Street Fighter

★☆☆☆☆

120 min | PG-13 | October 16, 2026 | Paramount Pictures

Somehow more disappointing than the adaptations that came before it. A mountain of fan service can’t hide a movie with nothing underneath.

Street Fighter has been to the movies before, and it has never gone well. The 1994 version with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Raul Julia is camp at best. The Legend of Chun-Li in 2009 was worse. This new attempt from Paramount had every reason to finally get it right. Video game adaptations are no longer a punchline, and Mortal Kombat has shown that a fighting game can work on screen. Kitao Sakurai’s film squanders all of it. It manages to be more disappointing than the films it was supposed to fix.

The cast is not the main problem, but it can’t save the material. Andrew Koji has the physical presence for Ryu and almost nothing to play beyond stoic resolve. Noah Centineo is miscast as Ken and plays every scene as if he’s in a different, lighter movie. Callina Liang gets the iconic look of Chun-Li right and very little else. David Dastmalchian is usually a gift to any film, but his M. Bison is all costume and no menace. Raul Julia found more to work with in a film that knew it was ridiculous.

The craft lets the genre down where it counts. A Street Fighter movie lives or dies on its fights, and these feel staged for a trailer rather than built to tell a story. The editing chops them into pieces, and the special moves land as visual effects instead of hits. The script lurches from one tournament beat to the next with no real stakes. The fan service is heavy. There are costumes, catchphrases, signature moves and character nods everywhere. None of it means anything without a story to hang it on.

This is a movie built for recognition rather than enjoyment. Fans will spot every reference and still walk out feeling cheated. Everyone else will wonder why it exists. Mortal Kombat proved that this genre can be fun. Street Fighter sets it back.