Preface: i never saw the old MK movies, i really never cared about Mortal Kombat back in the day , but i do like gore, the old theme song, known the basic premise of the series, and some stuff i’ve absorbed by cultural osmosis, so why not?
Helps this is also a reboot of the MK film series.
The premise centers about mystical deathmatch tournament between the Outworld and The Earthrealm, as the chosen fighters of each factions engage in the titular “mortal combat”. As the Outworld has won nine of the previous tournaments and it’s set that the Earthrealm will be conquered by the Outworld if they lose the 10th tournament as well, but there’s a prophecy about a new generation of Earthrealm fighters that will be united by the “blood of Hanzo Hasashi”.
So both sides try to locate the new chosen fighters for Earthrealm (recognizable by the dragon marking on their skin) to either eliminate or assist them before they can enter the tournament.
This “united by the blood of Hanzo” is an excuse to start off the movie in 17th centhury Japan with a flashback about chinese assassin Bi-Han (aka Subzero) killing Hanzo and his family.
Its a strong opening, but after that we’re in a modern day America, following this Cole Young fellow, a now washed up MMA fighter, whose life gets even worse as he too is targeted by Bi Han/Subzero, now working for Outworld’s mystic sorcerer Shang Tsung, as he sending his underlings to preemptively kill all the Earthrealm champions so the next Mortal Kombat tournament won’t even be taken, and Cole indeed sports the dragon marking, unaware of his heritage and thrown into this when he just wants to protect his family…
Yeah, i guess the idea was to have a “everyman” protagonist the audience could relate to as opposed to the ensemble of cyborgs, mutants, ninja, mystical tyrants, gods of thunder…. but if you’re seeing a MK movie you’re going because you want to see the characters fight and maim each other, so why the fuck not just pick a character storyline to structure the entire film around, maybe picking elements from the then recent MK games like MK 11 or the older titles?
Leaving aside it makes sense in a videogame to have a custom protagonist… this isn’t a videogame, this is a movie, but whatever, ultimately it wouldn’t matter if Cole was interesting in any shape or form… he isn’t, even his power is kinda lame and makes little sense, feeling like it has to overcompensate for its personality and characterization by being given OP abilities just because.
Like most of the plot and the excuses for why some characters do or do not do some stuff, like why Kano even has a lazer beam eye, never explained, or why a hidden temple of shaolin-esque monks and mystics gave a double amputee CYBORG ARMS.
To be honest, it’s not like the rest of the roster gets much in the way of characterization, and looking for stuff to make sense in MK might sound silly, and it silly, but tell that to the screenwriter opting for a semi-serious approach to this when then the tone becomes silly and over the top, with goretastic maiming and people shouting “FATALITY” and-or “FINISH HIM”
So it’s not like thefilm takes itself too serious, it ultimately doesn’t, but it does suffer the modern issue of these videogame based movies being performatively “ashamed” of the source material, so have to play pretend for a bit, or insert stuff like “OC character do not steal” as a main protagonist when he’s such a wet blanket (even though he oddly acts fairly realistic considering the circumstances he’s put through) in a movie where John Lawson hams it up deliciously as the asshole douchewaffle doubletiming bandit that is Kano.
Just all about Cole as a character is a missed opportunity, like they could have done something with him in the last act, but didn’t care to, i’ll say as much without going full spoiler mode.
This is not to say that the acting is bad, but Lawson as Kano is indeed one of the highlights, and then we have bigger issues, like how the pacing is killed short by the middle being about the Earthrealm champions training in Raiden temple to do their “mystical kung fu aura awakening” and the usual overdone spouting of pseudo-zen shit, with the action grinds to a holt so the characters can …ironically grind, as they train to awaken their powers and prep for the upcoming tournament, or more accurately to fend off the assassins sent by Shang to kill them off before the actual tournament can take place.
Again, a by-product of them feeling that doing a videogame movie adaptation has to do certain things or to change stuff to make it “less videogamey”, a sentiment that ails more from a decade before more than the 2020s, the more i think about it, and is still in this film, even if not as strong as before.
Who cares if this result in the pacing getting its ghoulies ripped out through the nostrils, and the movie making you feel its 2 hours runtime, but before dwelving into the movie’s anus to deliver the finishing blow, i’ll say that at least we get a decent amount of action, the fights are well choreographed, often almost veering in “wire fu” territory, the effects are fairly good (aside from Goro’s CG which is… a bit lacking) it does get the gore element right, even if most fights are a bit too brief to make the gory fatality kills proper satisfying.
While it’s not an unwatchable or boring film by any means, 2021’s Mortal Kombat does suffer from an even worse issue from where all the other stem, as in it feels it exist more for the producers than for people actually watching it, more of an overly long set up for a sequel than its own fucking thing…. because it is just that, one could feel so well before the marketing for Mortal Kombat 2 began floating around the web confirming that yes, this fucking film is just a door-to-door salesman successfully getting his foot into your home before you can quickly close the door in his face.
I’ve lamented early of these flawed choices being due to the nature of this being a modern videogame adaptation.. well, i feel that would be still truth up until the 2010s, as now fans get extra miffed if you don’t replicate the original material’s canon as it was once established and blessed by a herd of vicars, if you dare stray one hair from the Word of Kombat, or whatever.
Still doesn’t excuse the fact that it takes some “effort” to make a modern film adaptation of a videogame based around a mystical fighting tournament…. and not actually doing the tournament “bit”, that somehow the idea of “what if Enter The Dragon had demons warriors, gods, mystical realms and was hyperviolent and had people intestines fly out when caressed by knuckles?” had to pile on shit instead of being simple and straightforward.
This is some Hollywood “logic” for you, to add a rando protagonist whose i’m surprised wasn’t culled from early drafts of the script, such an uninteresting dead weight he is, but then again, it doesn’t matter as WB never intended for this to stand on its own, just to get audiences hungry and angry, so they could do the ol “carrot & stick” (or the “Peter Molyneux”) routine by promising the second modern Mortal Kombat film will actually be about the titular tournament.
Again, while not horrible or unwatchable tripe, this is written just to be basically a big setup for the sequel, where the actual tournament – and the eponymous fighting to the death – will most likely happen, for sure this time, we swear.
I do wanna believe that at least this is gotta be better than MK Annihilation, which i haven’t watched yet, i’m waiting for the Arrow Video 4K rerelease to have both the old MK movies and give them a watch, as i said before.
So see you for the EXPRESSO review of MKII, bye!
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