2021 Has seen the end of a very long waiting period for a new Mortal Kombat movie. The last released theatrical movie was 1997's Mortal Kombat Annihilation. I've been a life long fan of Mortal Kombat, and despite the aggravating silence from the studios until roughly two months until release, I've been anticipating the new film. Thanks to the benefits of HBO Max I've been able to give this thing a couple of rewatches outside of my theatrical experience. This review, of course, will be my opinion and not based on any other opinions. Any and every point is reflective of my views and my views only. I also must say that I am not here to presume that I am a better Filmmaker than anyone else involved, I'm not and likely would never touch a movie camera, so this is only the perspective of a member of the target audience of the movie.
(MORTAL KOMBAT logo, New Line Cinemas, Warner Bros. 2021)
MORTAL KOMBAT centers on indie-MMA Fighter Cole Young, a former well known champion, who's hit hard times and lost a lot of his edge as a fighter. Meanwhile as a tenth Mortal Kombat Tournament is oncoming fighters from the invading realm known as Outworld begin an assault on Earthrealms' champions in order to get a flawless victory in the tournament.
The film stars:
Lewis Tan as (New Character) Cole Young
Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade
Mechad Brooks as Jackson "Jax" Briggs
Josh Lawson as Kano
Tadanobu Asano as Lord Raiden
Ludi Lin as Liu Kang
Max Haung as Kung Lao
Chin Han as Shang Tsung
Joe Taslim as Bi-Han/Sub-Zero
Hiroyuki Sanada as Hanzo Hasashi/Scorpion
and
Sisi Stringer as Mileena
Simon McQouid directed a screenplay by Greg Russo and Dave Callaham, from a story by Russo and Oren Uziel. Produced by McQouid, E. Bennet Walsh, James Wan, and Todd Garner, with a score composed by Benjamin Wallfisch.
The film is a prequel to the tournament, features an expanded backstory too such elements as Scorpion's Kunai Spear and the film's invented Cole Young.
It's hard to know where to begin in reviewing this movie. There's a lot of ground to cover. There's a few categories to cover: Action, Characters, Cinematography, Design, Directions, Score, and Story.
Action wise the movie is fun. Writer Greg Russo touted numerous times that the film took an Avengers-esq approach to the world with action ripped from the games. The action in the film is handled pretty well in motion, save for some elements of the directing. Taslim is by far the standout in action, his moves and choreography bring the brutal and violent elements from the Raid that would be expected. All the fights are in someway important to the movie and helps make them matter but there's definitely a case where a lot of the fights are better than others. Taslim's fights are head and tails above everything else in the film. The bigger issue honestly comes down to no one, Short of Sanada, being even close to the level of Taslim.
While the action is fun, the fatalities are certainly an important element to talk about. They're appropriately gruesome and bloody. The big issue that comes from the fatalities comes from a lot of them presenting the gore in such a manner it's hard to think that the film would have gotten an R-Rating without the cussing. It's very cartoonish in it's use of most of it's fatalities. While it does perform a few of the iconic fatalities, it misses the opportunity for the Pit Stage Fatality in favor of Jax's Head Clap fatality.
Injuries in the film are highly inconsistent. Kano takes several injuries that would stop many others and treats them as merely flesh wounds. Kano suffers such injuries such as a knife in the leg that doesn't hobble him for more than a second, a cut to the back of his ankle that would take down anyone, and a knife in the back that would certainly have killed him. Sonya suffers a stabbing that initially leaves a gaping wound in her shoulder only for it to not bother her minutes later. All this damage dealt to others and Cole is set aside for a minute due to a cut on his arm that most people honestly would stitch up and walk away with. Though after his cut, he does battle Goro with punches that dent trucks but leave Cole the ability to breath and fight back.
The action is fun but it borrows too much of the damage absorption from the games without any kind of explanation of how a person can take this much damage.
Character wise, the film suffers from a lack of really knowing the characters. We get small tidbits, but very little in the way of anything resembling development. The problem being that we get a lot of throw away characters (Reiko, Kabal, Nitara, Reptile) who fans really like but do little to nothing to make their presence known. Out of the protagonists we get nothing from really any of the heroes to give us insights about who they are, save for a very little from Cole Young. The movie gives us an interesting idea of an origin for Liu Kang but does very little to explore it or show how it makes his character.
