While there have been multiple movies made based on video games, most are not very good. In point of fact, some are notoriously awful. Sure, there are some out there I can honestly claim I liked. OK, there are very few. But I will admit to having enjoyed last year’s Sonic the Hedgehog, a movie that was actually fun. Many video games do have in-story plots that could, theoretically, be made into good movies. And yet, somehow many of these movies are at best dull. Why can’t a good video game movie be made? Those make more sense as the basis for a movie than, say, board games. And God knows some folks have actually made board game movies too…
Now, the old Mortal Kombat movie from the 90s was more or less fine, something with a fanbase of its own, and like other video games, Mortal Kombat does have a lot of backstory to what is basically just a hyperviolent beat-’em-up game. Well, it could be a good movie, actually. And there’s a new one out now.
After an opening in 17th century Japan where the fighter eventually known as Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim) fights and eventually kills the man who will come back from the dead as Scorpion (Hiroyuki Saneda). That’s from the game’s backstory and happens in the first ten minutes, so I don’t really think of that as much of a spoiler, but that opening scene is very well done, and any time in the movie that Sub-Zero and Scorpion throw down are some really well done action scenes. Easily the movie’s best moments are when those two meet up and try to kill each other.
Then we skip to the present and things go a bit downhill.
See, we’re told there’s a tournament called “Mortal Kombat” (and yes, the movie does note that “Kombat” is misspelled), and Earthrealm has lost nine in a row. If it loses one more, then Otherworld, a place of evil, can invade and rule for all eternity. Fortunately, a prophecy says a new group of champions will save the day. Lightning god Raiden (Tadanobu Asano) is guarding the next round of fighters, people who have a dragon symbol somewhere on their bodies, many gained after killing someone who once had one, but then there’s wannabe MMA fighter Cole Young (Lewis Tan) who was for some reason born with one. However, Otherworld ruler Shang Tsung (Chin Han) has been sending his agents, including Sub-Zero, to Earth early to kill the fighters before the tournament can start. Cole, along with Jax (Mehcad Brooks) , Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), shifty arms dealer Kano (Josh Lawson), and trained fighters Liu Kang (Ludi Lin) and Kung Lao (Max Huang), need to defeat Shang Tsung’s agents to save the Earth from an eternity of rule by evil.
Now, on the surface, that sounds promising. And, truthfully, some of the special effects and many of the fight scenes are well done. True, even some of the fights are a bit of a letdown, particularly late in the movie, but for the most part, anyone just looking for some cool martial arts fights mixed with modern special effects to recreate the fighters from the video game will probably be pleased.
For anyone else, maybe not so much. The original movie from the 90s has a campy charm and doesn’t take itself all that seriously. This movie, not so much. Whenever the characters aren’t fighting, they seem to be taking everything going on around themselves oh-so-seriously. The net result is a movie that feels very ponderous as it talks about tournaments involving soul-stealing demon lords than it probably should. The lone exception there is Lawson’s Kano, the one actor who seems to get how silly this material ultimately is and acts accordingly. Sure, he’s probably intended as comic relief, but for a movie where an ice ninja and an undead guy with a hook are among the two most popular characters, there probably should have been a lot more of that.
Grade: C
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