Street Fighter Opens With $4 Million in Thursday Previews as Critics Split on the Video Game Reboot

The ensemble around the leads is large. Callina Liang plays Chun-Li, David Dastmalchian is M. Bison, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson is Balrog and Orville Peck is Vega, per ComicBookMovie's cast list.

What are the Street Fighter reviews saying?

Mixed, and sometimes loudly so. TheWrap put the Rotten Tomatoes critics score at 46 percent, with an early audience score of 82 percent. ComicBookMovie, quoting an earlier snapshot, had it at 41 percent from 49 reviews.

The headlines tell the story. Variety's headline said the film knocks itself unconscious, while The Hollywood Reporter said it pummels you with fan service and too few new moves, and Deadline called it a cheesy, action-packed reboot with a game cast that should please fans reliving the 1990s. IGN landed in the middle, saying it is dumber than a box of rocks but can be fun.

The critical consensus, as ComicBookMovie summarised it, praised the leads, the animated sequences and the look of the fights. It criticised the script, the juvenile humour and a sequel-bait ending. The cast is stacked with wrestlers and fighters, among them Cody Rhodes as Guile, Roman Reigns as Akuma and Jason Momoa as Blanka.

Will Street Fighter break the video game movie curse?

The raw numbers are respectable. Previews are not a weekend, but $4 million at the top of the chart is a respectable start, and the audience score suggests the people buying tickets are having a better time than the people writing about it.

The real test arrives on Sunday, when the weekend estimates land. If the audience score holds and word of mouth beats the reviews, Paramount may get the sequel it sets up. If not, the film joins a long line of adaptations that won the fans and lost the room.