Really the MVP as far as Characterization goes is Josh Lawson's Kano. Kano keeps most of his character traits from the games and is as much attitude as you would expect. Aside from that everyone else plays off as very cookie-cutter even if their performances are good. Though, Chin Han's Shang Tsung left a lot to be desired, while his costume his cool and he has that characters' regality, he's not menacing in any form and that is a disappointment. Tadanobu Asano's Raiden is very bland and a mixed bag, at times he's kind, cruel, and unwilling to change anything.
The movie looks beautiful in a lot of ways and in a lot of places. Chicago looks beautiful before Sub-Zero's attack with the snowfall, the factory and fighting arena's all look grand and Sonya's trailer looks properly lived in, if not a little elaborate. Raiden's temple is odd, in a lot of places it looks and feels like a Set in the movie and doesn't feel very weighty as an environment. A lot of the film's underbudget CG belongs to this environment and it shows in a few places.
All the characters of the movie look like their game counterparts. Exceptions come to Kano's red metal and eye which are just absent but hinted at with scarring, and the look of Reptile is dissatisfying. Going with the overtly Lizard look, I wish the design had switched places with the Amazing Spider-Man's Lizard design. My favorite design in the film belongs to Joe Taslim's Sub-Zero, though it's dark enough to question how much Blue is in the character's design.
The film's director, Simon McQuoid is standing behind the camera for his first feature and has done really well, all things considered. He has a great visual eye but none of the shots are visionary or stand out as iconic. The criticism lies much in his handling of some of the action scenes. The fights are overly edited and some shots just don't fit in the storytelling sense. It's nothing damming and I'd like to see more film directed by McQuoid, be it Mortal Kombat or not.
Benjamin Wallfisch's orchestral score is decent, moving in some place, mostly where it calls back to the classic Mortal Kombat theme. The new version of the Techno Syndrome theme that plays over the credits leave a lot to be desired, but hearing the flourishes of the theme in Scorpion's big moment, or when Cole fights Goro really help the score jazz up the energy to get you excited in the fight.
The story is a bit over packed. Theres a lot characters who are classic Mortal Kombat characters responsible for more interesting elements of the lore that get less than a shining moment (Reptile) or seem like a betrayal of their character (Reiko) and the story has a lot of trouble juggling the several leads. In the leads you have: Cole, Sonya, Jax, Liu Kang, Kano, Sub-Zero. ontop of them you have surrounding characters: Reptile, Mileena, Kung Lao, Goro, Shang Tsung, Raiden, Reiko, Kabal, and Nitara. It's a lot of character for an under two hour film.
The story would have been better served cutting a few of these characters, while that would have removed some of the fighting in the movie, it would have allowed a tighter story and better character development. The film needed better writing to really honor the lore of the games, but you can tell Greg Russo's actions are more out of love than (at times) sloppy writing. I feel like I should clarify, he does much better with this script than I could of, but there is criticism to be had.
I'm assuming the work done by Oren Uziel and David Callaham are from earlier drafts of the movie, back when it was rumored to be about a failing Boxer of the name "Cole Turner." (They really missed an opportunity to name him Kole, both times.).
The movies leaves me with a few logic questions (How did the Earthrealm Champions learn any of the villains names? Jax name drops Reiko like there was a formal introduction. How did Kabal know to ask if Kano was at the temple? Kabal has worked with Tsung for a while and hasn't seen Kano and Kano was kidnapped before anyone else could have seen him with the marking. How does Outworld track the champions? Do Outworld champions have a mark? Was Jax's Arcana always going to be metal arms?). I'm not picking on the movie but I am asking questions others might bring up.
In all honesty, this movie is a fun watch, once you sit down with a bucket of popcorn and a drink you're in for a fun and enjoyable movie. If you have fun watching it, questions and logic doesn't matter as much, but for those who aren't having fun you will have questions and it will fall apart pretty fast. For myself, I'd give the movie a 7/10. It's not quite the Avengers level spectacle the production team had wanted, but with the numerous pieces they had to put in place, with nothing aiding the set up it just wasn't going to happen.
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