Live Action Video Game adaptations have been on the upshot these last couple of years. 2019’s Detective Pikachu brought a whole world of Pokemon to life while 2020’s Sonic the Hedgehog proved filmmakers were willing to listen to the fans to make their character better. Now we’ve come to 2021 and hopes are pretty high for Mortal Kombat. It’s been almost 25 years since Mortal Kombat: Annihilation put the nail in the coffin of a promising film franchise and this reboot looks to rectify its mistakes while paving the way for bigger, better fortunes, hopefully.
Honestly, I don’t understand Live Action Video Game’s desires to create characters who are completely original to the franchise. Mortal Kombat, like Resident Evil, has a plethora of amazing characters with incredible stories that can be told on the big screen. While many of those characters do show up, none of them are the central focus of Mortal Kombat. That honor goes to Cole. Now, Cole himself isn’t the problem, he’s actually fine. It’s just that his connection to a central plot thread that’s easy to spot could have been excised and instead repurposed to suit a familiar face. For example, why not put the spotlight back on Liu Kang, the more or less main protagonist of the Mortal Kombat franchise. Or what about Sonya? I think she had plenty to be mined out of her own story and her gaining entry to a world she’s been in search of for years. Again, Cole’s not a bad character, I’d just rather we’d followed someone elses journey instead.
Whereas the first Mortal Kombat featured the entire roster from the first game and Annihilation took from MK2&3, the cast of characters in the MK reboot feels more grab baggy than ever. Granted, the roster has expanded a lot in the last 20 odd years and with a new reboot, many of those new faces can see the light of day. Besides the aforementioned Liu Kang and Sonya, we see appearances from Raiden, Shang Tsung, Jax, Kano, Mileena and, of course, Mortal Kombat’s two poster boys: Sub Zero and Scorpion. I’ll admit, I liked Liu Kang acting as more the mentor type since Raiden isn’t in the film as much as you might think. Chin Han as Shang Tsung was never gonna completely match Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa’s iconic performance but the dude gives it his all and handles things quite well. Josh Lawson’s Kano is the motormouth wild card who steals many of his scenes with his sass and nice comedic timing. There are a couple of other characters in the mix who get a moment or two to shine despite their own lack of screentime. And yes…Sub Zero and Scorpion both steal the show with their iconic rivalry reborn (and honestly the whole movie could’ve just been about that and the two of them tearing through MK’s roster just to get to each other).
Speaking of tearing through the roster, the MK Reboot’s R rating is just the thing it needs to cut loose when the action really gets going. Blood, guts, Fatalities, Brutalities, everything that was missing from the 90’s movies is here and that should make any fan of the game really happy. Special moves and finishers are properly replicated and the fights feel more hard hitting, even if some are edited kind of weird. And when those iconic techniques that gamers spent months perfecting are pulled off, its hard not to fanboy out. I could count at least twice when I cheered super loud at a couple of moments in this movie. Sure it is fanservice for sure but it’s far more gratifying to see than the forced overabundance of fanservice in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.
But, this isn’t a perfect movie. It’s much, much better than Annihilation but the MK Reboot does have problems. Like I said, despite Cole not being the worst character, the focus on his story takes away from other Kombat mainstays we’d rather see more of. For example, opening with a brilliant showdown between Joe Taslim’s Sub Zero and Hiroyuki Sanada’s Scorpion set the bar super high for the movie and then cutting to Cole’s story kind of takes things down a bit. And after Cole, Sonya and their crew make their way to Raiden, the movie slows down considerably to focus on training for a tournament I think we all want to see in full swing already. I can appreciate the movie trying to take some time to explore several characters and deepen their motivations. That comes at the cost of making a Mortal Kombat movie feel slow and that’s something no one would want, especially if some character arcs feel incomplete or boring as a result. Even the first film in the 90’s understood that the characters might not have the best tales to tell but the action supported the films ambitions. MK Reboot’s action is grand and feels closer to the games for sure. Just hope next time the pacing can better match its intensity.
Mortal Kombat isn’t the flawless victory it could have been. However, for fans of the franchise wanting to see a proper iteration of their favorite brutal fighting game brought to life, it’s a much better attempt. The bloody action that made the games legendary to begin with is back and I hope that all other MK movies going forward continue with this R Rated approach. While you might not get the most compelling story and your thoughts on Cole might vary, the action, decent use of available characters and even some shoutouts to famous lines and moments from the franchise (games and movies) works for the most part. And while it might not appear in it’s original (and best) form, the integration of the original films Mortal Kombat theme song definitely shows that the filmmakers were willing to try and make a better MK film for all. Complete success…eh? Fun, absolutely, as it should be.
7/10
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