Photo Courtesy of Paramount

“Street Fighter” is an enjoyable viewing experience that gives audiences what they came for: cool fights, funny scenes and memorable characters. Unfortunately, the emotional moments, dialogue and overall plot fall flat.  

Director Kitao Sakurai, whose other projects aren’t very popular, delivers a visually appealing film with vibrant colors that make it stand out from many modern movies with a neutral color palette. One very innovative method he uses in this movie that I personally haven’t seen before is the use of anime-style animated flashback sequences as a way to de-age the characters without using CGI, while also showcasing the vibrant and unique fighting styles of each character. Even if you’ve never played any of the Street Fighter games in the past, you can tell how much Sakurai cares for the world and characters of Street Fighter, faithfully adapting them for the big screen. Whether it’s Callina Liang’s Chun Li, David Dastmalchian’s Bison, or Cody Rhodes’ Guile, you can tell that each character’s essence was really brought to life by Sakurai’s directing and the actors’ performances.   

The duo of main characters, Andrew Koji’s Ryu and Noah Centineo’s Ken, have a very strong brotherly bond that is one of the strongest points of the movie. You can really feel their connection as two fighters who, although they have their disagreements, really do feel like best friends, which is a really entertaining duo to watch whenever they are on screen. One element I did not enjoy was the inclusion of Andrew Schulz’s and Eric Andre’s characters, who really bring nothing to the movie besides annoying and constant joking around that doesn’t work with the other characters’ comedic scenes. Maybe it’s just my disdain for these two comedians, but they both just do not fit into the movie for me.   

When a movie is based on an almost 40-year-old game series, you can’t expect it to be the greatest movie of the year. I would still recommend it to anyone who prefers to watch a movie that’s action-packed and fun to watch.