Monthly Archives: May 2021

The 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs

NY Rangers

The Rangers’ season ended more than a week ago and the regular season was extended for a few teams to make up for missed games due to covid stops. The Playoffs started this past Saturday with Capitals v Bruins while some Canadian teams were still finishing their season.

I didn’t write anything until now because the end of the Rangers’ season hit a brick wall and I waited for the fallout from that to happen to get a better perspective of what’s possible going forward.

With a week to go in the season, the owner of the team, Jim Dolan, fired GM Jeff Gorton and team president John Davidson. It was a shock to everyone. It also put a direct target on coach Quinn. After the season ended with the Rangers beating Boston, stopping a brutal 5-game losing streak, Quinn was let go too. Not surprising. Along with him was the release of all coaching staff except for the goalie coach, Benoit Allaire.

It was a weird and strenuous season, and that goes for every team. The Metro division is the most stacked so the odds of making it into the playoffs was a reasonable goal, but still a long shot. There are still depth issues on the team and there are a lot of rookies that are still finding their game. There’s a lot of potential we got to see this year and a lot still left to be wrung out. And that’s what the new GM. Chris Drury will be focused on this off-season. Getting the right staff and moving the right pieces to find the missing players to get to the playoffs. Drury is an accomplished former NHL player and he’s been with the organization for many years. I think everyone feels positive that these decisions are in the hands of a capable person. He also has to deal with major looming cap issues, so money is going to be an issue for the foreseeable future. A lot of smart moves need to be made or the rebuild is going to go from a wavering point to a full stop.

The most damning thing about Coach Quinn this year was the lack of adjustment during games. The same plays, the same problems, no adaptations to fix them. Just different line ups that didn’t really work.

So now Gerard Gallant is the current front runner for a head coach. It’s public that he’s going to be interviewed. Landing a new, appropriate head coach is the first step (anyone who thinks Torts is coming back is nuts. He’d be an awful fit.) Then he gets to pick his staff. He did wonders with Vegas so it’s easy to see why he’s the favorite. We really need a face-off coach. I’ll leave it at that.

The playoffs end in July, which leads us right to the Seattle expansion draft. Nothing can really be done roster-wise until Seattle’s selections are finalized. Then everyone knows what pieces they have to work with. Then the regular draft. The Rangers need a fantastic veteran center and defenseman. That’s the minimum. I think there will be an aggressive play for both.

So, all of that is months away. I always observe this level of stuff from afar as I have no idea what the right choices are to make. Time will tell. I engage with the team when the team comes back together for training season (Sept).

That leaves the playoffs. The safe front runners to get to the Finals: Vegas, Colorado, Carolina, Tampa Bay, Capitals.

Florida could upset Tampa Bay. Islanders could make a serious run this year. Bruins look fiesty. Pittsburg had a tremendous end of the season but they almost always look good going into the playoffs and the past few seasons they got obliterated in the first round. The decade-old core of that team is still together and they are fantastic. But they aren’t as good as they used to be. And competition has caught up with them. When the screws are turned to kick in the Playoff Push Thrusters by the competition, Pittsburg struggles to hold their opponents off.

Edmonton has basically slapped around everyone in the North. The question is, do they have the depth to make it past the 3rd round? Two amazing players can’t fend off an entire team for a series.

It’s going to be an excellent and hard fought two months.

Mortal Kombat (2021)

Movies

It’s been a very long time since the last live-action Mortal Kombat movie. The video game series has fallen off in popularity, but the 9th game, which was a reboot in 2011, revitalized the franchise. The following 2 sequels have been very popular so what company can stay away from expanding a hot IP?

The 1995 movie is arguably the first game brought to life as best as you could do. Earthrealm had lost the Mortal Kombat tournament 9 times in a row. One more loss and Outworld, a hostile (to put it mildly) dimension, will be able to invade Earth. So, the world is at stake for a few chosen Earth champions. Critics didn’t like it but fans did and turned out for it. The fight choreography is a standout for an American action film for the time. It stands up well today.

The 1997 sequel was so bad another movie wasn’t made until today.

This 2021 movie restarts the story but it doesn’t repeat the plot of the 1995 movie exactly. Outworld is one win away from invasion but sorcerer Shang Tsung is taking no chances at grabbing the brass ring. He’s cheater in previous tournaments and this time he’s decided to go on the offensive. Assassinate the chosen Earthrealm champions before the tournament, insuring his warriors can dominate whoever Earthrealm defender (and thunder god) Raiden can scrape together for a final showdown.

This change subverts the expectation of seeing a Mortal Kombat tournament in this movie. It never happens because all the fighting is done before the tournament starts, it’s basically all survival to get to the tournament. I have no problems with this change, it fits Shang Tsung well.

Fan-favorite ninjas–Sub Zero and Scorpion–are the highlights of the movie, as you can see in the poster above. The first scene sets up their rivalry, making Scorpion a specter of revenge and Sub Zero as the big bad of the movie.

