Review of «Street Fighter»: Noah Centineo stars in an adaptation of the video game that strains under fan service and (very few) new moves.

Colorful gladiators return in the latest iteration of the long-running video game franchise, directed by Keitaro Sakurai and starring Andrew Koji and Calina Lee.

The current trend of mining video game nostalgia continues with this latest film adaptation of the beloved franchise that dates back to 1987. The sequel to the 1994 hit starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and the best-forgotten Street Fighter: The Legend of Saaai's, 2009's The Legend of Sakurtaoun. A love letter to older Street Fighter gamers, it tries to straddle the needle between fan service and welcoming the uninitiated, with so many characters and elements from the games that non-enthusiasts are trying so hard to preserve. The result is that neither camp is likely to be fully satisfied.

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There's no doubting the enthusiasm of Sakurai and co-screenwriter T.J. Fixman, who approaches the oddball with a passion that shows he spends countless hours playing. But their enthusiasm backfires ironically, creating a jumbled melodic mess that's deadly serious one moment and parodic the next. Even the film's distinctive feature of using 2D anime sequences for its flashbacks is problematic, as they are so effective and vibrant that they outshine the live action.

Cast: Noah Centineo, Andrew Koji, Kalina Liang, Joe "Roman Reigns" Anoi, David Desmalchian, Cody Rhodes, Andrew Scholes, Eric Andre, Vidyot Jamwal, Orville Peck, Olivier Richters, Hiroki Goto, Raina Vallandingham, Alexander Volkanovsky, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Jason Momoa

Screenwriter: Kitao Sakurai, T.J. fixman

For me, a non-gamer reviewer for whom the previous films are a distant memory, this Street Fighter was only sporadically entertaining. Even the fight sequences that naturally dominate the proceedings, as colorful as they are staged, feel pretty lackluster when action franchises that aren't based on games, like John Wick, ramp up the violent beatdown beforehand.

Beginning with a 1987 animated prequel and a spoof tabloid TV show episode that brings viewers up to speed, the main story takes place six years later, when fellow brothers Ken Masters (Noah Centineo, Black Adam) and Rio (Andrew Koji, Cinemax Warrior) fall on hard times after their massacre (Goya Warrior). Drunk Ken spends his time doing things like babbling a karaoke version of a non-blonde 4 song while a disheveled Rio makes ramen that even a stray cat can't eat.

The pair are reunited by Chun-Li (Kalina Liang, sure to set many teenagers' pulses racing), an underling of the evil M. Bison (genre stalwart David Dasmalchian), who recruits them for the upcoming World Warrior Tournament. Because Lee and his boss both have ulterior motives, Bison seeks to exploit the power of the fighters for his own nefarious purpose, and because Lee is secretly an Interpol agent, seeking to kill Bison for the murder of his father.

That's pretty much all the plot you'll get from me, and frankly from the rest of the movie, as it pretty much settles for giving big versions of fan-favorite characters, most of whom get short shrift. Describing them here would be pointless because fans already know who they are and others don't care. Suffice it to say, they're a very colorful bunch, played by a group of varying effectiveness that includes unusual casting choices like Orville Peck as singer and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson as the fighter and former SNL host Kyle Mooney as the lovable Interpol superintendent Chun-Li. CGI-altered Jason Momoa, who also produced, appears as the green, Hulk-like Blanca. Director Sakurai's previous credits include The Eric Andre Show and Bad Trip, which features frequent collaborator Andre as a beguiling ring announcer.

Filled with needle-drops of vintage pop music — Ken enters the ring, "Who Lets the Dogs Out" — the film lives up to its oft-repeated motto "to live, fight, fight, live" with endless attributes of fight scenes, including a steam room battle between a scantily clad opponent and an Oriental opponent who would have been better off if Ryu had done it in unexpected clothes than if Ryu had been clothed. Promises But that Cronenberg film doesn't feature special effects, fighters in outlandish costumes, teams working overtime here to make the actors look like their video game characters.

Centineo proves entertaining as Ken, while Koji delivers some much-needed plot twists as the emotionally tortured but still kicking Ryo. Liang shows remarkable charm as the formidable Chun-Li. Inheriting the villainous role played by Raul Julia in 1994, Dastmalchian goes for a more campy horror approach.

Although the recent Masters of the Universe game crashed and burned in its last incarnation on the big screen (making up for it somewhat on streaming), Street Fighter shows its confidence with an open ending unless a sequel is guaranteed.