With “Mortal Kombat” already rebooted for the big screen, I guess it’s no surprise that its long-time fighting game rival “Street Fighter” would try and do the same thing. Both wildly popular video game franchises already had movie adaptations in the mid 1990s. Now they’re both back at it with mixed results at best. “Mortal Kombat” started decent with its 2021 reboot but fell off dramatically with its 2026 sequel. “Street Fighter” gets off to a much shakier start.

Directed by Kitao Sakurai, “Street Fighter” is the epitome of a mixed bag. And unfortunately in its case, the negatives too often overpower the positives. It’s a movie brimming with 1990’s energy, nostalgic callbacks, and enjoyable fan service for those of us who have had a part in the “Street Fighter” craze. But it’s also a loud, hollow, and borderline maddening mess of a movie that forgets some of the most basic tenets of filmmaking and storytelling.

In fairness to “Street Fighter”, no one should go into it expecting a high-minded and/or thought-provoking experience. From the very beginning, Sakurai is very honest about the kind of film he’s making. It embraces the absurdity to a near comical level. It also knows what die-hard fans are anticipating. They expect to see a ton of characters, over-the-top fighting sequences, and a ton of Easter eggs aimed squarely at them. To its credit, the movies delivers those things with varying degrees of success.

What it doesn’t deliver is anything resembling an entertaining story. For starters, it is ridiculously overstuffed yet somehow astonishingly shallow. A big reason is the clunky, chaotic plotting that begins with a crazy cartoonish charm only to lose it amid waves of unfunny humor, conflicting tones, incredibly dumb dialogue, and several generic backstories that don’t do their well-established characters any favors. Even a handful of stylish anime vignettes can’t liven up the story or make us care.

The setup goes something like this. In 1987, martial artist Ryu (Andrew Koji) wins the first ever World Warrior Tournament. In the process, a demon warrior named Akuma (Roman Reigns) is awakened. Ryu taps into a mysterious dark energy that enables him to fend off Akuma. But not before the demon kills Ryu’s mentor and teacher, Gouken. Their master’s death drives a wedge between Ryu and his childhood friend and training partner, Ken (Noah Centineo).

Six years pass. Ryu has disappeared off the grid while Ken has become a fame-obsessed entertainer driven by merch sales, endorsement deals, and deep resentment of Ryu. Elsewhere, a despot named M. Bison (David Dastmalchian) announces the second World Warrior tournament. Chun-Li (Callina Liang) goes out on Bison’s behalf to recruit the best fighters from around the world. Among them is Ken, who sees winning the tournament as a way to escape from his former best friend’s shadow.

But in reality, Bison is using the tournament as bait to lure out Ryu. His plan is to capture Ryu and siphon his fighting power for himself. At first Ryu resists. But after hearing Ken has entered and fearing the return of a vengeful Akuma, he re-emerges and enters the tourney himself in hopes of saving Ken’s life. Little does he know, he’s playing right into the comically nefarious Bison’s hands. Meanwhile Chun-Li is revealed to be an undercover Interpol agent with her own personal (and obvious) stakes in the tournament.

The movie spends a lot of time building up the eight-fighter tournament, with popular characters from the video games gathering from around the globe to compete. Yet the competition itself is wildly underwhelming, with several eliminations happening off screen and a couple of lame forfeits. We get more screeching from Eric André’s obnoxious MC than actual combat in the ring. And the characters are showcased more in a bar fight than in the actual tourney.

Yes, the tourney an ultimately a decoy for Bison, and that would be fine if the rest of the story packed a punch. Instead it clumsily bounces around from one point to the next, wedging in characters and doing nothing with them. It becomes a checklist movie that may tickle the fancies of fans in the moment, but that offers nothing for them to invest in. And it’s not helped by the film’s sham of an ending that’s more interested in setting up a second movie than finishing this one.

But despite all of those criticisms, “Street Fighter” has a certain self-awareness that gives it some appeal. The film is firmly-rooted in the 1990s as evident by its style, the nostalgia, and a plethora of cool needle-drops. Then you have the characters. While some woefully fall flat due to the writing (sorry Cody Rhodes and Jason Momoa), they all impress with their looks, fighting styles, and special moves which instantly hearkens back to their 2D roots. And some are just fun to watch. Vidyut Jammwal’s Dhalsim is a blast. And business certainly picks up once Reigns’ Akuma inevitably comes back around.

So again, “Street Fighter” is very much a mixed bag. It’s hard to call it a good movie when so much of the storytelling is wasted on nonsense and it constantly gets sidetracked checking boxes. At the same time, it’s full of over-the-top energy and satisfying callbacks that will have hardcore fans pointing at their screens with big smiles on their faces. Some cool visuals and a pulse-pounding electronic score from Leo Birenberg and Zach Robinson is icing on the cake. In the end, “Street Fighter” could have been something pretty amazing. But it’s hard to overcome a script this bad, even when you get so much else right.

VERDICT – 2.5 STARS