Street Fighter Review: 12 Things That Decide Paramount’s Messy, Likeable Reboot

Filmoria Review

Street Fighter (2026), Kitao Sakurai’s live-action reboot of Capcom’s fighting game, opened in UK cinemas and IMAX on 16 October 2026 through Paramount Pictures. Filmoria’s verdict is 2.5 out of 5: Andrew Koji and Noah Centineo make a terrific Ryu and Ken, and the hand-drawn flashbacks are gorgeous, but an overstuffed roster, a muddled script and a sequel-baiting ending knock it down. It’s the best live-action Street Fighter film yet, which is a lower bar than it sounds.

TL;DR: Loud, garish, frequently funny and never boring, Street Fighter is a big improvement on 1994 and 2009, but it’s a messy film that keeps tripping over its own cast list. Fans who grew up feeding coins into the arcade will get a kick out of it. Everyone else can wait for streaming.

This is a ranked list of the 12 things that decide whether Street Fighter (2026) is worth your cinema ticket, from the story and the performances to the craft, the comparisons and our final verdict.

We ordered the items the way you’d make up your mind: what the film is about, who’s in it, how it’s made, how it stacks up against the earlier Street Fighter films and its 2026 rivals, and finally who it’s for. Each item carries its own rating, and the overall score reflects our view alongside the critical consensus, which sat between 41% and 45% on Rotten Tomatoes and at 45 on Metacritic over opening weekend.

1. The Story and the 1993 Setup (2026, Paramount and Legendary)

What makes it stand out: It’s set in 1993, the peak arcade year, and builds its plot around the World Warrior Tournament the games made famous.

Key data: Estranged fighters Ryu and Ken are pulled back into the tournament by Chun-Li, and a conspiracy behind the event forces them to face each other and their pasts, across a 119-minute runtime.

Why it matters: A tournament is the one structure that makes a fighting game easy to adapt, and the film keeps walking away from it.

The setup is smart. Dropping the story into 1993 lets Sakurai lean into everything we remember about that period of Street Fighter: the bright gis, the national flags behind each fighter, the slightly ridiculous sincerity of it all. Ryu and Ken used to be brothers in arms and now barely speak. Chun-Li needs them both. It’s a simple, sturdy hook, and it’s exactly the right one for this material.

Then it starts collecting subplots. Several critics made the same complaint we did, that the film keeps stepping away from the tournament to make room for its enormous cast, and every detour drains a bit of momentum. The conspiracy at the centre is the kind of thing you’ve seen in a dozen martial arts films, and it isn’t helped by how often the film cuts away from it. There’s a clean, lean 95-minute movie in here somewhere. What we’ve got is a two-hour one that keeps losing its thread.

None of that makes it dull. IndieWire’s critic credited the film with at least not being boring, and that’s fair. It’s just hard to care about where the plot is heading when the film itself seems unsure.

2. Andrew Koji and Noah Centineo as Ryu and Ken (2026, Lead Performances)

What makes it stand out: The two leads have real chemistry, and their bickering, wounded friendship is the best-written thing in the script.

Key data: Andrew Koji (Warrior, Snake Eyes) plays Ryu and Noah Centineo (To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Black Adam) plays a bleached-blond Ken Masters.

Why it matters: If you don’t believe in Ryu and Ken, there’s no Street Fighter film at all, and this one gets them right.

Koji was the safest piece of casting here, and the reviews suggest he delivers. He’s a trained martial artist who has already led a fight-heavy series in Warrior, and Ryu’s quiet, almost monk-like seriousness is a natural fit for him. Critics who liked the film kept coming back to him.

Centineo is the surprise. The trailers and set photos made his Ken look like a joke, all bleached hair and swagger, yet he’s come out of the reviews as one of the film’s genuine strengths. ClutchPoints singled out their chemistry as the reason the film works at all, and Moviefone praised both actors too. We’d agree. When the film keeps its focus on the two of them, Street Fighter is genuinely good fun.

It’s a shame the film keeps separating them. Every time it cuts away to one of its other dozen threads, you’re waiting for it to come back to these two.

3. Callina Liang’s Chun-Li and David Dastmalchian’s M. Bison (2026, Hero and Villain)

What makes it stand out: The film’s other two key roles are both well cast, and Den of Geek picked them out as highlights.

Key data: Callina Liang, last seen in Steven Soderbergh’s Presence, plays Chun-Li; David Dastmalchian (Late Night with the Devil, Oppenheimer) plays the dictator M. Bison.

