The new Street Fighter movie is being savaged by critics, but not everyone is hating on it

From "an incoherent mess" to "the natural peak of an arcade player's imagination"

A cast full of celebrities. A director best known for his work on The Eric Andre Show. One of the most iconic and beloved gaming franchises. What could go wrong? Apparently, the Street Fighter movie has received a lot of attention from many critics. It's not as bad as 2024's Borderlands adaptation, but it's still far from great.

Starring Noah Centino as Ken Masters, Andrew Koji as Ryu, and Kalina Liang as Chun Li, Hollywood's latest attempt to cash in on Capcom's long-running action game series markets itself as a pretty silly affair from the start. Cody Rhodes looks ridiculous as Guile. 50 Cent is playing with the Balrog. They even let Eric Andre play ring announcer Don Sauvage on screen. But based on early reviews, unlike Mortal Kombat 2, which committed to its silly premise with unrelenting B-action movie convictions, Street Fighter feels like a dizzying mess of brief character arcs and humor.

The live-action adaptation officially opens in theaters starting October 16th, with a 41% on Rotten Tomatoes. It's even less than Minecraft, which was completely unwatchable. Some critics have accused director Kitao Sakurai's take on Street Fighter of being "an incoherent, irredeemable mess" and "dumb than a box of rocks". Calling the 1990s nostalgia fest itself anachronistic, TheWrap is suffering from "cultural collapse." The best Variety had to say about it was that the dialogue was often inaudible due to a "thunderous sound mix".

Not everyone panicked. IndieWire praised Street Fighter for not being boring in the least, while The New York Times praised it as something a kid who lost all his pocket money playing Street Fighter might hallucinate in his dreams. What else are early reviews saying:

[The movie] is full of complicated plots and confusing engineering jokes. But a movie's biggest sin is boring its audience, and this "Street Fighter" should be proud that it never comes close to doing that. Fans of the Street Fighter games don't spend much time thinking about overarching stories. The games are a glamorous ship to show off as you play with martial artists, each with their own unique aesthetic. And in the end, this movie delivers just that. It's a blank emotional canvas whose value is in what you make of it - but it sure looks cool. - Christian Zilko

Above all, the film is devoted to punchy firefight sequences, most of which are designed to showcase the diverse personalities of its many combatants. This can end up coming off as a weakness, as the film tries to jump between one race too much and tire viewers while confusing them with the film's priorities. But in another sense, it simply feels like the natural culmination of an arcade player's imagination, the "and then, and then" output of running fighter fantasies. By the end, you can practically see the 90s kid punching and kicking the air as he exits the theater. - Brandon Yu

David Dasmalchian's eyes roll back as he presses his thumb into the sockets of a snoring scientist. With the skull cracking and blood splattering on Dasmalchian's forehead, he expresses what can best be described as an orgasmic face. This takes place within the first 10 minutes of Street Fighter, in which Dasmalchian plays the main antagonist of the fighting game franchise, M. Bison. It's a great performance - a master class in the B-movie camp. Unfortunately, no one else in Street Fighter performs as well as the douchebags. Worse, even writer-director Kitao Sakurai doesn't seem to know what kind of movie he's making, resulting in one of the sloppiest, scariest, and most incoherent films of the year. - Jake Kleinman

Whenever Ken or Ryu start emoting or waxing philosophical like Steven Seagal or Van Damme in those movies that inspired Street Fighter, Chun-Li Liang says in the most basic words how silly they sound. There are several knowing nods to fans like this, shielding them from criticism given how silly it all is, which would be better if the film rose above what it's making fun of. Instead, Street Fighter is content to slap itself and whatever it is about the 90s horror, while happily stuck there in the past, so it could pretend it's as good as it gets for video game adaptations. - Radhian Simon Pillai

Street Fighter is dumber than a box of rocks, but have you ever thrown rocks at things? With the right mix of enthusiastic friends and an anarchic spirit, it can be a lot of fun. Kitao Sakurai isn't always successful with his eager cast and anarchic approach to the film's mix of action and comedy, with too many characters to deliver a story, but Street Fighter does its best to pack as many punches as it can before the round timer hits zero. Even with the large number of losses, those who manage to land are hit hard. - Tom Jorgensen

As the film increasingly splits between the races and M. Beason's reopening plot, something in the back half goes horribly wrong, hinting at a troubled production or that it was doomed from the start. Dialogue, whether expository exchanges or witty one-liners, is scattered and increasingly delivered with speakers behind their heads or mouths somewhat obscured. It would be interesting to know how much of the footage was rewritten in post. - Siddant Adlakha

Some fans may break out their torches and forks, but I embrace this Frankenstein's monster. It is so oblivious to narrative and stylistic coherence that it is almost spiritual. Watching Street Fighter outside of time itself is my theory, and I'm sticking to it, because otherwise there's no explanation for why the film opens in 1987 with Rio listening to 4 Non Blondes' "What's Up" on his Walkman, a song that wouldn't be released for another six years. When the action jumps to 1993, Manager Ken proudly announces that Taco Bell is going to name Gordita after him, even though Taco Bell won't add Gordita to its menu until half a decade later. - William Bibiani

"Street Fighter" is a very spectacular movie and it's not too hard to convince yourself when you watch it. However, it tastes so bitter and the center so hollow that it's hard to recommend, and certainly not as an introduction to this world. There may have been enough in the film's absorption mode to make me press start, but in the end I didn't want to continue." - Bill Bria

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