2026 has been a big year for movies based on video games. We have had Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Resident Evil, Return to Silent Hill and Mortal Kombat II so it seems like the perfect time to bring back Street Fighter after the terrible 1994 version with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Raul Julia taking the two main roles. Set in 1993, Bison wants the power of Ryu so he can be big and powerful and comes up with a tournament to try and draw Ryu out of hiding who disappeared several year earlier.
The plot to the film seems simple enough but there were times that the people writing the film and producing didn't seem to know what they wanted to achieve with the film as the whole film seemed to be going through the motions and despite the film being two hours long, it felt a whole lot longer. The film took itself a bit too seriously and didn't embrace the silliness of the 1994 version without fully embracing it.
It was a mixed bag in terms of performances. Andrew Koji (Ryu) seemed to be in a brooding gritty character drama. He isn't in the first half of the film and when he does appear he is very moody and very low energy. Noah Cetineo (Ken) was fine but doing the whole 'wasting talent and living on being famous' thing a bit too well. He seems to want to be the fan favourite and he doesn't quite good too far in the narcissistic part of the character.
Calling Liang (Chun-Li) was good although she played the character just right. The whole undercover thing was a bit unnecessary but when the main part of the film gets going, she comes into her own and has some good fight scenes. Cody Rhodes is the best thing in the film. He is the only one that seems to understand what type of film he is in. He was funny in every scene he was in and it would have been nicer to have him in it more. Unusually he wasn't the only WWE wrestler in the film as Roman Reigns (aka Joe Anoa'i) playing the big bad guy Akuma. I was slightly disappointed that he when he appears properly that he didn't say his WWE catchphrase 'Acknowledge Me'. His character didn't seem to be the big bad guy that he had been built up to be throughout the film so Anoa'i felt let down but what he was given.
David Dasmalchian (Bison) seemed to be reining it in. There were times where it felt like he wasn't going as over the top as he could have done and as a result it felt underwhelming. It does feel unfair comparing performances to the 1994 terrible version but I did prefer the Raul Julia performance.
When I saw the trailer, I thought Eric Andre was going to irritate me but I thought that it was as it should be. It was over the top just enough to be entertaining but not irritating. Andrew Schulz's performance as Dan Hibiki was also entertaining enough but not too irritating.
It felt like all the other known characters were very underserved. It felt like they should have done most of them like they did with E. Honda. Have them in a scene, in a fight or something and then write them out. That way you please the fans but don't weigh down the story with too many characters.
The fights were all rather good. They all looked like they performed by people who knew how to do that sort of thing and given that it's an important part of the game, it feels like they took this aspect of the film importantly. I also like how the actors looked like their computer game characters. The whole look of the film was rather good as well with each scene not looking like it was filmed 100% in front of a green screen which is where films seem to be heading nowadays. I really liked the animated parts of the film and do wonder whether they should have done the entire film like that but then it probably wouldn't have ended up in the cinema.
Street Fighter is an ok film but slightly disappointing. I think they didn't go over the top enough and not in the way that the 1994 version did but something close to it. The ending suggests that they are planning for future films which I would be very surprised because this doesn't seem like it's going to do well enough but I could be wrong. I think that fans of the game will not be that be terribly impressed with it and non-fans will just be underwhelmed with it.
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