Now that isn't a slam against the new one, honestly I thought it was decent and seeing the trailers did indeed tell me exactly what kind of movie it was going to be. It's stylistically out there, sticking very close to the games in terms of design and abilities of each fighter, with tons of visual flair and tight editing accentuating every hit. I know for a fact it is not gonna be everyone's cup of tea even if you're a fan of the video game series, but considering I'm about as casual a fan as you can find it didn't bother me. Despite it's 2026 production it truly does feel like a 90s movie in both good and ill attributes, as M. Bison introduces a new championship tournament calling several fighters from around the world to compete including Ryu and Ken who have history and a fair bit of a rivalry going on, undercover agent Chun-Li with a vendetta against the tyrant, and an assortment of other classic fighters from the games like Guile, Dhalsim, Zangief, and Balrog but admittedly they are far more bit parts barely one step above a cameo. Now on one hand I like how they just focus on a small tight knit group of characters for the plot, but I can also totally understand why some fans would feel like their favorite got chump changed. Now I will say the performances are a trip and kept it interesting even if the script isn't exactly grand, in particular Callina Liang who is the definition of go hard or go home here, and the character and arc they gave to Noah Centineo as Ken who's this celebrity fighter with a chip on his shoulder has decent drama, and of course David as Bison who is perplexingly entertaining as this true sadist power mongering maniac who I feel is an appropriate succesor to Raul Julia. The action as stated above is very hyper kinetic, it focuses far more on the edit of the punches and kicks than the choreography of the fights themselves although they do showcase glimpses of it, but the movie certainly doesn't lack personality. It is colorful, absurd, fairly weird, but you can tell that was the clear intention from both behind and in front of the camera. This will split audiences severely but if you want a kind of turn your brain off movie and just are there for the fights and seeing these famous fighters in live action (and animation) you can roll with it. It's not objectively very good but I truly don't think it's horrible either, sequel baiting aside. You don't need to be a detective to see the faults yet there's still interesting fights, an occasional joke that got me, decent if not good acting given the script, and overall it creates an okay film. I give it 2.5 stars, 6.5/10, and we step into very recent ground for next week's reviews.
No comments:
Post a Comment