Details from IMDB:
Street Fighter
Street Fighters Ryu and Ken reunite when Chun-Li recruits them for the World Warrior Tournament. As they face a hidden conspiracy, they must confront each other and their past-or face destruction.
Initial Thoughts:
I’m old enough to have seen the first movie back in ’94 (don’t bother watching it!), and I used to play a fair bit of the video game, even in the arcade in ’93-’94, so I had some interest in seeing this new version and (despite negative reviews) decided to see it today as I wasn’t in the mood for anything else in theatres here.
Main Points:
While the movie has a plot, it’s threadbare and doesn’t make much sense, so we’ll just ignore it. They did something which surprised me: all of the flashback scenes are animated, which was a nice touch. There are a lot of references/in-jokes/easter eggs to the video games, and while I appreciated them, it did make the movie more ridiculous and far-fetched. The fight scenes are fun, but there is way too much talking and too much time where almost nothing happens. This movie could have had a lot of time cut from it; I’d say at least 45 minutes. I don’t know why anyone thought people wanted a 2-hour Street Fighter movie, but this is what we got. There were a few parts that made me laugh, and some of the fight scenes were exciting and fun, but ultimately I was really bored after about an hour and 15 minutes, and that’s always a bad sign.
Final Thoughts:
The theatre I saw it in had barely anyone in it (it was a matinee but also opening weekend), and those people who were there had kids, which I felt were a little young for this movie. There is some blood, a ton of violence, some coarse language and even a shower scene, though the steam covers most of her. I did appreciate that I think all of the music is from 1993, and I would say if you’re watching the movie, you might as well stay for the post-credit scene, which is animated. Oh, I should add: M. Bison continues to be the worst-acted and worst-written character again; he literally drains fighters’ power/chi (who the hell knows!) to build up his “psycho energy.” I was hoping my friend was free today so I could have been high, but alas, I was sober. As a fan of the video game, I give this a 6 out of 10; that’s being generous. I saw this in IMAX, but it didn’t look that good, and I’m not sure what the benefit was. I would give this only a mild recommendation, and I would say to wait for the digital release. If you are going to watch this, do yourself a favour and be plenty high. Please don’t bring young kids to this; ages 13+.