Street Fighter Review – Nostalgia only goes so far in an unintended fighting game movie

There are brief, simple pleasures in the inevitable new classic on the big screen, but like the recent Mortal Kombat movies, it's a largely disjointed mess. We just had Resident Evil, the goofy, nasty, evil zombie twist on Capcom's popular zombie series. It gave us hope again (after Sonic the Hedgehog, The Last of Us and Fallout) that video game adaptations actually

We just had Resident Evil, Zack Kerger's confusing, ugly, evil, and fun take on Capcom's popular zombie franchise. It gave us hope again (after Sonic the Hedgehog, The Last of Us, and Fallout) that video game adaptations can actually be good.

But now here comes Street Fighter, a garish, incoherent mess that's fun to begin with but barely improves on the Mortal Kombat movies before it, crushing those hopes in its atomic complexity.

The fans certainly don't mind. They've kept the box office life bar green for these one-on-one fighter adaptations going all the way back to the disastrous 1994 Street Fighter starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and his $10,000-a-week coke problem. They'll happily put up with how the new Street Fighter, like those Mortal Kombat movies, can barely put together a coherent plot, clearly designed as an afterthought between bouts in another tournament-style narrative. None of that will matter, because they're just looking for dopamine for nostalgia.

To that end, the film fully fleshes out all the iconic characters and moves from the games – like sumo fighter Honda's hundred-handed slap or military brother Guile's flash strike – not to mention some stunning anime flashback sequences and a pop culture collection from the early '90s. UHF-quality MTV video segments reveal Ken (Noah Centineo) as the self-destructive new kid on the block-era celebrity party boy with flamboyant blonde curls, while Needle Drops brings up hits from the past like MC Hammer's 2 Legit 2 Quit and Montell Jordan's This Is How We Do It.

It's all about cuddling us with fond memories of our childhoods, including things that bring back the way we pre-teen boys looked at the 16-bit bisexual Chun-Li. She's played by the vivacious and commanding Kalina Liang, who enters the frame thigh first and unfortunately plays the only character tasked with the slo-mo shower scene.

Liang doesn't let these things detract from his performance, which is fantastic, while his physique is truly impressive in the fight scenes. He is one of the few people who brings gentle joys to the busy chaos. Donning a cartoonish blonde trapezoid wig as Goyle, WWE wrestler Cody Rhodes is downright hilarious, barking equal parts cheers and threats. Hindi film star Vidut Jamwal, trained in the ancient martial art of Kalaripayattu, brings captivating authenticity and hypnotic movements to his very brief scenes as the yoga priest, Dhalsim. Even Andrew Schulz, of the controversial comic and manosphere podcast, gives a convincing essay-worthy performance as manager Ken, who taps into his brother's power while playing off his wounded ego.

But the lovely gameplay gets buried in a movie that often feels like it was built on a six-button control pad. Street Fighter's barrage of character introductions and story arcs from the games and animated spin-offs collide in a way that makes a fairly linear plot (it's a freak fighting tournament!) confusing. Did Vega edit this with his Wolverine-like clawed hands?

The film's funnest fight comes early on, with Ken and Ryu (Andrew Koji) reuniting in a hotel room after years of fighting, reuniting for a world championship tournament organized for nefarious purposes by the film's villainous M Bison. Ken swings angrily at Rio. Flying kicks lose the result. Round houses eat nothing but air. Rio walks out quickly and quietly, gets blocked by a pillow and then hilariously slides the pillow under Ken's head to get away, or walks away from Ken while sitting on the couch. It's a standout scene that really feels like it belongs in another, smarter movie.

Elsewhere, during a match between Ken and boxer Balrog (played by rapper 50 Cent), Sakurai learns the right lessons from Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull, quickly cutting between flashy shots and slow-motion shots, a combination of blood and spit that hangs from Ken's mouth in mid-air, long enough to pass Ken's mouth.

And then there's Chun-Li Liang, whose legs provide spectacular action while his character tends to knock others down with quick, blunt, and occasionally hilarious verbal jabs. He's a down-to-earth guy who stands 10 toes down on purpose and principle. 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 very first 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 take a stab at itself and everything 90s horror, when it's thankfully stuck there in the past, so it can pretend this is as good as it gets for video game adaptations.