Are We Trapped by Nostalgia?

I’m approaching this week’s column a little differently. I want to review Street Fighter, but at the same time, I also want to talk about how it feels as though we are constantly caught in a nostalgia trap. Movies and TV shows that remind us of our childhood seem to automatically get a higher rating, even though that may simply be an attempt to give the movie that ’90s feeling.

The movie’s editing was poor, and the storyline was rather weak. The dialogue wasn’t much better either. Could it be that the 1990s and early 2000s really did produce the best TV shows and movies?

The more I think about the new Street Fighter movie, the more I realise that it isn’t really a good movie. I enjoyed the parts that felt as though I was playing the video game, but the rest felt like a low-budget production. It is almost as if the director and screenwriters deliberately used nostalgia as bait to get more people to watch the movie.

Leaning on that old feeling

The characters we care about from the games don’t get enough screen time, but that may be because the movie has such a large cast.

I was sceptical about some of the actors who were chosen, but I think the casting director got most of it right. Cody Rhodes as Guile and Orville Peck as Vega deliver the standout performances. The rest of the cast also did excellent work, particularly Andrew Koji as Ryu, Noah Centineo as Ken and Callina Liang as Chun-Li.

I enjoyed the animated sections of the movie. They gave the film much more depth and definitely earned it an extra star in my review. Another element the filmmakers used to trigger our nostalgia was the music. The movie features quite a few popular songs from the ’80s and ’90s, and I think they overdid it a little.

The problem with using nostalgia to sell new TV shows and movies is that it only works for a limited amount of time. Once the target audience has watched something, they move on to the next thing. Nostalgia can also alienate younger audiences. Children today may know Street Fighter, but to them it is just another video game and not an important part of their childhood.

Fan service

When I went to see the movie, the audience consisted exclusively of adults in their 30s and 40s, and most of them seemed to enjoy it. However, I don’t think any of them would want to watch it a second time, unless it became available on Netflix. Nostalgia therefore still works, but these days it doesn’t have as much staying power. It can still work, but only if filmmakers also offer audiences something new.

Street Fighter doesn’t offer much that feels genuinely new. Although the prospect of a sequel sounds appealing, I don’t think it will be enough to bring the children of the ’90s back. I enjoyed parts of the movie, but I wouldn’t really recommend it unless you’re a huge Street Fighter fan. It offers enough fan service to make you smile for a while, but does little to make the movie or its characters memorable.

That is why it gets only 2 out of 5 stars from me.