A celebrity-filled cast. A director best known for his work on the Eric Andre show. One of the most iconic and beloved franchises in gaming. What could go wrong? Apparently quite a lot. The Street Fighter movie is getting panned by many critics. Not quite as bad as 2024’s Borderlands adaptation, but still very far from great.
Starring Noah Centineo as Ken Masters, Andrew Koji as Ryu, and Callina Liang as Chun-Li, Hollywood’s latest attempt to cash in on Capcom’s longrunning fighting game series marketed itself from the jump as a very silly affair. Cody Rhodes looks absurd as Guile. 50 Cent is playing Balrog. They even let Eric André on screen as ring announcer Don Sauvage. But based on early reviews, unlike Mortal Kombat 2, which committed to its dumb premise with unflinching B-action movie conviction, Street Fighter sounds like a dizzying mess of abbreviated character arcs and humor that doesn’t land.
Officially in theaters starting October 16, the live-action adaptation has opened to a 41 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s even lower than A Minecraft Movie, which was completely unwatchable. Some reviews have accused director Kitao Sakurai’s take on Street Fighter of being an “incoherent, irredeemable mess” and “dumber than a box of rocks.” TheWrap slammed its 1990s nostalgia-fest as anachronistic and suffering from “cultural collapse.” The nicest thing Variety had to say about it was that the dialogue was often inaudible due to the “thundering sound mix.”
Not everyone was appalled. IndieWire applauded Street Fighter for at least not being boring, while The New York Times praised it as the sort of thing a kid who lost all their pocket change to Street Fighter in the arcade might begin to hallucinate in their dreams. Here’s what else the early reviews are saying:
IndieWire
[The film] overflows with convoluted plotting and confusingly engineered jokes. But a film’s greatest sin is boring its audience, and this “Street Fighter” should take pride in never coming close to doing that. Fans of the “Street Fighter” games don’t spend much time thinking about the overarching lore. The games are a flashy vessel to project yourself onto while you play with martial artists, each with their own unique aesthetics. And at the end of the day, this movie delivers the same thing. It’s a blank emotional canvas whose value lies in what you make of it — but it sure looks cool as hell. – Christian Zilko
The New York Times
Most importantly, the film is dedicated to the punchy pyrotechnics of its fight sequences, most of which are constructed to feature the diverse personalities of its many fighters. This can eventually seem like a weakness, as the film tries to flit between one too many showdowns, tiring viewers out while confusing them on the movie’s priorities. But in another sense, it simply feels like the natural zenith of an arcade player’s imagination, the “and then, and then” output of fighter fantasies running wild. By the end, you can practically see the ’90s kid smashing and kicking at the air on his way out of the theater. – Brandon Yu
Polygon
David Dastmalchian’s eyes roll back as he presses his thumbs into a sniveling scientist’s eye sockets. As the skull cracks and blood splatters across Dastmalchian’s forehead, he makes an expression that can be best described as orgasm face. This happens within the first 10 minutes of Street Fighter, in which Dastmalchian plays the fighting game franchise’s chief antagonist, M. Bison. It’s a perfect performance — a masterclass in B-movie camp. Unfortunately, nobody else in Street Fighter is anywhere close to operating on Dastmalchian’s level. To make matters worse, not even writer-director Kitao Sakurai seems to know what kind of movie he’s making, leading to one of the sloppiest, cringiest, and most incoherent films of the year. – Jake Kleinman
The Guardian
Whenever Ken or Ryu start emoting or waxing philosophical like Steven Seagal or Van Damme in those movies that inspire Street Fighter, Liang’s Chun-Li calls out in the most basic terms how stupid they sound. There’s several knowing winks at the fans like this, guarding against criticism by owning up to how silly this all is, which would land better if the movie ever rose above the stuff it’s making fun of. Instead, Street Fighter is satisfied punching down on itself, and everything that’s cringe about the 90s, while happily being stuck there, in the past, so it could pretend that this is as good as it gets for video game adaptations. – Radheyan Simonpillai
IGN
Street Fighter is dumber than a box of rocks, but have you ever thrown rocks at things? It can be pretty fun with the right combination of enthusiastic friends and anarchic spirit. Kitao Sakurai doesn’t always succeed in marshalling his enthusiastic cast and anarchic approach to the film’s blend of action and comedy, with too many characters there to service too thin a story, but Street Fighter’s all about landing as many punches as it can before the round timer hits zero. Even though there are plenty of misses, the ones it does manage to land hit hard. – Tom Jorgensen
Variety
As the film becomes increasingly split between the tournament and M. Bison’s unraveling conspiracy, something goes terribly awry in its back half, hinting at either a troubled production, or one that was doomed from the start. The dialogue, whether expository exchanges or quippy one-liners, grows splintered, and is increasingly presented with the backs of speakers’ heads or their mouths partially obscured; it would be interesting to learn how much of the film was rewritten in post. – Siddhant Adlakha
TheWrap
Some fans may break out their torches and pitchforks, but I for one embrace this Frankenstein monster. It’s so oblivious to narrative and stylistic cohesion that it’s almost spiritual. Watching “Street Fighter” is to exist outside time itself. That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it, because otherwise there’s no explanation for why this film begins in 1987 with Ryu listening to “What’s Up” by 4 Non Blondes on his walkman, a song which wouldn’t come out for another six years. When the action leaps ahead to 1993, Ken’s manager proudly declares that Taco Bell is going to name a Gordita after him, even though Taco Bell wouldn’t add the Gordita to their menu until a half decade later. – William Bibbiani
Slashfilm
“Street Fighter” is a highly watchable movie, and it’s not too hard to convince yourself you’re having fun while seeing it. Yet its aftertaste is so bitter and its center so hollow that it’s hard to recommend, and certainly not as an introduction to this world. There may be enough in the film’s attract mode to get me to press start, but I ended up not wanting to continue.” – Bill Bria