Why it matters: Chun-Li has been badly served on screen twice before, and Bison has to live in the shadow of Raul Julia’s famous 1994 performance.

Chun-Li is the one who sets the plot moving, recruiting Ryu and Ken, so the film needs her to carry real authority, and Den of Geek’s review says Liang does. That’s a big step up from the 2009 film, which put the character front and centre and still gave her nothing to work with. If there’s a sequel, she’s one of the cast members who most deserves more to do.

Dastmalchian is a smarter choice for Bison than you might think. He’s one of the best character actors working, with a gift for menace that’s a little off-centre, and nobody was ever going to out-ham Raul Julia’s operatic 1994 turn anyway. Den of Geek was warm about both performances, and they’re part of the reason the film never collapses entirely.

Our complaint is the same one that runs through this whole review: with this many fighters to service, there isn’t enough room for either of them.

4. The Overstuffed Supporting Roster (2026, Ensemble Cast)

What makes it stand out: Almost every famous World Warrior turns up, played by a mix of film stars, wrestlers and musicians.

Key data: Jason Momoa (Blanka), Cody Rhodes (Guile), Roman Reigns (Akuma), 50 Cent (Balrog), Orville Peck (Vega), Vidyut Jammwal (Dhalsim), Hirooki Goto (E. Honda), Mel Jarnson (Cammy), Andrew Schulz (Dan Hibiki) and Eric André (Don Sauvage).

Why it matters: This casting was the film’s biggest marketing hook, and it’s also its biggest structural problem.

On a poster, this cast is a dream. On screen, it’s a traffic jam. Too many characters for the runtime was the most common complaint among critics, and it’s the first thing you’ll notice. Most of the roster get an entrance, a pose and maybe one fight before the film hurries off to the next.

Some of them make the most of it. Opinions on Cody Rhodes split sharply: one critic grumbled that his Guile barely fights at all, while others found it a fun take on the character, and several roundups named him as a highlight. Casting Momoa as Blanka is the kind of left-field idea that fits the film’s cartoonish spirit. And with a cast this size, Vidyut Jammwal, one of the best screen fighters in Indian cinema, was always going to get less than he deserves.

If you’re going mainly for one favourite fighter, temper your hopes about their screen time. It’s a roster built for fan service and for selling a franchise, and you can feel the film straining under the weight of keeping all of them happy.

5. Kitao Sakurai’s Direction and Tone (2026, Director)

What makes it stand out: The director of The Eric Andre Show and Netflix’s prank comedy Bad Trip brings a gleefully odd, self-aware streak to a studio blockbuster.

Key data: Sakurai also co-wrote the screenplay with T. J. Fixman, from a story by Dalan Musson and Gary Dauberman, and Capcom co-produced alongside Legendary.

Why it matters: The tone is the film’s biggest gamble: deliberately camp and silly rather than grim, which divided critics more than anything else.

This is unmistakably a Kitao Sakurai film. There’s a strand of surreal comedy running through it, a willingness to be ridiculous, and a clear love for the bright, cartoonish world of the games. Time Out’s 3-star review argued that in an era of grim superhero films and self-serious game adaptations, this one lands its jokes, and Den of Geek called it stranger and more colourful than the trailers suggested. On that point we’re with them. It’s nice to see a big studio film that isn’t embarrassed by its source.

The trouble is control. The Guardian’s 2-star review called it a garish, incoherent mess that amuses in fits and starts, and noted that the self-aware gags about its own silliness would land better if the film ever rose above what it’s mocking. That’s the sharpest criticism anyone made, and it’s right. Sakurai keeps winking at the audience, but a wink only works if the rest of the film is holding steady. Here it often isn’t. TheWrap went further and called the whole 1990s nostalgia trip anachronistic. We wouldn’t go that far, but the tone does swing so wildly between sincere and silly that you’re never quite sure how to take a scene.

6. The Fights and Action Craft (2026, Action)

What makes it stand out: The fights have real energy and borrow freely from the games’ special moves, but too many are squeezed into quick sketches.

Key data: The film opened in IMAX as well as standard screens, and IGN rated it 6/10, praising the spectacle more than the story.

Why it matters: In a Street Fighter film, the fights are the whole point, so anything less than great hurts.

The action is where the film’s energy lives, and the critics who enjoyed it, from Time Out to But Why Tho?, talk about it as a campy, fun ride rather than a chore. Bringing the games’ special moves to the screen without embarrassment is harder than it looks, and on that score this film has the edge over both earlier live-action versions.

