Mortal Kombat Movie Review

 By: Patrick Morris

For almost a decade now armchair analysts have been proselytizing that video game movie are going to be the next big break through in the movie industry akin to comic book movies. It clearly still hasn’t happened yet but with the release of each new video game movie the same armchair analysts are out in droves saying that this is going to be the big break through movie that demonstrates the power of the genre. Well Mortal Kombat came out last week and it doesn’t seem to be setting the world on fire. History is bound to repeat itself and once again Mortal Kombat is a movie that is violent, fun, and honors the source material all while being incredibly dumb but it fails to break away from the stigma of being a video game movie and  stand out as above average even when evaluated as simply a popcorn action flick. 

 

Welcome welcome welcome everyone, welcome back to LegalSpeak a ColdNorth Production. I'm TheLawMorris and this is the video essay series in which I get to talk about the games I've been playing (or in this case the movie's I've been watching) and what I think of the industry as a whole. I know I haven't done a movie review before and I know that this is a gaming channel but Mortal Kombat is a new movie based on a bunch of different games so lets discuss the new Mortal Kombat movie.

 

Being a fighting game story has always taken a backseat to gameplay in Mortal Kombat and as a result it naturally leaves a daunting task for the movies writer's. While the game's story is centered around a tournament of super natural fighters that essentially functions as an excuse for the players to fight a movie needs something a bit more substantial than that and unfortunately Mortal Kombat 2021 doesn’t do much to create that substance. Instead of focusing on the tournament of Mortal Kombat the movie tells a story of a pre-tournament invasion of the earth realm by the outworld realm led by Shang Tsung. The relative positioning and proximity of the story to the upcoming Mortal Kombat tournament actually works to serve the movies narrative extremely well. By setting the story ahead of the tournament the filmmakers were allowed the opportunity to exposit the premise of the outworld realm being on the cusp of their 10th win in Mortal Kombat and inherently being allowed by tradition to conquer earth realm without resistance. The pre-tournament invasion plot both allowed the movie to get straight to the action and spread out the exposition of the tournament system across the entire runtime rather than having to explain it all inside the first 15-20 minutes. 

 

As with all movies with even the slightest bit of franchise potential these days it comes as no surprise that this movie appears to have been written as a platform on which to build a larger world with explicit references to events that are yet to come. Undoubtedly the sequel will center around the assembly of earth realm's newest heroes and the events of the 10th tournament. While the story of this movie was fairly hum drum I believe it was still the right one to tell as it created a way for the writers to establish characters and future events as well as escalate everything to a new level in the sequel.

 

Despite the story being nothing to write home about the characters were really the life blood of the movie. The decision to focus on characters from the earlier games played well on the nostalgia of the older audience while also hooking a wider audience to bring them back for subsequent entries in the series. Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Raiden, Jax, Sonya Blade, Goro, Milena, Tshang Tsung and more all provide the nostalgia hit that was needed to get this movie and potentially franchise off the ground after which the focus was placed on film's only original character Cole Young, Sub-Zero, and Scorpion with Kano doing the bulk of the heavy lifting. 

 

Cole Young being the only original character featured in the movie was also the weakest. Despite his place as the main character his costume design and abilities felt unfinished and generic. In a sea of characters with look's and abilities that we have been familiar with for decades Cole feels uninteresting and weak and would have been better had he, being a descendent of Scorpion, somehow inherited Scorpion's abilities and become a new Scorpion. In fact throughout the entire sequence in which Cole finds his arkana as Goro was closing in on Cole's wife and daughter I was waiting for him to yell "Get over here" and the movie to reveal that he is the new Scorpion. 

 

The real standout character and performance however was Josh Lawson as Kano. As is tradition since Paul W.S. Anderson's 1995 Mortal Kombat movie Lawson portrayed Kano as the wise cracking world renowned criminal and he did so nearly flawlessly. In what seems to be a bit of a role reversal Kano is initially cast as a protagonist on the journey with Cole and Sonya and even moves through large parts of their character progression by their side. His quick wit and over the top performance cements him as the single most enjoyable part of the movie and when given the opportunity to wreck havoc on our heroes I found myself hoping he would as it would be so in line with not only the character but also Lawson's performance. The only regrettable thing about Kano in the movie is that he didn’t live bring the audience more joy in the sequel.

 

Despite the usage of so many iconic Mortal Kombat characters the films central conflict isnt between outworld and earth realm but instead is a more personal one between Scorpion and Sub-Zero. Establishing a blood feud early in the prologue of the movie Sub-Zero then continues throughout the remainder of the movie to hunt down Scorpions remaining bloodline to finally achieve the extermination of his nemesis. As fan favorites the feud between the two iconic ninja assassin's was an obvious well to go to and it is one that served the movie well as a skeletal structure to move the plot forward. And that structure allowed for two really amazing fights between the two to bookend all the action in the movie. But again just like Kano, the elimination both Scorpion and Sub-Zero after just one entry feels like it was a bit short sighted but I am sure will be undone in subsequent entries. 

 

So overall Mortal Kombat 2021 was fun, kicked some ass, and took some names but ultimately failed to blow me away to the degree it needed to in order to push the video game movie genre into the stratosphere. The acting, directing, and cinematography make for a competent movie that is made good through familiarity with the games and excellent action sequences. While only time can tell if it will make enough money to warrant a sequel in the event that it does you can expect me to be there as this was just fun enough that I am happy to sign up for more.