Mortal Kombat (2021)
Get over here.
This will be my third time watching tonight’s movie. That’s not bad at all considering how it released last year. I feel like stating that is sort of tipping my hand - I mean, how often do you repeat-view something that you hate? Well, be that as it may, you still probably want to know all the gritty bone-breaking details, so lets get right to fight iime and do your best imitation screams, it’s time for Mortal Kombat.
Our story here is actually a bit different from our previous incarnations - see, despite being a movie about a tournament, this one doesn’t actually have a tournament in it. Instead, this is the journey of a new person we don’t know from anything previously - Cole, a bit of a high-potential wasted sort of martial arts fighter whose world gets flipped turned upside down thanks to some power-moves in anticipation of the next big titular tournament. A small group of fighters have stumbled upon and done a lot of research on a certain misspelled tournament and a mysterious dragon tattoo that goes along with it, and it turns out the Earth-folk are probably the only ones in the dark about it. The Outworld realm has sent out a bit of an assassin to deal with the earth fighters before the tournament comes up to assure their final win and total domination over Earth - allowing them to take domain over it. All of this is largely expected from the movie if you know the name - although you might have thought it would be going somewhere else considering it actually starts off in the past with one famous pair of ninjas doing battle.
Actors are good here. In some situations, the casting is practically perfect. You’ll look at some of if not most of these characters and know exactly who they are supposed to be if you’ve played the games they were in at all. That casting isn’t just on looks though - when it comes to the main pair of ninjas, they got some folks who can actually do their own fights. Heck, one of them they even had to have slow down for the cameras! The funnest fact about this altogether is that most everyone in it you probably haven’t heard of in the same way as a name like Arnold or the Rock’s. For people you haven’t really noticed name dropped all over, they do a phenomenal job here, and it becomes a hard sell as to if the actors or the characters are the larger portion of why they are so good.
On the side of the characters, they really have some fun with what’s on deck for the games. I mean, don’t get me wrong - I’m not the most knowledgeable of the Mortal Kombat franchise, I don’t think I’ve really even played one past the Sega Genesis - so I can’t tell you how accurate the personalities are to the games as they developed more story than the first had, but its good. The obvious steal of the movie is Kano, who provides a ridiculous amount of scene-chewing personality and jokes. The hero’s have some good chemistry with each other, and there is a large amount of villains to counterpoint their team - although they largely experience “expendable baddies” syndrome, where outside of two to three of them, the rest are just there to fight a good guy and probably die.
I don’t think that’s what he meant when he yelled freeze.
You want things to look at? Oh boy do we have them. We’ve got costumes - and they look great and range all over the place from normal mundane to fancy-intricate armor suits. We’ve got CG enhanced things like bionic arms and evil bat-winged sirens. Oh, and you want special moves? How about eye lasers, sonic rings, fire-punches, soul-sucking, and fatalities? Yeah, it’s got all those things that you’d want out of a Mortal Kombat movie - I will admit though most of the real fancy stuff comes from Sub Zero until the later part of the movie, but I’m not complaining with all the stuff they give us.
The sets also have a lot of nice variety to them - some different earth locations, from a fighting ring to the streets, desert to rock temples, as well as some shots of the other world. Shot compositions are also good, and you don’t suffer through too many jarring cuts even though plenty of cuts do exist here and there - it’s the power of people that can do their choreography and not having to cut around it not actually being the people. The choreography I just mentioned is also great - and they really implement a bunch of that game feel, where things are escalating and the environment is getting worked in to it. If you wanted an action movie, you should be quite happy by the time you leave.
Audio is balanced well. They also play with the music in a nice way, and by the time you finally hear the iconic theme drop, you’ll be most of the way out of your seat anyways. I’ll be honest, outside of the main theme, which admittedly has nostalgic attachment for me, I don’t really remember the rest of the music at all, despite knowing it was in there and doing a wonderful job of keeping scenes pumped up when it wanted to, or feeling more sad when it needs to have a sad event going on. I can see someone maybe feeling like some of the lines aren’t delivered the best - but honestly I feel it’s more along the line of the desired character personality then it is anything poorly delivered.
The lads are back in town.
If you want a violent good time, with plenty of effects that makes you want to just go beat up a punching bag afterwards, then you’ve found the right flick. If you are a fan of the game franchise, I think you’ll be quite happy with it - even if some of the details aren’t spot on. It’s put together well, and the fights are solid as heck - something you’d really want out of a movie based on fighting games. If I had to pick a weak point for the movie, I’d say I didn’t really care for the main character at all compared to some of the rest, but that’s really me reaching for something to bring the movie down instead of just enjoying the effects filled fight for your life ride.