Video game adaptations as feature films have a terrible reputation. They have long been widely regarded as fraudulent disappointments by game fans, awful trash by movie fans, and general boring wastes of time by the average person. And if all those people could be made to watch The King of Fighters, well, they'd see that they were absolutely correct.

This movie is extraordinarily bad. There's really nothing redeeming about it. The story and writing are terrible. The acting is bad. The visual effects make both of those look good (especially near the end). I truly have nothing to recommend here.

Now you might say "well, those things basically all apply to the first Mortal Kombat film, and that movie rules" and you'd be absolutely right. But that movie (and Street Fighter along with it) are bad in the kind of funny way that makes bad movies actually good. They're over-the-top, they're vaguely (or not so vaguely at times) campy, and they whisk you along through dank scene after dank scene of nonsense. This movie isn't funny, though, intentionally or not. It's just kind of sad to watch.

The only good part, I suppose, is that I do appreciate it when these fighting game adaptations lean into being a Fighting Game - having a literal tournament, where various fighters battle it out, in the structure that such a video game would have. This movie does have such a thing, which is nice, but it doesn't go nearly hard enough on it, and suffers for it. Show me all the fighters! Have them fight! It's not that hard! I don't even know this game series very well, but if I did I'd surely be even more disappointed. I truly do not care at all about your deep game lore or whatever for the main characters rather than more fights with more representation.

Score: 2/10

IMDb: The King of Fighters

PS: If you want to watch the kind of Video Game movie this was supposed to be just watch DOA: Dead or Alive instead. That is the kind of nonsense funny video game adaptation that clearly isn't good but leans into being a Video Game the same way but much harder, with much better results.

PPS: On the bright side, at least I they didn't make Mai quite as bad as the games do. She is one of the least tasteful popular video game characters in history.