The problem is arithmetic. With more than a dozen fighters and 119 minutes, most bouts have to be quick sketches, and reviewers who disliked the film said it keeps leaving the tournament behind just as the fighting should be building. That’s a structural choice, and it means the film rarely gives a fight the room that the best modern martial arts films do.

There’s also the question of the wrestling stars. Wrestling and screen fighting are different crafts, and the debate over whether Rhodes’s Guile fights enough suggests the film didn’t fully decide how to use them. IMAX helps the scale, but it can’t fix the structure.

7. The Titmouse Animated Flashbacks (2026, Animation)

What makes it stand out: Hand-drawn, anime-style flashbacks fill in the characters’ backstories, and they’re the most consistently praised part of the film.

Key data: The sequences were animated by Titmouse, the studio behind The Legend of Vox Machina, in a style that nods to 1990s anime.

Why it matters: They show what this film could have been if it had trusted its sense of style all the way through.

Ask anyone who’s seen the film what they liked best, and there’s a good chance they’ll mention the flashbacks. CinemaBlend’s round-up was headlined with the point that critics agree on one thing, and this was it. The Titmouse sequences are hand-drawn in a 1990s anime style that recalls Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie from 1994, which a lot of fans still rate above every live-action version.

They also do a lot of heavy lifting. With so many characters to introduce, the film hands the backstories to the animation, and it’s an efficient way to do it. On the evidence of the reviews, we’d happily have swapped a live-action subplot or two for more of it.

It’s a clever device, and Sakurai deserves credit for fighting for it. It’s also a slightly damning one. When your animated interludes are the most praised part of a 119-minute live-action film, something has gone wrong in the balance.

8. The Script, the Sound Mix and the Sequel-Bait Ending (2026, Writing and Sound)

What makes it stand out: This is where the film really stumbles: a cluttered script, muffled dialogue and an ending that seems more interested in the next film.

Key data: Variety complained that dialogue was often hard to hear under a thundering sound mix, and several reviews said the film ends abruptly and spends too long setting up a sequel.

Why it matters: These are the problems that push a fun, flawed film down to a 2.5.

The film has four credited writers across story and screenplay, and the most common words in the reviews are messy, cluttered and overstuffed. ClutchPoints said the script sags in the middle, Moviefone found much of the comedy unfunny, and the Guardian called the whole thing incoherent. It’s not an unwatchable script by most accounts, but it’s a messy one, and it’s the root of most of the film’s problems.

Variety’s sound complaint might sound like nitpicking, but it matters. In a film already struggling to explain its plot, losing dialogue under the score and effects is a real problem, and it’s worth knowing before you pick a seat in a loud IMAX auditorium.

Then there’s the ending. Without spoiling anything, critics reported that the film doesn’t so much finish as stop, in a way that’s clearly about launching a franchise. Of all the complaints, that’s the one we find hardest to forgive. Sequel set-ups work when the film you’ve just watched feels complete. This one feels like the first half of something.

9. Compared With Street Fighter (1994) and The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)

What makes it stand out: This is the third live-action Street Fighter film, and it is comfortably the best of the three.

Key data: Steven E. de Souza’s 1994 film, with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Raul Julia, opened to $9.5 million in the US; Andrzej Bartkowiak’s 2009 film, with Kristin Kreuk, opened to $4.7 million; the 2026 version opened to $31 million.

Why it matters: Capcom has been trying to get a film right for more than 30 years, and this is the first one that looks like something to build on.

Let’s be honest about the competition. The 1994 Street Fighter is a cult object, loved for Raul Julia’s magnificent Bison and for how hilariously wrong it gets almost everything else, from Van Damme’s heavily accented Guile to Kylie Minogue’s Cammy. The Legend of Chun-Li is simply bad, a dour and forgettable action film that barely remembered which game it was based on.

Next to those two, the new film is a clear step forward. Den of Geek called it a love letter to the 1990s, and even negative reviews accept it actually looks and feels like Street Fighter, with recognisable characters and leads who take the material seriously. A Russian report on the reviews pointed out that its Rotten Tomatoes score is roughly double the 1994 film’s, and that sounds about right to us.

The best Street Fighter film, though, is still the 1994 animated one, Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie. The fact that the new film’s best scenes are the ones that copy its style says plenty.

