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.