Let’s start with what I liked. The casting is terrific, as are the costumes. The production as a whole looks good if limited at times. There are a few catchy tunes in the soundtrack, though most of the music is rather forgettable. The SFX are by and large very good. Sub Zero’s ice effects are fantastic, character-specific special moves such as Liu Kang’s fireballs, Kabal’s sprint, and Mileena’s teleport are well translated too. Goro and not-entirely Reptile (it’s his species, but it’s not Reptile) are complete CG characters and they both look and animate extremely well. There’s a lot of great compositing work done, just about everything looks like it fits together. The pops of horror gore for the Fatalities are really well done too, so fans can check that box on the list.

There are some dumb lines that don’t fit here and there, but I think the acting is great for everyone. Josh Lawson as Kano is hilarious, Ludi Lin brings the serious Liu Kang to life and Hiroyuki Sanada and Joe Taslim as Scorpion and Sub Zero are perfectly cast. Joe as Sub Zero is a scary dude. He’s completely menacing and intense in every scene he’s in, I’d call him one of the best villains in any action movie. I like Lewis Tan as Cole Young. Cole is a character created for the movie, a representative of the audience of sorts as he’s the only main character who doesn’t know about the weird stuff that’s been going on out of sight from the public. He’s got a good story arc that starts in a low place and ends on a high.

The disappointment comes from a lot of areas. The story is very simple and many characters are undeveloped because of it. There are so many beloved MK characters that making Cole isn’t necessary. I can understand why they did it, but his story is far from fresh. It’s easy to predict what’s going to happen for him.

Many characters don’t do much. Shang Tsung is mostly shown standing and talking. Sure his robe looks sweet, but he’s never that imposing. He gets to do his Fatality from MK 2 which is a treat but I expected more from him. Raiden gets even less screen time and he’s basically a jerk the entire time. Nothing he does is explained too well and he holds back needed information for no reason. You see Kung Lao train Cole more than fight a villain. Mileena, one of the most popular characters is used as…a bodyguard of sorts? She completely misused, has no back story, and gets very little screen time. She looks fantastic though and Sisi Stringer plays her appropriately sinister. I’m willing to bet she’ll be a focus of a sequel where they bring in Kitana and they can get into their story. You really need the sisters to make that whole part of the extensive MK lore work.

I was also expecting way more from the fights. Many of them are filmed up close with many cuts. It’s edited quickly so it can be hard to follow. The first and last fight scenes are the best. Really well shot, very creative, and exciting with a story between the men being told. Jax vs Sub Zero near the beginning and Kano and Sonya in the trailer are the other notable scenes. The attack scene with Reptile is a lot of fun too. It’s really hard to pull off a fight with something that’s invisible look real and it’s done well. Since Reptile is all CG, a lot of planning was done beforehand and it shows. The audio and blocking in the scene work.

The rush to get to fights makes for a very fast-paced movie (which feeds into the ‘not much story and development’ problem). In the third act where the heroes go on the offensive, they have multiple fights going on at the same time. It isn’t handled well. Rapid cutting to each fight takes away from the better fights’ pacing and impact. It comes off as disjointed and amateurish. Jax vs Reiko is a joke. There’s barely any choreography and they try to make up for it with a Fatality. You don’t get to see Mileena, Kabal, or Liu Kang do much hand-to-hand combat. Which is what fans want to see.

For everything the movie does right, there’s something that holds it back. There’s some great fan service sprinkled in and some of it doesn’t work (like trying to get too many catch phrases in). There’s a lot of dumb stuff you have to suspend your disbelief for. Additions were made that don’t work well enough and feel like a waste of time. Like the odd choice to use the dragon mark from the terrible MK: Annihilation movie to get into the tournament or learning how to unlock your special powers. I can see why they thought the ideas were good (it is a nice victory to see Sonya get her dragon mark) but they’re half-baked ideas in the end.

I was hoping for more but I still had a fun time watching this. It doesn’t take itself seriously and it’s ultimately a goofy movie adaptation of a goofy video game. Through most of the movie, I felt like they were holding back. Very few locations and many of them feel very narrow like you can tell there is nothing behind them. The scope of the movie feels more like it’s set on a stage than in a universe. It’s like the goal was to simply get this movie off the ground for it to do well enough to make a much bigger sequel. They can go anywhere with this series and it is a challenge to pick the strongest parts to make a coherent live action movie (there’s a lot of stupid stuff in MK). They could just do a Scorpion and Sub Zero movie and make fans happy.

A more experienced action director and better fight choreographers are needed moving forward. The bar for action movies is very high and Mortal Kombat doesn’t go close or above that standard nearly enough. What stands out for this franchise are the wild characters and their abilities. That’s where the creativity in the action lies. You can make Mortal Kombat fall between the bombastic action of the Marvel movies and the visceral violence of The Raid movies. The potential is there for something really special. With ninjas, gods, sorcerers, and the reanimated dead.