Street Fighter is technically a bad movie, but it's so much fun

The Rotten Tomatoes situation for Street Fighter makes perfect sense to me. From a critic standpoint, yes, it's a mess, but it's just so much fun, and I'm so glad the fans have rallied behind this movie.

In my initial reaction yesterday, I asked what we do about the lack of nuance in a Rotten Tomatoes critic score. I think the answer might be the audience score, because the audience is correct here. It's technically a bad movie, but it's so much fun. It was also quite the emotional roller coaster, and I'll walk through my own experience before ranking all of the characters.

Street Fighter's trailers had me nervous, but the animation won me over

Going into the film, I was nervous because I loved the trailers so much. I didn't think the movie could live up to that energy. I figured they probably took all the best parts, and the movie was going to be a pale imitation of those awesome trailers.

Then it started with the music and the jokes and the sexiness and the animation. I'd heard there was animation in the movie going in, but I was not prepared for about a quarter of the movie to be animated, and that was great. I saw some people say they wish the whole movie was animated, but no, I like it the way it is. I love this mixed media approach to filmmaking.

I was having such a good time with my snacks. We saw it in an IMAX on 34th Street, and it gave me the feeling you get from a good Saturday morning cartoon. So I think if you appreciate animation and anime, comic books and, of course, video games, you will appreciate this movie despite its very obvious flaws.

About two thirds in, Street Fighter feels like it skips ahead

I think everything was going really great for everyone, critics and audiences alike, until about two thirds through the movie. Suddenly it felt like the movie skipped five to ten minutes. One minute we were in the arena, and the next we were in the middle of a prison break, and I was asking myself how we got there.

I honestly thought maybe they don't change over reels anymore and it's all just done through a downloaded file, but for a moment I wondered if someone hadn't loaded the next reel properly. It was that weird, and it was really hard for the movie to recover from that feeling. You just kept feeling like you were missing something.

Luckily, it had a really good third act battle, with really cool visual effects like the black smoke coming off of Ryu, which looked amazing. It had high emotional stakes and a really good joke about complex male relationships that got a huge laugh from my audience, deservedly so. I kind of felt the movie did manage to will itself back on board.

The Street Fighter ending is the most unprofessional I've ever seen

Then this movie had the weirdest ending ever. As I said in my reaction yesterday, it's not just bad, but unprofessional. A lot of people wondered how the ending of a movie can be unprofessional, so let me elaborate without really ruining anything.

To be honest, it seemed like the movie had already ended with that very good third act fight. Then the movie revealed that was a fake out, and there was one more fight coming: the final boss fight with M. Bison. I like this character a lot. Still, my thought was that we'd been there for two hours already, and I didn't know if I had it in me to keep going. But I like the characters so much, and when they were on the road trying to flag down a ride with some good banter, I was back in.

And then the movie just ended. Again, it seemed like something was wrong in the projection booth, until the credits ran and you realized it was over. My whole audience laughed nervously because we didn't know what had just happened. It was like old vaudeville, where they just pull the curtain down. "I didn't even know you could end a movie like that." I think it's crazy, and I think it's very much in the style of this movie that they even thought they could end it this way. We'll see how this balance of technically bad but a lot of fun translates into box office numbers on Sunday.

My theory: Paramount tried to save Street Fighter in the edit

Here's my theory as to what happened with this crazy hack job. I think the movie was a mess. Director and cowriter Kitao Sakurai has some really good creative ideas, but the only movie he made before this was Bad Trip, and you can totally tell. Even so, if I could do it all over again, I would still have hired him to direct, because there's so much of it I like. Clearly, though, they needed a better screenwriter.

Maybe it was one of those situations where they just started improvising on set.

I think Paramount didn't want to spend any more money on reshoots. The deal is done now, but they were kind of in limbo while waiting to see if the Warner Bros. acquisition would take place. I think they decided to try to save it in the edit, and this is the best they could do. That's why it looks like it was sliced and diced by Vega. They couldn't truly save this movie in the edit, but they came up with something serviceable. Look at the audience score. I don't think you could get away with this again, but I think it works, kind of.

Street Fighter might be a niche hit

I was having so much fun that I kind of would like to see it again over the weekend, but when I thought about the people I usually go to the movies with, I didn't know if they'd like it as much as I do. That could affect this movie's box office. It might be a niche hit, because you have to love animation and anime, comic books and video games. If you don't, I think you probably would not like this movie, and it might actually seem kind of bad to you. Maybe that's affecting the critic score as well.

