‘Street Fighter’ (2026) movie review: Poor plot, choppy edits dampen punches in otherwise perfect action flick

The latest Street Fighter goes back to the basics, to the campy world of the original 1994 Street Fighter movie helmed by Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile. It is campy, sometimes borderline raunchy, and intentionally goofy. A far removed notion from the precedent set by the overtly polished MCU or the feel-good DCU. This is a video game adaptation of a button-mashing arcade title, and it aims to be exactly that.

Director Kitao Sakurai puts his hands into a barrel of ’90s nostalgia and pulls out a movie he wants to watch—complete with anime flashbacks, CD music, and overtly eccentric finishing moves that fighters have to yell for it to be somehow effective. It is, what I say, blunt button-mashing made into a movie. The question is: does it work?

For me, it does, in parts. The fights, the hand-to-hand close-shot action, the set pieces, the cinematography, the pace, they are all ace and so on-brand, if you have ever played the best Street Fighter game of all time—the 1999 title Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike.

Andrew Koji excellently portrays a brooding Ryu reeling from the repercussions of winning the 1987 World Warrior Tournament, while Noah Centineo plays Ken Masters, his estranged “brother” and fellow martial arts classmate. Much of the setting is done through quick anime flashbacks, and they weirdly work—almost making you wish all of it was anime.

But then we get to 1993, and the power cast delivers, and how! Callina Liang lives up to the mantle of Ming Na-Wen’s Chun-Li, and even gives some of the best action in the film. Vidyut Jammwal gets some meaty screen time as the classic Indian fighter Dhalsim—maybe Jammwal will finally get the recognition he deserves, not from home but from the other corner of the world.

CGI Blanka almost misses the mark, but Jason Momoa makes up for it with sheer charisma, and Cody Rhodes and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson just play themselves as Guile and Balrog, respectively—which is also what we want, innit?

As a gamer myself who began with arcade button-mashers, I have to ask: Why make a movie for the general audience when your inherent concept is niche? The general audience is barely on board, and on occasions they do, their “algorithm” corrupts the art itself—case in point, the latter MCU movies. Did the Marvel Cinematic Universe pander to the masses? Yes. Did it make money? Yes. Did the recent outings make me gag as a comic book reader? You bet.

I will take Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Man of Steel over any other superhero movie. Watching Street Fighter made me think about why great IPs became what they are. Because of their niche audience. And why most of them lose sight of this audience, and therefore, their soul along the way.

In that lens, Capcom learned from NetherRealm’s mistake, and why Mortal Kombat 2 failed to hit the spot.—it tried to pander to the general audience, and it missed the mark with both sets of audiences. Many of these properties pick the majority over the core audience that accepted what they are, made what they are. And slowly, as they are integrated into the mainstream with cheesy taglines like “geeks taking over” validating it, the 2026 Street Fighter film is a reminder that some things are best enjoyed when not diluting their core, wild concept. That way, I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Now, the bad. Sadly, most of it has to do with villains too. David Dastmalchian can pull off almost anything, but basic references and some weak writing dim his version of M. Bison, who looks more like an under-menacing loser playing catch-up rather than the fascist dictator looking to enhance his powers using “Psycho Energy” from Ryu. Roman Reigns is barely given enough to chew through as Akuma, and the shoddy editing and jump cuts are too jarring to ignore. What they needed was more depth, more screen, better dialogue. And most of it could be fixed by some extra runtime.

Editing a movie to fit the bladder capacity of Americans because they haven’t heard of mid-cinema intervals seems to be the Achilles’ heel of the latest Street Fighter movie. Somewhere between the strong start and the great third act, director Sakurai also seems to lose his focus as the story wanders off. All of this adds to the already shoddy opening the film is getting in India thanks to the marketing team’s brilliant plan of releasing it on a Rajni-film release weekend. It is almost as if the movie is set up to fail. So, it rests on the OG game lovers to actually show up to the movie screens to decide for themselves.

As a gamer, you would love this film. It is not smooth, it is not suave, it is just a punch to the face. And that is the beauty of it. It edges out the rival Mortal Kombat 2 just enough. But if, for a movie to work for you, it has to be deep and meaningful with healthy plotlines and character development, this one is NOT for you. This is a lazy Sunday night popcorn-muncher flick and not a film class.

This film has its bad moments, and they are not ones you can ignore. The plot is abandoned at times, and it devolves into famous actors cosplaying famous video game characters at one point.

Yet it expertly shoryukens its way into a satisfying and feel-good close, all with ’90s nostalgia music as BGM. For that, full marks. So, if you are looking for a wacky martial-arts extravaganza set to campy tones and millennial billboard tracks where each scene is Forward, Down-Forward, Down, Down-Back, Back + Punch, then go for it!

Film: Street Fighter

Director: Kitao Sakurai

Cast: Andrew Koji, Noah Centineo, Callina Liang, David Dastmalchian, Vidyut Jammwal

Rating: 3 out of 5 | ★★★☆☆