10. Compared With Mortal Kombat II and Resident Evil (2026, Rival Game Adaptations)

What makes it stand out: It lands in the same year as two other big game adaptations, and it trails both of them.

Key data: Street Fighter opened to about $31 million in North America and $51 million worldwide on 16 to 18 October 2026, with a B- CinemaScore, against Mortal Kombat II’s $38.5 million domestic debut; Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil has passed $361 million worldwide.

Why it matters: 2026 is shaping up as a test of whether game films are a lasting genre or a passing trend, and Street Fighter is a mixed result.

Mortal Kombat II is the natural rival, and it won the box office round with a bigger opening and a better CinemaScore (B against B-). Street Fighter arguably has more charm and a stronger central pairing, but on the numbers, audiences responded to Mortal Kombat II more warmly.

Resident Evil is the more interesting comparison, because it’s also a Capcom adaptation. In our Resident Evil review, we praised Cregger for bringing a clear point of view rather than a checklist. Street Fighter has a point of view too, Sakurai’s comic one, but it’s buried under a checklist of fighters. That’s the difference between a hit and a film that, as our Street Fighter box office takeaways showed, won its weekend at the low end of what Paramount hoped for.

With a reported net cost of about $82 million, it now needs a long run overseas. Audiences have been kinder than critics, with the Rotten Tomatoes audience score reported above 80% early on, so word of mouth among fans may yet carry it.

11. Who It’s For (Watch It or Skip It)

What makes it stand out: This is a film made squarely for people who already love Street Fighter, and it shows in every frame.

Key data: Audience reactions were noticeably warmer than the critics’ 41% to 45% Rotten Tomatoes score, and the B- CinemaScore suggests opening-night crowds liked it more than they disliked it.

Why it matters: How much you’ll enjoy it depends almost entirely on what you bring in with you.

Watch it if you spent your childhood in arcades or on a SNES, you want to see Ryu and Ken done properly in live action, you love the 1994 animated movie, or you’re simply in the mood for a loud, silly, colourful night out. Seeing it in IMAX with a crowd that cheers at every special move is the best way to experience it. The New York Times critic put it neatly, describing it as the sort of thing a kid who lost all their pocket money to Street Fighter might hallucinate in their dreams. If that sounds like heaven, go.

Skip it if you need a coherent plot, you’ve never played the games and don’t know who Dhalsim is, or you’re hoping for the tightly choreographed martial arts of something like The Raid. You should also skip it if sequel set-ups that leave a story unfinished drive you mad, because this one will.

Parents should note the US PG-13 rating covers bloody images, strong language and partial nudity. The UK certificate hadn’t been confirmed in the sources we checked, so check your cinema’s listing before taking younger fans.

12. Final Verdict (2.5/5)

What makes it stand out: It’s the most likeable live-action Street Fighter film ever made, and still not a good one.

Key data: Filmoria rating 2.5/5, Rotten Tomatoes between 41% and 45% over opening weekend, Metacritic 45, IGN 6/10, Time Out 3/5, The Guardian 2/5.

Why it matters: It proves Street Fighter can work on screen, even if this version doesn’t quite pull it off.

Filmoria’s verdict: Street Fighter has the right leads, the right look and real affection for the games, but it crams in so many fighters and so much franchise-building that it forgets to tell a complete story.

Weighing it all up, we land somewhere between mildly charmed and mostly frustrated. Koji and Centineo deserve a better film. So do Liang and Dastmalchian. The animated flashbacks are glorious. And Sakurai’s off-kilter comic instincts give the whole thing a personality most studio blockbusters wouldn’t dare to have.

But personality only gets you so far. The script is a muddle, the sound mix buries too much of the dialogue, and the ending is a trailer for a sequel that may never come. We’re more generous than the Guardian and roughly in line with IGN and Time Out. It’s a fun Friday night if you’re a fan and a shrug if you’re not. If a sequel does happen, it needs fewer characters, longer fights and a story that actually ends.

The Bottom Line

Street Fighter (2026) is a messy, likeable, deeply uneven reboot that finally gets Ryu and Ken right and then buries them under an avalanche of cameos. It’s easily the best live-action Street Fighter film, but that’s faint praise, and it lands behind both Mortal Kombat II and Capcom’s own Resident Evil this year. Fans will have a good time in IMAX. Everyone else can wait for it to reach streaming. Our score: 2.5 out of 5.

Sources: Rotten Tomatoes, PC Gamer review round-up, Kotaku, Den of Geek, Deadline (box office), The Numbers.

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