To me, it was right up my alley: a really great party with great music, funny jokes, and beefcake versus cheesecake. I know a little bit about Street Fighter, so I could pick up on some of the Easter eggs, and I learned a lot about the game. I started to learn who the characters are and the mythology, and I became invested. With Chun-Li's storyline, I kept wondering if she wasn't supposed to be investigating something, but the movie seemed to tell me to just enjoy it, so I did.

I also picked up on cameos by some gaming influencers. I couldn't spot everyone, because I'm not huge in the gaming space, but I noticed BossLogic for a split second. Maximilian Dood was the best cameo. He made the most of the opportunity with two shots and lines, improvising things he wanted to see the fighters do in the arena. He was really clever in his cameo.

The fights were serviceable, but the mixed media collage is the real draw

Sure, it was silly, but I like silly. I remember practically falling out of my seat at Army of Darkness and The Emperor's New Groove in theaters, while the people around me asked if I liked those movies that much. I did. So are you the person in the seat laughing your head off, or the person next to them? If you're the one in the seat, you should go see this new Street Fighter movie.

Was the fighting amazing? No. But I thought it was serviceable, fine, respectable even. A couple of times I wondered if it was actually the actors, because it looked pretty good.

What I like most is the collage aspect, the mixed media. You get the music, the animated sequences, the jokes, everyone looking fantastic, and fight scenes that sometimes slow down and speed up, with superpowers kicking in. It was busy, but I felt it was controlled chaos, whereas others might think it wasn't controlled. If the script had been good, I think this would be a phenomenal movie. Instead, I think it might be the beginning of a really cool new trend. I think they have something here, but unfortunately that script is just a tattered mess.

David Dastmalchian's M. Bison tops my Street Fighter ranking

There are 17 character posters, and I'm ranking them all. I can't believe it, but I'm putting David Dastmalchian's M. Bison at number one. I'm not a big fan of Dastmalchian, although James Gunn is, and he was very good as Polka-Dot Man. In the past I haven't thought he's a very good actor, but for some reason I really liked him here. I love the choices he made. I'm not a Street Fighter fan, so I understand this may be kind of blasphemous to some, but he had so many funny bits. He was super creepy, which I thought was a good choice for the villain. If you'd pitched me the bit with the escargot, I'd have said it was too stupid, but when I saw it, it was funny. At a lot of points he felt like a final boss to me, and I loved one shot where they got his cape to blow in a very specific way. I take it they're recreating something from the games, but it looked really cool.

Number two is Andrew Koji's Ryu, aka Evil Ryu. I really love Noah Centineo's delivery of "Do it, Ryu" in the trailers, and it sticks with me, but Koji is my favorite of the two. He not only looks great, but he clearly has the best martial arts skills in the group, which is kind of important in this movie. My favorite moment for him was the dark energy radiating off of him, slowed down a little bit.

Number three, right behind him, is Noah Centineo's Ken Masters. He really personified someone super hot but dumb as a bag of rocks, and that's hard to pull off. It's an art form, and I think Centineo is up there with the best of them. The shots of him getting kicked out of boarding school were so funny and set the character up really well. Because Koji's Ryu is so stoic, Centineo has to do a lot of the heavy lifting with the jokes and with making you believe the ups and downs of their relationship. Really good duo.

Number four is Callina Liang as Chun-Li. I wish I could have put her higher, but she didn't have a lot of fighting scenes, and because she was doing her own investigation, she was off by herself for a lot of the movie and couldn't have as much fun as everybody else. Liang has been a real superstar promoting this movie, and I became a fan before I saw the film. She really built up her thighs to live up to the Chun-Li legend and had two fight scenes where she really used her legs. The best was in the miniskirt and high heels outside the helicopter, which they rightfully put in the trailers. She did a really nice job.

Vidyut Jammwal, Cody Rhodes and Orville Peck fill out my middle ranks

Number five is Vidyut Jammwal as Dhalsim. He looked cool as soon as we met him, but when he got in the arena and started to wiggle, my audience went crazy. I suspect it's from the game, but I'd never seen this character before, and it looked fantastic.

