunch of convoluted plot threads overstuffed into a punishing 2-hour runtime, from Ken's battle to escape Ryu's shadow to Chun-Li's revenge plot against M. Bison (David Dastmalchian as the least threatening Bison to date) to Ryu's internal conflict—and there's a demon involved (Roman Reigns as Akuma) for some reason? This would have all been compelling, but the feverish editing and stunted script cuts any sort of pathos at the knees, made worse with the movie's flip-flopping between genuine affection for the game and making fun of itself. I thought we were done with this sort of irony in video game movies?
And all this plot leaves little room for the tournament itself, which is a shame considering the great lengths some of the cast went to bulk up and learn martial arts. Fight results are just straight-up told to us matter-of-factly, and forfeits happen each round that it's a wonder why the entire stadium hasn't asked for their money back. A complete waste of guys like Vidyut Jammwal as Dhalsim, who looks cool as all hell and probably one of the few legit fighters in the movie.
But the love and care to bring the weird, wild, and wicked parts of CAPCOM's iconic fighting game to life makes it all worth it, even if just barely. When Street Fighter stops worrying about its plot and just lets its characters do their fireballs and their catchphrases, it's an absolute riot. There's enough nostalgia and visual creativity here to tide you over until the eventual sequel—until then, you have to make do with this one.
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