STREET FIGHTER REVIEW: LANDS A FEW GOOD HITS, BUT FAR TOO MANY MISSES

I've been playing Street Fighter since the original arcade machine appeared at a little pizza place in my hometown. I started out absolutely terrible at it, but that didn't stop me from feeding the machine quarters every chance I got. I'd never played anything quite like it. By the time Street Fighter II showed up, I'd become a much better player, Ken was one of my regular fighters, and Akuma would eventually join him as one of my favorites.

That history is part of why I was looking forward to this movie. When the first trailer dropped, I thought they might have finally figured out how to bring these characters to the screen. The costumes looked right, the characters were recognizable, and it seemed to know just how absurd the whole thing should be. That's exactly what I wanted. These games have never been particularly subtle, and there's no reason the movies should pretend otherwise.

Now that I've seen Kitao Sakurai's Street Fighter, I still think they got some of that right. Unfortunately, they also managed to make a movie about a fighting tournament where the actual fighting in the tournament seems like something they remembered they needed to include somewhere along the way.

Andrew Koji and Noah Centineo are good as Ryu and Ken, and the relationship between the two is one of the stronger parts of the movie. Their friendship and shared history come through naturally, making them two of the more interesting characters to follow. Ken's personality is a little much at times, and there were moments when I wanted him to dial it back, but I can accept it for this particular version of the character. The two work well together, and I would have liked to see more of that relationship developed.

I also really enjoyed the animated sequences scattered throughout the movie. They reminded me of Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie from 1994, which remains my favorite film adaptation of the games by a pretty substantial margin. There's a style and energy to those sequences that captures what I love about that movie.

Callina Liang was good as Chun-Li. She looked and felt the part to me, and I thought she fit nicely alongside Ken and Ryu. Cody Rhodes, however, didn't work for me as Guile. Every time he opened his mouth, I felt like I was watching a wrestling promo. Guile needs a certain stoic quality that Rhodes never really captured. I understand wanting to give the characters personality, but Guile shouldn't sound like he's about to headline WrestleMania every time he speaks.

Speaking of wrestlers, Joe "Roman Reigns" Anoa'i was surprisingly good as Akuma. He brought the menace and ferociousness the character needed, and I would have liked to see a hell of a lot more of him. Unfortunately, outside of some animated scenes and a single fight, he's barely in the movie. Considering Akuma is one of my favorite characters from the games, that was particularly disappointing.

David Dastmalchian was also excellent as M. Bison. He's hardly an imposing figure just standing there, but when the movie needs him to become Bison, he brings it. There's something to be said for an actor who can make himself feel threatening without physically towering over everyone else, and Dastmalchian manages to pull it off.

One of the movie's biggest problems is the sheer number of characters it tries to squeeze into the story. The roster covers most of Street Fighter II, with a few characters from the original game and the Alpha series thrown in. That's a lot of familiar faces, and while it's fun to see them show up, most barely have anything to do. Someone appears, gets a brief scene or fight, and disappears. Then it's on to the next one. Fight and gone. Fight and gone. It's almost like they're checking names off a list rather than figuring out what to do with them.

And then there's the actual fighting.

For a movie about a fighting tournament, there's surprisingly little fighting during the tournament itself. Most of the action takes place outside of it, while the tournament fights are frequently skipped over, forfeited, or otherwise brushed aside. I don't understand that decision. You've got a franchise built around fighters from all over the world competing against each other, and somehow the competition itself winds up feeling like an afterthought. It doesn't help that so much of the action is filmed using that quick-cut crap that Hollywood still seems convinced we want to see.

After the glorious magic that has been the John Wick fight scenes, I think we as a society need to accept nothing less from action movies going forward. I want to watch the fighting. I want to see the choreography, the movement, and the actual impact of what's happening. Stop cutting every couple of seconds, and for the love of God, stop jumping to an entirely different scene while a fight is still going on, only to return after all the interesting stuff has already happened. Can we just let the fight play out?

The pacing is another issue. There are portions of the movie that drag, followed by others that seem to rush through material that could have used more attention. With this many characters fighting for screen time, there needed to be a better balance. Instead, some scenes overstay their welcome while others are over before they've had a chance to become interesting.

One area where the movie absolutely delivers is the soundtrack. It's a hell of a collection of music, even if whoever picked the songs apparently forgot what year the movie takes place.

Most of Street Fighter is set in 1993, but somehow we're hearing Meredith Brooks' "Bitch," which didn't come out until 1997, and White Zombie's "More Human Than Human," which arrived in 1995. Then there's 4 Non Blondes' "What's Up?" That song appeared on their 1992 album, but apparently Ryu managed to get himself an advance copy all the way back in 1987.

These aren't major problems, and they certainly didn't ruin the movie for me. But I've been engrossed in that music since those years, and things like that stick out like a sore thumb. If you're going to make a point of setting your movie in a particular period, it wouldn't hurt to make sure the music actually existed then.

My other major complaint is the ending, which spends far too much time worrying about the next movie instead of properly finishing this one. We really need to stop doing this garbage. How about concentrating on making the movie we're actually watching before worrying about the next fifteen? Maybe see whether this one is successful first. There's nothing wrong with throwing in a few Easter eggs or planting something that could be developed in another film. But those things should never come at the expense of giving the audience a satisfying conclusion to the story they've just spent two hours watching.

And that's ultimately where Street Fighter lands for me. It's an OK movie with some good performances, fun animated sequences, and a soundtrack I really enjoyed. There are plenty of things I liked, but the problems with the fighting, pacing, and ending are hard to ignore.

It's certainly a step above the 1994 live-action movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme, although that's not exactly the highest bar to clear. It doesn't come close to Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, which still understands these characters and their world better than either live-action attempt.

I had a decent enough time watching it, but I have a feeling this is one of those movies that's going to lose a lot of its appeal on repeat viewings. There's enough here to make me glad I saw it, but I can't imagine myself returning to it very often. For a franchise I've been playing since I was dropping quarters into that old arcade cabinet, I was hoping for something a little better.