Riot’s Movie Reviews: Mortal Kombat
Ah! Mortal Kombat! When the original video game came out in 1992, I was six-years old and my first memory of playing the game was in the arcade at the local bowling alley. While I haven’t been exceptionally committed to the series throughout its many, many sequels, most video game nerds hold a special place in their hearts for the title. The transition of video games into feature-length films has been tenuous at best (too many examples to list) and Mortal Kombat was no exception to this. I admit that I never watched the follow up (Mortal Kombat: Annihilation) to the original Mortal Kombat from 1995, but I think most would agree that the first film was a train wreck. As a sucker for bad action films, the original Mortal Kombat still holds a lot of fond memories for me, especially the ultra-amped music track that was written for it. Online rumors/anticipation for this new film revealed two things to me: 1) this film was going to have all the gore/violence that was removed from its predecessors and 2) they wrote a new track that promised to be as adrenaline inducing as the first. Given that they had a bigger budget, time, and preparation, surely the studio would have a home-run on their hands this time around right? Eh…at least the awesome track turned out to be true.
The cons definitely outweigh the pros on this one. After developing a strong backstory for the two most interesting characters, the progress of the film comes to a screeching halt by shoe-horning what seems like a new concept in the Mortal Kombat universe; fighters training to develop their “arcana” (translation: super powers). Now I can understand why the creators wanted to do this, video games like Mortal Kombat and even Street Fighter feature apparent “humans” that have super-human fighting abilities (famous ex: Ryu and Ken’s hadouken). Developing the plot/reasoning behind why these humans can have special abilities seems like a good idea on paper, but the execution of this was far from entertaining or even logical, mainly because there is literally no consistency to it. I think people in general would be more apt to forgive lack of reasoning behind these powers than have to sit through training montages that barely explain why they exist in the first place. The second, biggest con of the film is the quality of acting. Now this is something I expected given what we got with the original and what most video game film adaptations turn into. There is a caveat to this, most of this cast is unrecognizable, many of which are career stuntmen/women that are getting their apparent first shot at roles. Being a large ensemble cast, it’s a little easier to forgive, but it doesn’t help as the movie progresses. Luckily, there is a great amount of fighting/action that helps you forget about the poorly delivered lines. Performance-wise, it’s a bit of a toss-up of who was worse, Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) or Shang Tsun (Chin Han). I would vote the latter on this one, whose unconvincingly “evil” persona did a disservice to his predecessor Cari-Hiroyuki Tagawa.
The biggest creative license taken by the writers was introducing a brand new character into this world. It is a brave move to be sure, but one that is pretty unnecessary when you look at the scope of characters that already exist in the Mortal Kombat universe. Shifting the main protagonist away from Liu Kang (Ludi Lin) in the original film to Cole Young (Lewis Tan) inevitably becomes a mistake in two distinct ways. The first being, his journey/story isn’t compelling enough. He is a struggling fighter that gets roped into the Mortal Kombat tournament because he is a descendant of Scorpion, whose lineage is somehow overlooked for centuries until now. Also, after struggling to develop his “arcana” powers, he inevitably ends up with a set of weapons (tonfas) that he has been given zero history with to build on. His proficiency with them makes no logical sense. The second reason the change may have been a mistake is that Liu Kang is downgraded and shown to be fairly inept as a fighter. Considering he is one of the original playable characters, I couldn’t have been the only one that was upset at how badly he performed throughout. Some of my lesser grievances all involve design choices. 1) Mileena: having her mask less with eternally bloody, Joker-like scars seemed like a strange diversion from the original designs. 2) Outworld: there is nothing menacing about this new take on what is supposed to be a horrifically violent world/dimension, just some shots of a random desert. 3) Maybe most important of all the design flaws (story design to be exact), was the lack of the tournament setting, which is literally the basis of all the video games. I get they were trying something new, it just didn’t work.
So why should you watch Mortal Kombat? First and foremost, watch it for the fights. The stunt work and fight scenes are done exceptionally well, particularly between Scorpion and Sub-Zero. I mean, if they put the eternally badass Hiroyuki Sonada in anything, you should watch it and be excited about it. Scorpion's back story/rivalry with Sub-Zero inevitably makes the entire film and Sonada’s performance is top-notch as expected. Secondary kudos goes to Kano (Josh Lawson) as the alternate antagonist and comic relief. It was unexpectedly an enjoyable performance for me. The fan-service for this film tilts farther into the positives than the negative, everything from costume design, to signature attacks, and inevitably to its gruesome fatalities. I tip my hat (get it?) particularly to Kung Lao’s (Max Huang) finisher. Also, I was pleasantly surprised with the CGI design of Reptile and Goro, the latter of which was a HUGE miss in the original film. Not only did both look entirely convincing this time, they were terrifying in their own right. Settings for the various final battles ended up looking great compared to the bland overall design of Outworld, and the frozen gym setting for the final showdown between Scorpion, Sub-Zero, and (sort-of) Cole Young looked incredible. Showing the gym in perfect condition after the battle seemed like a bad choice though, considering how wildly unlikely it is the place could recover from that deep freeze.
At the end of the day, if you enjoyed the first film, there’s nothing in the newest rendition that is going to turn you away. I would argue there’s actually more similarities than differences; i.e. bad acting and fun fight scenes. The fight choreography is inarguably superior and the extra violence allows the film to be truer to its roots and serves as a love letter to its button mashing fan base. Given that we had over two decades of time to be served a film that got it right, they definitely fell short on this one. But, there is no doubt that it was made with love for its fans and it is a worthwhile “turn your brain off and enjoy” couple of hours.
Riot’s Rating: 7/10: Parents, you probably shouldn’t let your kids play or watch anything to do with Mortal Kombat. Your call, not mine. Expect blood and guts, you’ve been warned.
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