Mortal Kombat (2021)

The new Mortal Kombat movie is surprisingly confusing.  It starts off in 1600’s Japan with the guy who would eventually become Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim (The Raid: Redemption)) invading the home of the guy who would eventually become Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada (Ringu)).  We’re thrown into this situation where guards and baddies are being picked off left and right and one dude can form icicles out of his hand and another guy’s body disappears in flames and we don’t know why they’re fighting and it’s supposed to be very emotional and this doesn’t look too much like the video game and I don’t know what’s going on.

Skip to modern day where washed up MMA fighter Cole Young (Lewis Tan (Deadpool 2)) scrapes by on $200 matches he never wins.  Jax (Mehcad Brooks (Glory Road)) pays a visit because they both share a dragon shaped marking on their bodies.  We find out this means they’ve been chosen to fight in a mystical otherworldly competition for the fate of Earthrealm (Earth) and must travel to Raiden’s (Tadanobu Asano (Thors)) temple to train.  Now we’re getting into more familiar territory.  I can follow this part.

But what’s really kinda weird about this film is (and spoiler) there’s no tournament.  Instead villain Shang Tsung (Chin Han (2012)) decides to cheat and kill off his opponents before the official bouts.  Not a cool move.  So I get the filmmakers wanted to do their own thing instead of replicating the 1995 picture which followed a classic kumite structure but ditching the tournament altogether definitely comes off as a sequel idea.  I kept waiting for the contest to formally start and was disappointed when that never happened.

Another strange mix up is creating an original character for the lead.  I thought maybe Cole Young was from one of the later games because I didn’t recognize him (I’ve only played the first two entries) but read afterward he was made up just for this movie.  Why?  You’re telling me there isn’t a character from any of the games that could be a suitable main hero?  Why not give it to Sonya (Jessica McNamee (The Meg))?  The only change you would need is to have her be less knowledgeable about the tourney from the get go so she can learn with the audience about what’s happening.

It’s not only Cole Young that’s an issue though.  All the characters are pretty bland except for Sonya who’s alright and Kano (Josh Lawson (Bombshell)) who steals the show.  Literally every one of his lines is a smarmy joke and normally that would get real fuckin’ old real fuckin’ fast but I didn’t mind it here.  I think because most of the stuff he says I actually found funny.  This was probably one of those situations where he had a smaller role initially but then the filmmakers realized they had struck gold and gave him more lines during production.

Can we touch on the special powers for a minute?  Each fighter has some sort of unique ability and the movie attempts to explain this by saying every contender has it in them already and they need to unlock it through pain/will/aggression, something like that.  The powers are ridiculously random though like throwing fireballs, a magic hat that can act as a deadly frisbee or sawblade, a laser eye and there’s a human sized lizard that can spit acid and turn invisible.  Anything goes.  Yes, these are the characters from the games.  I know.  It’s just silly that they felt like they needed to give some reason for their abilities like it’s a metaphor for tapping into one’s inner strength/confidence.

Ok, let’s move on to the fighting.  While a lot of it is fairly choppy in the editing, overall it’s fine.  Nothing really crazy or impressive to marvel at but solid martial arts mixed with fantasy elements like teleporting or forming an ice sword in mid combat or summoning a gargantuan fire dragon to…set someone on fire.  It’s the video game inspired maneuvers that make these scenes stand out and one of the coolest moments in the whole piece (which was in the trailer so you’ve seen it already) is when Sub-Zero freezes Scorpion’s blood that’s shooting out of his body to form an instant ice spike to stab him with.

From that last statement you can probably guess they don’t shy away from the gore either.  Although, they wait until towards the end to amp it way up.  You got shit like folks getting sawed in half vertically, intestines spilling out and heads getting crushed.  The filmmakers stayed faithful to the source material in this area so I have to at least give them credit for that.

However, the catchphrases like “flawless victory”, “Kano wins” and the infamous “get over here!” all feel extremely shoehorned in.  Like they sound sorta stupid in the context of everything else in the movie which is mostly serious.  It’s more like what a little kid would say rather than something truly badass.

Unfortunately the dialogue and acting in general is not very good.  Lots of tropes you’ve heard before and delivered flatly.

Even though this review came out pretty damn negative this isn’t a horrible picture.  Some of the fights and Kano are enjoyable enough.  Everything else is either forgettable (the characters) or doesn’t exactly seem Mortal Kombat-y (the opening, the plot).  And there’s unnecessary confusion sprinkled throughout concerning special abilities and how they work, the fact that they constantly talk about this incredibly important fate-of-humanity-hangs-in-the-balance tournament yet they never actually deliver on it, etc.

Look, the 1995 version is a dumb fuckin’ movie but there’s a charm in how campy it is and it feels more like the video game come to life.  I can appreciate they went in a different direction this time but there were a bunch of questionable choices made.  I’m not sure if I’ll end up revisiting this.