Growing up in the early 90s, there were few intellectual properties that permeated nerd culture like Street Fighter. I mean, I even remember the first time I saw the game running in all its 16-bit SNES glory. It was straight-up love at first sight, a love that continued to grow with every iteration of Street Fighter 2 I eventually got my grubby mitts on. Still, it wasn't until the one-two punch combo of the live-action and Animated Movie adaptations did the series attain GOAT status in my eyes. And in the year of our Lord, 2026, that GOAT is scheduled to return in a cinema near you. So does the new movie successfully tap into that sweet 90s nostalgia, or are we too far removed from that decade for it to be anything other than cringe-inducing?
The movie opens with a beautiful hand-drawn animated sequence, a technique it uses throughout to fill in all its requisite backstory. In this one, we are introduced to the duo of Ryu and Ken, as they train under their master, Gouken, and we watch as Ryu rises to become the winner of the first-ever World Warrior tournament in 1987. But in the years following his ascent, the adoptive brothers become estranged. Meanwhile, the evil Shadoloo boss, M. Bison, has tasked one of his agents, Chun-Li, with recruiting fighters from around the world for a second World Warrior tournament. Now the two brothers must set aside their differences or settle their score once and for all.
From the moment I first saw that initial teaser for Street Fighter at The Game Awards, it was clear that the movie was swinging for the fences. They even had the cast throwing jabs at Mortal Kombat 2, in a bid to reignite a decades-old rivalry between the two fighting games. And it worked, or at the very least, my interest was piqued and I knew I had to give their movie a fair shake. I also knew it was destined to be one of those love-it-or-hate-it affairs, with its chaotic flair and an outrageous tone that couldn't possibly be to everyone's taste. Thankfully, I find myself firmly in the love-it camp, with some heavy caveats of course.
The movie leans very hard into its source material, some might say even to a fault. After all, the 1994 live-action film had opted for a more grounded albeit campy approach that barely looked anything like the games, and a part of me suspects a lot of that was necessitated by the limitations of the special effects of that era. I understand, of course, that not everyone has the same level of tolerance for gravity-defying special moves. But having personally grown up watching these fighters perform those moves from one game to the next, I wouldn't want it any other way.
Another thing I really enjoyed seeing was just how well the movie nails the look and feel of the 90s. Much of the film is set in 1993, and a lot of care and attention was given to its overall presentation to help sell that setting. Everything from the VHS quality recordings of TV broadcasts to the period-appropriate music that underscores a large part of the film, along with recognizable flourishes taken from the games themselves. Even the raunchy humor, of which there was plenty, felt like a product of that time period, with overly sexualized female characters and an overreliance on homoerotic jokes among the male ones.
Speaking of characters, one of the earliest talking points following the reveal of the movie was the ragtag group of actors making up its cast. And for the most part, a lot of those actors gave adequate performances, although I still maintain that having 50 Cent play Balrog was definitely a choice. Also, there is just no replacing Raúl Juliá as M. Bison from the 1994 film, so it felt like David Dastmalchian had the deck stacked against him from the very beginning. His performance, like those of the majority of the cast, was completely over-the-top and dialed to eleven.
Some of that is carried over from the games, for sure, but I was still surprised to see even otherwise level-headed characters like Cammy turned into screeching maniacs. The clear standout for me was Eric Andre as Don Savuage, who I felt had a lot of the best gags in the film. But as a Ken main in the games, it really irked me that he was depicted as largely incompetent and the butt of a lot of the jokes. There was also an overabundance of subplots and not nearly enough time to explore them all. As a result, a lot of the characters felt pretty one note and not fully fleshed out.
But I'm sure you aren't going into a Street Fighter movie expectating a deep character study. No, the reason we're here is to revel in some actual street fighting. And for the most part, I found the fights in the movie to be fairly decent. It did take a while before we got our first actual match up, outside of the one depicted in the animated sequence at the start of the film. Also, they break away from the globe-trotting format of the tournaments in the games, so we don't actually get to see that many exotic locations and their colorful denizens.
We don't even see that much of the tournament either, as a matter of fact, since a good chunk of the fights happen off screen. Which is just as well because a lot of the best fights take place outside the tournament itself, like the bathhouse fight between Ryu and E. Honda, or a free-for-all brawl that takes place in a nightclub. The setup for the latter was a bit convoluted and messy, but it ultimately gave us a chance to see the fighters duking it out. There was nothing quite on the level of that Liu Kang vs Kung Lao fight in Mortal Kombat 2, though, so keep your expectations in check and you should be fine.
Street Fighter is cringeworthy, yes, but in all the right ways. It faithfully adapts elements of the video games while paying respect to the era that brought those games to the limelight. Maybe it's my rose-tinted glasses speaking but I found that I had a smile on my face for most of the movie, in addition to one or two genuine laugh-out-loud moments. Its playful tone often borders on the edge of slapstick and it seems more interested in setting up potential sequels than in tying up loose ends. But it ultimately finds the right balance between being silly and melodramatic, which is why I am able to forgive some of its shortcomings.
