Ah Mortal Kombat, easily my favourite fighting game since I was a young man playing in the arcade (Yes, I'm that old). For anyone who had seen the 1990's version of the Mortal Kombat movies I am happy to say this movie blows them out of the water. Notice how I also didn't say it was a great movie. Let's face it, the original movie(s) really didn't set the bar very high in acting, story or special effects (OMG the effects are bad in the originals and definitely do not hold up today). While this new version of the beloved game franchise delivers on gory Fatalities for the fandom, it unfortunately also loses those same fans. This new movie has the fatalities that any of us fans have always wanted to see in a live-action film, right down to Kung Lou's Spinning Hat fatality. However, this movie almost completely left the original story behind and didn't replace it with much of anything.
For those that read this and don't know what the original Mortal Kombat story is, here we go. The original 1992 backstory was that Outworld was trying to invade Earthrealm (Earth). A dictational leader Shao Kahn wanted to invade but the Elder gods of the realms wouldn't just hand over Earthrealm to him. They wrote the rules that Shao Kahn must pick his mightiest warriors to face and defeat Eathrealms warriors in 10 straight victories in a tournament rightfully called Mortal Kombat. The first game picked up after Shao Kahn's warriors had won 9 out of the 10 needed tournaments.
This is technically still in place in the newest movie, but the movie brushes over it like it wasn't important. The movie takes all the fighting away from the tournament as Shang Tsung (Shao Kahn's most trusted sorcerer) has devised a brilliant plan to kill the Earthrealm combatants before they can actually compete in the last tournament. The issue I have with this isn't the premise of the plan, but that after like 1000 years of combat, he suddenly had the epiphany to do this. In the games, Shang Tsung is absolutely a genius on the level of the Emperor from Star Wars. He's tactical, powerful, a mastermind and above all else, evil for his own sake. Almost none of that shines through in this movie which was a let down.
Yes, the fatalities are amazingly awesome in this film. I cheered when some of them were happening (ok that sounds bad. Maybe I have a problem....I digress) however that does not make for a great movie. Yes, I loved how Goro looked. He was extremely well done physically and with special effects. However, even the original did a much better job at making Goro out to be a real threat. In this movie, he is kinda' just thrown into the ring per-say with Cole, the new, and in my opinion, unneeded character that was added to the roster.
Cole is supposed to act as the viewer's sense of being thrown into this world. There's nothing exactly wrong with Cole as much as there also isn't anything memorable about him. He could have easily been replaced by a long standing (and missing) character named Johnny Cage, who will undoubtedly be in the next movie. Cole just didn't have anything going for him that was unique. There was a plethora of Mortal Kombat characters already established so I'm not really sure why we needed a new one for this film.
All in all, was I entertained, yes, yes I was. I loved the gore that finally made it's way to the screen. There were a lot of things done right in the movie, but unfortunately for me, there was more done wrong. I understand my opinion is critical due to reviewing this and being a beginner fan, but there was just no bang after the initial punch of the Scorpion/Sub-Zero fight. There was too much left out and too much that either had no place or that just didn't make sense at all. Many questionable choices were made like putting Mileena into the movie, but not the lady she was cloned from, Kitana, or how about Kano not having a plate in his head which has only been there since the first game. Speaking of that though, Kano does do his original fatality as a nice call back to the first game. There were many questionable times that characters said things that clearly only were there because of the game like when Liu Kang says "Flawless victory" even though it wasn't flawless at all. When did he learn to hold onto fire by the way? He's always been able to through it, but not just hold it like a flash light. Again, his dragon fatality is in there and looks beautiful. And yes, I cheered when I saw it.
I have questions. For instance, let's talk about the dragon tattoo. So it is said in the movie that if you kill someone with the tattoo, then it transfers to you and you are then able to "compete" in the tournament, and we see this in the movie. So, if some random person hits Jax with a bus and kills him, they'd get his dragon mark? How about if someone kills two people with the mark? Do they get 2 dragon tattoos now? It was a silly addition that was just not fleshed out nor was needed in the first place.
There was just so, so much potential with this movie and it was left by the wayside. An example of this was another new character Nataro, a Harpy of sorts that basically is used in only one event and is easily beaten. I don't think she has more than 60 seconds of actual film time. She could have had a place in the games. Her concept is incredible, but alas, not used to a tenth of her potential.
Clearly the director understood the games as he got the fatalities right on the money, but somehow he missed the essence of Mortal Kombat. You don't need to make the movie around the tournament, but you need to acknowledge the past before jumping into the future. The games now don't use the tournament at all as an example, but they earned that by telling the story across many games and building to the point where it isn't necessary to have the tournament anymore. The average viewer that had never seen or played Mortal Kombat would have no idea why they're not actually competing in anything.
Oh well, another one bites the dust.
Overall score: 4 out of 10 stars
Comments
Post a Comment