Unlike Steven E. de Souza’s 1994 take on Street Fighter, I don’t think it’ll take decades for Kitao Sakurai’s effort to find its fans.

This latest live action attempt, starring Andrew Koji and Noah Centineo as brawl bros Ryu and Ken, understands there’s zero point in trying to transform Capcom’s gaudy fighting franchise into high art.

Instead, it embraces the inherent silliness of the source material, and delivers a sports action comedy with a few belly laughs – and its fair share of whiffs as well.

It takes a while for this garish, testosterone-fuelled romp to really get moving – but once it finds its footing, it shoryukens its way from one chaotically paced set-piece to another.

The film opens with a beautifully animated prologue, which I think will understandably leave audiences pondering what Paramount could have achieved if it had spent its $100 million budget on a glitzy anime as opposed to washed-up wrestlers.

But it’s not long before we’re whisked into the tacky world of 1993, where playboy Ken is flogging Duracells and appearing in episodes of MTV Cribs.

The movie embraces the filming conventions of the era, often switching to fuzzy 4:3 footage in its post-production to underline the retro aesthetic of the period.

Centineo’s performance irritated me at the outset, but I think he grows into the role, and Ken arguably has the best arc of any of the characters in the movie. (Although don’t expect any Oscar award-worthy writing here, obviously.)

Koji, meanwhile, does adequate work with Ryu, reflecting the character’s straight-laced nature with fine comedic timing.

I think the film tries to squeeze in a little too much narratively, which makes for some messy editing: Ryu is fighting inner-demons, Ken is the overlooked understudy who needs to find himself, and Chun-Li (played by Canadian actress Callina Liang) is working undercover to wreak revenge on her father’s murderer, M. Bison (David Dastmalchian).

Liang spends most of her time on-screen either frowning or prancing around in her pants, although her primary purpose seems to be to cut through the fourth-wall to acknowledge just how ridiculous each scene is.

(“What just happened?” she asks the audience at one point, when Ken belts out a rendition of 4 Non Blondes’ ‘What’s Up’ to revive Ryu.)

I think audiences will understandably be mixed on some of the “dudebro” humour on display at times, like one scene where Chun-Li’s infatuated Interpol assistant appears to get a “kick” out of her pummeling her superiors.

(No prizes for guessing where he ultimately gets the boot!)

It personally landed for me, but other gags were met with silence in my showing.

I know we’re in an era where low-effort humour like “chicken jockey” is able to go viral, but I didn’t derive any amusement from Jason Momoa’s Blanka rolling into the frame and declaring his armpits smell “like hot dogs”. There’s better writing elsewhere in the movie, so I don’t know how this made it into the final cut.

Dastmalchian as the maniacal M. Bison rightly doesn’t attempt to rival the late Raul Julia’s iconic take on the dictator (although there is a fun reference to his legendary “it was just Tuesday” line played as a telling nod for fans).

Instead, his take on the character devolves into downright absurdity, and he hams it up nicely, stealing many scenes with pantomime-style pomp.

But with a near-two hour running time, I feel like the film overstays its welcome at times, even if the fight choreography is rapid and raucous enough to carry you confidently through its middle act.

I never really felt like I understood the motivations of some of the supporting cast, like Guile (Cody Rhodes), Balrog (50 Cent), and Vega (Orville Peck). The writers seemed to want Cammy (Mel Jarnson) to be Juri, but I don’t know why they didn’t just include her in the story instead.

And Roman Reigns’ Akuma doesn’t really get anywhere near enough screen time to be memorable, even if his looming sense of power bubbles away in the background.

Despite all these obvious criticisms, the movie is fun and it captures the wide-eyed, kaleidoscope craziness of Street Fighter at large. It’s all six-packs, sweat, and spit.

(Seriously, I’ve never seen a movie where actors constantly spit while they speak quite like this – I hope there were plenty of Smints on set.)

I doubt this new take on Street Fighter will become a cult classic like its 1994 counterpart, because it seems to understand exactly what it is from the outset. (It’s taken decades for Jean-Claude Van Damme’s version to be reframed as the ridiculous slice of cinema it always was.)

I would show up for a sequel, which feels hopeful given the way this particular film ends. But whether this relatively high-budget production will find enough movie goers to justify a follow-up remains to be seen. The fans who do watch it, though, will likely come away suitably satiated by its silliness.

Thank you to Paramount for inviting me to an early screening of the Street Fighter movie. Will you be seeing this in theatres or waiting for it to come to streaming? Win the World Warrior Tournament in the comments section below.