A Lazy Bear I am a huge SF fan and read most of the backstory comics and watched this with a friend who doesn't know anything but the looks and names of a few characters. Neither of us liked it.As a fan its confusing, even baffling why they changed so many characters backstory (Charlie doesn't die, instead he becomes Blanka?!), looks and even ethnicity (Honda is Hawaiian), it gets to a point where it takes you ages to recognize certain characters, although they are some of the most iconic things in pop-culture. Why didn't they just take one of the countless stories from the universe and made it into a movie, there even is a fully fleshed out SF II story, which they claim the movie is based on. There are also VERY few SF moves, none of them have famous quotes from the games and bisons moves are artificially made with machines. I could go on for ages about this part, so lets just skip to the "not-fan-perspective"...Apart from the fact that this feels like a terrible secret agent plot there are much more severe things wrong. There are too many characters crammed into the movie, yet we don't get any motivation for the majority for them, it just feels like they are there, because they had to be in the movie, also we don't care about them. The action scenes weren't good, but not terrible either. Thats about the only positive thing I can say, because this movie isn't even the kind of terrible I can laugh at.

TheLittleSongbird While there are exceptions, video games have had and still do have a dubious track record when adapted to film.'Street Fighter' is one such example. It is a terrible adaptation of the video game series, and is not a good film at all on its own terms (was actually familiar with the film before being familiar with the games, so even with no knowledge of the video game series it still manages to be bad).It can be argued that other video game film adaptations do a worse job making it clear what it's trying to be and what the target audience it's trying to primarily aim to, because from the get go it is clear what 'Street Fighter's' target audience is and that it's not meant to be serious or profound. That doesn't stop it from having a lot of things done wrong and from being one of the cheaper-looking video game film adaptations.The best thing about it is absolutely Raul Julia. As a result of dying from stomach cancer (he would die a few months later, but of stroke complications), Julia does look gaunt and frail which makes one panic as to whether he would cope with the demands of playing the larger-than-life dictator. Any concerns are obliterated, because he is the one actor who seems to know what sort of film he's in and how to fit in well with the tone, he goes for it full-throttle (he may look gaunt and frail, but he certainly doesn't act it) and makes for one hugely entertaining and sometimes menacing, but always memorable, villain.Ming Na Wen is also not too bad, playing her character with allure and dignity. Sadly the character is badly underwritten so she doesn't shine quite as much.Jean Claude Van Damme however is very wooden in a role that requires more heroism than what he gave, some of his line delivery sounds awkward and lacking in clarity too. Kylie Minogue's sexiness is not enough to disguises her limitations as an actress, complete with a non-existent accent and a fatefully ill-matched pairing with Van Damme with no obvious spark or chemistry. The rest of the cast struggle to bring believability or personality to underwritten and weirdly distorted characters, where the names are there but almost like thrown in into a completely different film with personalities that don't have what makes them so special in the first place or so far removed from before.Cheap-looking production values are also present with haphazard editing, tacky set design, inappropriately natty costumes and just everything looking and feeling rushed. The music consists of generic and repetitive rap that feels misplaced and out-of-place, and very under-powered orchestral scoring with compressed sound mixing. The action is both overblown and under-rehearsed, the nods to the fight moves in the games looking and feeling clumsily fitted in. The script is childish, with an overuse of one-liners and jokes that often jar with the mood or (apart from the odd amusing one from particularly Bison) are too intelligence-insultingly stupid to be a mild chuckle.Despite having a crisp, buoyant energy, the storytelling is hectic and confused with many things with potential but left under-explored and has a cobbled together feel, where the dropping of characters' names and the games' fight moves feel randomly thrown in. People will say that one shouldn't take it seriously, the thing is though to anybody who says it that those who criticise it for being silly and cheesy and all that actually are aware of what the film is trying to be and how to judge it. The argument is that we feel that 'Street Fighter' goes overboard in the silliness and stupidity, leaving room for little else, that it becomes exhausting, the games were silly but also fun and didn't forget to treat the audience with respect. Like it or not that is actually an understandable criticism, and one this reviewer shares.All in all, has a couple of bright spots, the biggest one being Julia, but it really is one of the biggest examples of video games not adapting well to film. 3/10 Bethany Cox

lewiskendell Video game movies are still more often disappointments than successes, but at least we've moved on from the era of crud like Street Fighter. Movies like this were made in such a way that they didn't appeal to the fans of the games or the casual movie audience.My primary complaint is the laughable casting. It's like the makers of the movie knew absolutely nothing about the games except for the sex, names, and races of the various characters. They make a huge effort to work the names of every character into the movie, just so the audience will (presumably) think it's cool to see their favorites on the big screen. But, Van Damme as an American soldier? Kylie Minogue as Cammy? Oh, and let's briefly mention the story. Balrog is a cameraman and Ryu and Ken (with brown hair!!) are some type of lovable con-men? Shadaloo City? Ugh. Actual street fighting wouldn't give me enough brain damage to want to ever see this again.

Ray Shu This movie sure has a lot of faults in trying to base itself off a video game. First of all, many of the characters were either miscast or shallow. However I'm gonna start off by saying that Raul Julia has changed the way we view M.Bison in the franchise. He glorifies the persona as a simple dictator bent on taking over the world. A few other characters such as Zangief and Chun-Li also kind of helped me enjoy the movie a bit better. It might be because they were the closest in having resemblance to their game counterparts.Other than that, it's pretty funny casting or interpretations of everyone else. JCVD as Guile? LOL..... Kylie Minogue as Cammy, uh.... I guess she looks the part and this extends to stuff like E.Honda being Hawaiian to Ryu and Ken being con men. So practically the movie tried to change much of the law for the shake of making a movie. It's pretty messy or as I like to say...Cheesy.The movie is pretty goofy.... The effects are pretty over the top and same goes for the fight choreography. I mean look at the fight Ryu and Vega have... The dialogue also does belong in this category too but it's pretty laughably entertaining. Alright let's talk about the story.....Well, other than the fact M.Bison wants control. Let's see what the protagonists are up to. They just need to stop him. I mean there should have been more depth for us to care about Guile or Chun-Li's reason to hate Bison. It might have been a better idea to make Charlie a deceased dude rather than integrate the name into Blanka. That's just me, but I don't think adding the name 'Charlie' means a whole lot since later games in the franchise introduce the actual character. Chun-Li on the other hand needs a more fleshed out insight into her story, that's all I want from her. Ryu and Ken who are naturally the poster children of the franchise are nothing more than two goofy side characters who go about switching alliances. They're pretty bland. To wrap this movie up, the movie is sure not a good adaptation of a video game but the movie is a good time if I want to have a bit of roast.