Movie Review - Mortal Kombat (2021)

[Dave Gray]

Mortal Kombat (2021)

Premise: A struggling MMA fighter is hunted by monsters from another realm, that seek to eliminate him prior to his entry into a mystical fighting tournament that holds Earth's fate in the balance.

Rating: Very fun, if you have nostalgia for the property just go with it.

I had heard bad things about this movie from reviewers.  I was on board from the beginning, waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it never did.  Mortal Kombat is not a great narrative.  It has many logical inconsistencies.  However, the fighting and gore is fun and funny.  The nostalgia for the characters, moves, and meta humor is really powerful.  And the movie is short, which absolutely works in its favor.  Its gets it, gives you silly fun, and gets out before it gets stale.  If you don't have a connection to the nostalgia of the game, this isn't the movie for you.

This film plays out a little bit like the original Terminator, where the villains are hunting the hero for something he hasn't done yet and has no knowledge of.  The lead, Cole, is a new character and acts as our everyman who doesn't know what the hell is going on with all this magic and portals.   He's fine, though you could've had an established character play this role -- In a humorous meta-way, he's a fighting noob.  He doesn't know how to defend or specifically block (like a new MK player doesn't).  There are a few jokes to that.  It was kind of a clever way to introduce him to the world.

He is attacked by Sub Zero, who is completely bad-ass and they find a lot of neat ways to show off his ice powers.   Cole is guided by some characters we know to find the portal to get to the nether-realm, while some other characters we know try to hunt them down.  It's pretty straight-forward.

When I hear the criticisms of this film, they're usually correct.  Sometimes things are rushed or don't make sense or are inconsistent.  But I not only accept; I embrace this trade-off.  The movie flies by, at only 1 hr 50 mins, and I'd rather just move to the fun fights and gore and nostalgia than elongate the runtime to explain things that I don't care about.

Nostalgia, like usual, hits about 80% of the time.  The other 20% feels forced and dumb, but it will likely be a different 20% for everyone.  Scorpion speaks Japanese the whole film until he spears someone and yells "GET OVER HERE!".  That make make you smile and it might make you cringe.  Neither would surprise me.  But they're not going to have back-story of him learning English to justify it.  It just is.

Another positive is how the lore is quickly explained to grant powers.  In other MK iterations, the human characters don't have magic.  They are just bad-ass fighters.  In this, there is something called "arcana" that is unlocked and grants you some crazy power, almost like the X-Men.  Those are all over the place and don't make consistent sense, but who gives a shit.  One dude has to have superhuman metal arms, another needs an eye laser, and another guy needs to be a skull that shoots fire.  It does make for an unapologetic move-list and they lean into the moves from the game.

And then there's the lack of tournament.  The whole movie talks up a tournament and then there isn't one.  That didn't bother me, but I recognize that some might feel short changed.  It sets up a sequel for this and I hope it gets one.

[Sunstroke]

I have never seen any version of Mortal Kombat...and never played the game.  I'll pass on this one.

[Tenshot13]

I was somewhat disappointed because if you've played any of the last 4 games or so, the story is really good.  There are a ton of story lines in MK, and they went with some lame new character as the main.  The opening fight was the best part, Kano was pretty funny and I did enjoy the fights and fatalities.  I didn't mind the cheese too much, but they could have done better.  Plus no Johnny Cage who is my favorite, but looks like they're setting him up to be in the next one if there is a next one.

[Dave Gray]

I had no issue with the main character.  I thought that it probably made it easier to bounce exposition off of him as a newbie.  I suppose that could've been Johnny Cage, but it wouldn't have fit the character.

I haven't played the last 4 games.  I really know the first 3 games very, very well.  There were two characters from the movie that I didn't know.  Valkerie and the big dude with the hammer.

[Tenshot13]

I had no issue with the main character.  I thought that it probably made it easier to bounce exposition off of him as a newbie.  I suppose that could've been Johnny Cage, but it wouldn't have fit the character.

I haven't played the last 4 games.  I really know the first 3 games very, very well.  There were two characters from the movie that I didn't know.  Valkerie and the big dude with the hammer.

Even they were kind of lame.  the valkerie one's name is Nitara from the Deadly Alliance game and the hammer guy was Reiko, also a character that wasn't that major.  He was a character I think in MK4.  Both are kind of obscure.

[Dave Gray]

In the sequel, the obvious ones are Johnny Cage and Shao Khan.

I think the robots, Cyrax and Sector would be good.  You need some Earth realmers, so I'm throw in Stryker.  I don't think they did one of the masked girls -- Jade or Kitana or Mileena and Sheeva.  There are a few pallete swap ninjas: Smoke, most notably.  And there a guy from MK4 that has a cool design.  I don't know the game, but he's a white guy with stripes on his bald head....kinda looks like Kratos from God of War.

[Tenshot13]

In the sequel, the obvious ones are Johnny Cage and Shao Khan.

I think the robots, Cyrax and Sector would be good.  You need some Earth realmers, so I'm throw in Stryker.  I don't think they did one of the masked girls -- Jade or Kitana or Mileena and Sheeva.  There are a few pallete swap ninjas: Smoke, most notably.  And there a guy from MK4 that has a cool design.  I don't know the game, but he's a white guy with stripes on his bald head....kinda looks like Kratos from God of War.

Cyrax and Sektor would be cool.  Stryker was always a whatever character to me, but I think Night Wolf would be a good addition, he's Native American.  Eron Black was original from Earth but joins up with Outworld, he could do what Kano did in this movie.
I think the guy from MK4 you're referencing is Quan Chi, he's a pretty major bad guy on Shang Tsung's level.  Remember when they said something in the movie like death is just another dimension?  Quan Chi is a big reason why characters who were "dead" don't stay dead.

[EDGECRUSHER]

Wasted opportunity and this was very obviously part 1 of a trilogy. They didn't even have a Mortal Kombat tournament.

It had some cool stuff and Kano was great but the whole story was just a setup for more movies. The first 8 minutes were awesome so it was a huge letdown to not see Scorpion again until the final 5 minutes. The main character was a bigger pussy than Jonathan Martin, totally unnecessary to add a new character when they had almost 100 to choose from.

I didn't hate it as much as I am making it seem, but I am more upset that it could've been so much better if they didn't make some bad decisions that looked like studio interference. Sub Zero was legitimately scary so they got that one right.