Fight
Mortal Kombat (2021): 4 out of 10: Struggling MMA fighter Cole Young (Lewis Tan) discovers that his mysterious dragon birthmark comes with responsibilities considerably beyond explaining it at the beach. An ice-wielding assassin named Sub-Zero is hunting him and his family, and apparently Cole has been selected to help defend Earth in an ancient fighting competition. Given his professional record, Earth may want to start putting its affairs in order.
Joining Cole are Sonya Blade, Jax, and an Australian mercenary whose principal superpower appears to be being an obnoxious bastard. They seeks sanctuary with Lord Raiden and his collection of martial arts enthusiasts. There, Earth’s prospective champions must unlock their special abilities before the sorcerer Shang Tsung eliminates the competition ahead of schedule.
Expect ninjas, monsters, ominous references to prophecy, and a selection process that makes ordinary tournament registration look refreshingly straightforward. Do not however actually expect a Mortal Kombat Tournament in a movie called Mortal Kombat.
The Good
The Good: The first ten minutes of Mortal Kombat ‘21 are excellent. Turn the movie off after ten minutes and then spend the rest of your life happy and thinking this was a good movie and not a complete waste of my time.
Outside of the first ten minutes, Mortal Kombat has a few co-ed fights where men fight woman instead of having the woman ghettoed in fighting each other so kudos for that. There is one very good kill scene. and a couple of decent ones.
The Bad
The Bad: I don’t even know where to begin. The list is seemingly endless. Mortal Kombat is touted as a serious “R” rated version of Mortal Kombat.
So of course there is no nudity and despite all the claims, only a couple of cool kills. 2008’s Rambo had more gore in any random five minute clip than this movie manages throughout the entire run. And this is that CGI blood with no decent practical effects backing it up.
The bad guys have no personality. The head bad guy Shang Tsung resembles, for all the world, a drag queen version of Rita Repulsa.
“The prophecy says” must be quoted at least a dozen times. No actual prophecy is provided.
Forced groan worthy fan service is forced and groan worthy
Sets include Gary, Indiana and a fighting pit right out of the original Star Trek series,
I cannot emphasise enough how little style and apparent talent is on display on the screen
The Ugly
The Ugly: There is no fighting tournament in the Mortal Kombat movie. Let me repeat that the filmmakers (Director Simon McQuoid and writers Greg Russo, Oren Uziel, and Dave Callaham. Yeah, I am naming names) took an hour and fifty minutes of screen time and managed to not have a fighting tournament. (It is teased in a post credit zinger along with an appearance by Johnny Cage).
One does not make a Godzilla film and have him never make it to Tokyo Harbor. One does not make a Lady Chatterley’s Lover film and have the movie end without getting to the gardener. How does one make a Mortal Kombat movie and never quite get around to the reason for the season?
Also, how can you have a Mortal Kombat movie without Johnny Cage? This is the easiest laydown. Make your protagonist Johnny Cage, have him played by Nicolas Cage, and the script writes itself. Instead, Mortal Kombat creates a new protagonist. A boring vanilla fighter down on his luck played by a boring vanilla actor down on his luck (Lewis Tan).
And Lewis “whitest guy ever” Tan has a family which the movie refuses to kill despite plenty of great opportunities. In fact, for a movie called Mortal Kombat, there seems to be a hesitancy with the Mortal side of things… Or the Kombat, for that matter.
In Conclusion
In Conclusion: Mortal Kombat has 101 playable characters. Some of them are admittedly lazy palette swapped ninjas, but still there is plenty of material there. Plus, it is a fighting tournament where the object is to kill your opponent violently. The drama and action are baked in. A more fantasy-based version of Bloodsport. This is not rocket science.
I think the filmmaker had dreams of a Mortal Kombat universe in their head, so they made a prequel that was careful not to hurt any characters they wanted for future installments. After all, you can’t have a universe if everyone is dead. The problem with this approach, as we have seen with other attempts (Cough… Tom Cruise’s The Mummy… Cough), is you need to make an appealing product first then build the universe? Why anyone would want to watch a sequel to this film is beyond me.
You have my attention now. Give me your best. Don’t hold back thinking you need to save something for later. There is no later guys.
The 1995 Mortal Kombat was not an excellent film, but it was not boring and dour…. This is worse than that one Street Fighter film.. (Fill in the one you think I am referring to. There are a few options.) And if you are thinking of making a sequel, Nicolas Cage works cheap. Just saying.
Speaking of thrones, it also must be quite the hike to the facilities.
First, your movie is called Mortal Kombat. This creates the opportunity for character growth. Even more bizarre, it fits in with Cole’s origin story and creates a dramatic callback to the opening scene.
I swear they must have originally had her killed in the script and it didn’t test well, so they retconned. I can’t imagine you set up this dramatic turn and then say whoopies just kidding.