Street Fighter Review: A Packed Roster and a Wasted Opportunity
Image Courtesy of Paramount.
The Street Fighter name has been around for decades, building an impressive fan base along the way. This is its third live-action theatrical adaptation, and you know what they say: third time’s the charm!
Directed by Kitao Sakurai, this latest take follows Ryu, played by Andrew Koji, and Ken Masters, played by Noah Centineo, as they reunite for the World Warrior Tournament. I’ll keep this review fairly short because there isn’t much to chew on here. The story is cookie-cutter and kinda dumb, to be honest, and there’s so much going on that watching it at the theatre last night felt overwhelming at times. It does have some redeeming qualities, though, so let’s get into it.
For anyone unfamiliar with the franchise, Street Fighter began as a Capcom arcade fighting game in 1987, introducing Ryu and Ken through a martial arts competition against fighters from around the world. That’s the basic setup you need going into this film.
The film builds on that concept, but its two leads arrive with very different problems. Ryu is a despondent fighter struggling to control the darkness within him, while Ken is a fading celebrity trying to cling to his relevance. Neither is a bad starting point for a character, but I don’t think the film gives either of them enough attention to make those struggles convincing.
The same goes for the rest of the cast, who feel scattered throughout the movie without enough screen time to make much of an impression. Characters like Vega, Balrog, Cammy and Blanka are reduced to a few lines or generic henchman roles, so their appearances never really landed for me. I can’t even say the film needed more time to develop them because it already felt long as hell.
What makes this even more frustrating is that a movie called Street Fighter has the audacity to let tournament fights happen off-screen or end in forfeits. Ryu spends a huge chunk of the film barely fighting at all, which is a strange choice for one of the franchise’s central characters. The tournament should give these fighters a chance to show what makes them worth watching, but the film keeps passing up those opportunities.
A tighter, more focused story would have done wonders here. It feels like the team wanted to cram in as many familiar faces and ideas as possible, but everything gets lost in the sauce. Recognising a character is fun, but that only goes so far when they barely have anything to do, especially when that includes fighting. With so many introductions competing for attention, even Ryu and Ken’s story struggles to get the room it needs. There’s also a clear intention to set up a sequel, but I wish more had gone into making this first film feel satisfying on its own.
I don’t want to focus only on the negatives, though. The movie is shot pretty well, with frenetic camerawork that adds energy to most of the fight scenes. The colours look great, especially in the neon-soaked streets, and the special effects are serviceable. There are also a few animated sequences that I really enjoyed, although they ended up working against the live-action scenes by making me wish the whole film had been animated.
Street Fighter had the potential to keep the momentum going for video game adaptations, especially after the success of Resident Evil last month. Unfortunately, it gets so caught up in cramming everyone in and setting up what comes next that it never makes the most of what’s already here. There’s fun to be had in the visuals and some of the action, but the thin character development and baffling tournament choices make this a frustrating watch. A sequel might improve things, but this film needed to give me a reason to want one.
