I recently posted a review for Monster Hunter with Milla Jovovich where I briefly touched on video game-based movies and that they’ve struggled to find success. I even brought up one of these specific movies as a disappointment, and it was Mortal Kombat from 1995. I thought the best thing to come from that movie was the music, and even that got tiresome after a few minutes of listening. Not to mention, casting Christopher Lambert (best known for Highlander 1986) for Lord Raiden, who is supposed to be the Japanese Thunder God. Another thing that set the old version off on the wrong foot was the rating of ‘PG-13’. And this is a video game where fatalities consist of someone ripping their opponent’s spine (skull still attached) right out of their skin Predator-style, beheadings galore, guts, gore, and more. The 1995 movie just didn’t land well for me.
Jump forward 26 years (holy crap!): the Mortal Kombat video game line has seen 11 versions of the brutal gory one-on-one fighting-based platform. It's been around since 1992! I think the fan base is getting another kick-start with the reboot movie being released this year.
First and foremost, I believe that if you’ve stuck with the MK video games through the years, or even just played the first several games like me, maybe getting back into it with MK10 and MK11, the 2021 Mortal Kombat movie may be right up your alley.
This reboot receives a hard ‘R’ rating for strong bloody violence and vulgarity. That’s how it should be as that’s what the video game was famous for. Fun fact: the original submission of Mortal Kombat was NC-17 for graphic violence. Director Simon McQuoid had to calm down the extreme violence, possibly remove some fatalities, to get it to a more acceptable rating. I wonder if they’ll release the original Director’s cut…something I’ll be looking forward to if it happens! Also, this is Simon McQuoid's Directorial Debut, during which he was given the reigns to reboot the massive franchise on film. I was surprised by this, but if it is a financial and popularity success, I'm sure he'll be part of any future Mortal Kombat movies that may follow this one.
As far as the storyline goes, it’s as good as it can get when dealing with the content of a one-on-one fighting video game. The games always had some backstory, and each character had a little history of their own, but what can you expect from this type of video game?
Same can be said for the movie, but it wasn’t without a valiant attempt.
Earth, known as Earthrealm, and Otherworld have been in an ancient battle for control over both realms. Each world has put forward their own fighters for protection over their realm in what has been called Mortal Kombat, a tournament to the death to see which realm is victorious. As we come into Mortal Kombat, Otherworld has won nine tournaments out of the last ten. If they win the tenth tournament, Otherworldtakes dominion over Earthrealm. That sounds bad!
Shang Tsung (Chin Han), the overseer of the Otherworld fighters for the past nine tournaments, is cheating, trying to get rid of the fighters from Earth before the tournament can even begin. Oh yeah…and he can suck the soul out of his enemies. Which is pretty accurate in Mortal Kombat compared the video games. Opposing such evil, Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano) is trying to gather the Earth fighters before Shang Tsung can wipe them all out without standing to fight.
They chose to introduce a new character that is not from the video games, Cole Young (Lewis Tan), who is a struggling underground MMA fighter. I thought it was an interesting idea not to use an existing character. But, I think it worked out alright, especially since he is a long-distant descendent of the all-powerful fighter, Hanzo Hasashi (Hiroyuki Sanada), later to become Scorpion. I really liked that part of the story with the history between Hanzo/Scorpion and Bi-Han/Sub-Zero.
As Cole gets pulled into the battle between Earthrealm and Otherworld we get introduced to the handful of would-be fighters for both sides: Sonya Blade, Liu Kang, Lord Raiden, Kung Lao, Jax, Kano, Mileena, Shang Tsung, and a few others that I’ll leave to your viewing pleasure. If you’re like me with how much I loved the video games, just hearing those fighters' names, and how brutal the fatalities came out in the movie, you’re giddy as hell right now!
There were certainly some plot holes, and the story/movie drags a little while trying to build on the storyline. They probably could’ve cut out 15-20 minutes of the movie and the pacing would’ve been more frantic and suspenseful. However, I was fine with them creating background story and support for the main plot. Also, by the end of the movie, you get a clear picture that this may not be the only Mortal Kombat movie they are planning. There’s a reveal at the end of the movie that leans into the idea that this is only the beginning.
Favorite part of the video game? Fatalities.
This is when a player is victorious and gets a few second to pull off a gory final move (or not gory if choosing a Friendship move or Babality). One final F-you to the loser. This is where beheadings, guts-removal, acid-burning, death by flames, and many other creative ways to throw the trash out, gives Mortal Kombat its famed signature with blood, guts, and gore..
My favorite part of the 2021 Mortal Kombat movie? Fatalities.
Hands down. You're not really going to watch this movie for any other reason than the action and fighting...and the fatalities. The fighting choreography was very well done and performed flawlessly by all the actors. (See what I did there?) There was plenty of Fan Service provided in each fight, such as the famous “Get Over Here!” from Scorpion, Jax's massive double-handed clap, and so many others I don't want to ruin here.
To me, the best character was the mouthy Kano (Josh Lawson). He kept the story moving along by filling in a LOT of scenes with vulgar wise-cracks and witty put downs. The amount of foul language might bother some, but it is a fine representation of how Kano is supposed to be portrayed from what I remember of him in the games.
I highly recommend this for long-time lovers of the Mortal Kombat franchise. I am curious how this movie lands with those that didn’t play the games much, or not at all, or who loved the original Mortal Kombat movie from 1995. Was it slow? Bad storyline? Awesome? I'd like to know!
Released: 4/23/2021
Rating: R
Genre: Action, Fantasy
Running Time: 1 hour 50 minutes
Director: Simon McQuoid (Debut as Director for a full feature film)
Writer: Oren Uziel (story) (The Cloverfield Paradox, 22 Jump Street)
Stars:
Lewis Tan as Cole Young (Deadpool, Into the Badlands the series)
Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade (The Meg, Chips, Battle of the Sexes)
Josh Lawson as Kano (Bombshell, House of Lies the series)
Mehcad Brooks as Jax (True Blood series, Desperate Housewives series)
Hiroyuki Sanada as Hanzo Hasashi/Scorpion (Army of the Dead 2021, Sunshine, The Wolverine)
Tadanobu Asano as Lord Raiden (Thor, Thor: Ragnarok, Battleship)
Joe Taslim as Ban-Hi / Sub-Zero (Star Trek Beyond, Warrior the series)
Chin Han as Shang Tsung (The Dark Knight, Contagion, Skyscraper)
IMDB Rating: 6.2 out of 10
Rotten Tomatoes: 55%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 86%
Metascore: 43 out of 100
Streamable on these Apps with subscription at time of Blog Post: HBO Max exclusively
Rentable on these Apps at time of Blog Post: N/A
Mortal Kombat Official Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYH2sLid0Zc&t=23s
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