The biggest problem with new video game adaptation “Street Fighter” is that it’s bad on purpose. Not “delightfully over the top” or “destined to become a cult classic,” just bad. As if having a degree of self-awareness about its unapologetic badness somehow justifies wasting two hours of its audience’s time.
The story follows a pair of former best friends – Ryu (Andrew Koji) and Ken (Noah Centineo) – as they reunite after a six-year estrangement for a martial arts tournament hosted by military dictator M. Bison (David Dastmalchian), who is secretly planning to drain all the energy from the winner for evil purposes.
The two are recruited by Chun-Li (Callina Liang), purportedly an employee of Bison, but who is secretly working to bring him down. Ryu suspects something is wrong with the tournament, but he needs to enter to know for sure. Ken just wants to win the tournament so he can out-perform Ryu, in a grudge that started when their shared master Gouken (Don Lee) was killed by his brother Akuma (Roman Reigns). Akuma, by the way, is also planning to steal all the energy from the winner of the tournament, in a plan that is totally different from Bison’s.
Other characters include fellow good-guy tournament fighters Guille (Cody Rhodes) and Dhalsim (Vidyut Jammwal), bad-guy fighters Balrog (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson) and Vega (Orville Peck), neutral-ish fighters Zangief (Olivier Richters) and Joe (Alexander Volkanofski), Ken’s manager Dan (Andrew Schulz), tournament emcee Don (Eric André), Bison henchwoman Cammy (Mel Jarnson), and secret-weapon electric eel hybrid Blanka (Jason Momoa).
If you’re looking forward to the tournament, you’re going to be disappointed. Of the seven matches that are supposed to take place, two happen completely offscreen, three are cancelled due to forfeits, and two take place in this movie, which means they’re about as exciting as if they happened offscreen or were cancelled due to forfeit.
Not that the fight against Bison is any more compelling. Dastmalchian, always with a hangdog expression, is sorely miscast as a dictator with a nation’s army at his fingertips. Yes, he can crush the odd underling’s head with his stolen power, but his displays of might just come off as temper tantrums rather than enforcements of his will.
At no point does he look like he could defeat a competent fighter or foil any reasonably-well-planned coup. I just can’t imagine too many people wanting to follow him into battle. The properly-villainous Raul Julia as Bison from the otherwise-disastrous 1994 “Street Fighter” wouldn’t allow this guy to serve him snails.
Speaking of the 1994 version, the few clips I watched of that movie for research were all I knew about the “Street Fighter” franchise going into this movie. I never played the games and completely missed out on the 2009 spinoff “The Legend of Chun-Li.” So no, I’m not well-versed in “Street Fighter” characters and lore. I wonder if it’s better to be a fan of the franchise and be let down by this movie or to just be unhappy with it as a non-fan.
Everything about “Street Fighter” is terrible, from the pathetic acting (though Ryu and Ken get a few good moments as near-brothers that save this movie from a worse rating) to the choppy editing to the bad-taste jokes to the phony action to the unsatisfying conclusion to the poor lighting. That’s right, it’s not even lit well. And no, the argument of “It’s just supposed to be fun, it’s not supposed to win Oscars” isn’t going to work on me.
A movie can be fun, even “bad” fun, and still have its act together, which this movie doesn’t. Any camp appeal that this movie is supposed to have is lost on me. And if it isn’t going for camp appeal, what does that say about the supposed professionals that worked on this film?
“Street Fighter” is rated PG-13 for violence/action, bloody images, strong language, sexual references, partial nudity, and brief smoking. Its running time is 119 minutes.
Robert R. Garver is a graduate of the Cinema Studies program at New York University. His weekly movie reviews have been published since 2006.
Last Update: Oct 19, 2026 10:17 am CDT