Number six is Cody Rhodes as Guile. He's done a lot to promote this film too; he's the popcorn bucket. While he's clearly a poor man's John Cena, at one point John Cena was a poor man's Dwayne Johnson, so who knows what the future holds for him. He was game for pretty much anything, which added to the fun mood. I thought the bit where he leaned out of the bathroom stall was funny.

Was he flirting with number seven, Orville Peck as Vega? I also saw someone else flirting with Peck on The Graham Norton Show in a clip that came across my timeline while Peck was promoting this movie. I'd never heard of him. Peck actually wears a mask as a country singer too, he's LGBTQ, and his career is really blowing up right now. He was a surprisingly good fighter as well. With the mask, I wondered if they swapped somebody else in, but he did a really good job, and we should keep an eye on him.

Number eight is Jason Momoa as Blanka. He's also a producer here, as he was on Minecraft. I'm not quite sure how he came on as a producer, but I do wonder if they were trying to recreate the Minecraft phenomenon, which was also very busy but, I think, controlled chaos. The big difference is that Jared Hess, who directed Minecraft and is doing the sequel, has a lot more experience, and it made a big difference. I think the problem here is the director just wasn't strong enough. Maybe he's learned some valuable lessons, and if they do make a sequel, I would bring him back and just keep an eye on the script. The VFX on Blanka looked pretty good, and Momoa is always fun.

Number nine is Mel Jarnson as Cammy. We saw her a lot in the trailers and she didn't have much more to do here, but she looks great, she was a good foil for Chun-Li, and she made the most of her few scenes.

Eric André and Alexander Volkanovski land at the bottom of my list

Number ten is Andrew Schulz as Dan. I don't know a lot about him, and I've seen some people say they won't see the movie because of him, which would be a shame. Outside the film, I'd say his conduct while promoting it was not great, and he was uncool towards the Mortal Kombat 2 cast. But within the movie, I thought he did a fine job, and he was better than Eric André. Eric André is definitely a friend of the director, and I suspect Schulz is too, because there's no reason for Schulz to be in this movie as much as he is. Maybe while they were trying to save it in the edit, the director leaned towards his pals' scenes, since André has an unusual amount of screen time too.

Number eleven is Roman Reigns as Akuma. It's a very small role, but he lived up to the hype the film built for this demon arriving in a tornado, and he looked as cool as his animated counterpart, which we met first. I was worried he wouldn't, but he did.

Number twelve is Hirooki Goto as E. Honda. It was a very funny scene. I don't know if he's a professional actor, but he was fine, and I liked the VFX and the use of smoke and towels. Number thirteen is Rayna Vallandingham as Juli. She couldn't look better, but she didn't really have anything to do. I felt she could have pulled off a fight scene, but they never gave her one. Number fourteen is Olivier Richters as Zangief, who I know from Wreck-It Ralph. He didn't have much to do either beyond one funny moment with a taxi from the trailers. Number fifteen is 50 Cent as Balrog. Nothing wrong with the performance, and if that was his song playing during his fight scene, that's kind of cool, but he didn't really have anything to do either.

Number sixteen is Eric André as Don Sauvage. I've seen André be very funny, but not here. Neither he nor the director did each other any favors, because André brought down his scenes and it made him look really not funny. Dead last at number seventeen is Alexander Volkanovski as Joe, who's apparently a professional fighter, which confuses me even more that they didn't give him a fight scene. The character was boring, and I think he was supposed to be super hot, which I wasn't really feeling. There was all this buildup for absolutely nothing, so I did not care for that cameo.

Street Fighter's mixed media style and its cast are its biggest strengths

I had a really good time. I know the movie has problems, but I was able to get over that. Not everybody will, but I think some people will. The two biggest things I feel it has going for it are, first, the mixed media approach that was kind of in Minecraft as well. It has an energy and currentness, and if they can harness it correctly like they did in Minecraft, I can see this becoming a style of movie going forward, which I'd really enjoy. I loved Minecraft as well.

Second, I'm really impressed with this cast, both in the movie and in how they promoted it. Everyone worked so hard that it made me more excited to see it, along with the trailers that highlighted the mixed media element. Sometimes actors don't want to do that much promotion, so the fact that everybody stepped up made me feel good about them as actors and as partners on a project like this. I'd love to see another Street Fighter; just fix the problems. Either way, I'll look for these actors in other projects, particularly the ones near the top of my list. This Street Fighter movie is not going to be for everyone, but I think it was certainly for me.

Which Street Fighter character would top your own ranking?