Formula: Mortal Kombat ^ Power Rangers + More Blood
Mortal Kombat was not my game growing up. I either had the wrong console for it or my parents were against it. I really don't remember*. So, I have a small list of things I associate with the game: fatalities and extreme gore, Sub-Zero and Scorpion, and that music. With that as my rubric, I'll call the recent film a base hit.
*Probably the former. My parents were not strict at all about the content I could play/watch.
Even if I was a huge fan of the game series, the mythology isn't what I'm showing up to the movie for. Smartly, the movie gives the bare essentials of a story. There's a mythical tournament called Mortal Kombat. There's Earthworld and Otherworld, and if Earthworld loses another tournament, humans become enslaved or something. Each world has "champions" who can compete in Mortal Kombat. The champions have special powers they have to unlock. More specific to this movie is that the Otherworld champions come to Earth to kill the Earthworld champions before the tournament even begins, so the Earthworld champions have to discover their super powers in time to fight back. This is very much chapter one in a planned film series, because it doesn't even get to the actual Mortal Kombat tournament. In that way, this movie reminded me a lot of that recent Power Rangers movie. It's a lot of exposition and set up. For most of the movie, the protagonists haven't discovered their powers. I was very aware that they weren't dialing the action or stakes up to the max. While I could tell this movie was holding back, it laid all the groundwork to go completely nuts with any sequels they make. For that reason, this movie gets a somewhat incomplete grade. I won't know until the sequels whether or not the holding back in this movie was worth it.
That isn't to say this movie holds back on all the goods. There are plenty of fights and, more importantly, gory fatalities. It never goes too long between fights and the choreography of said fights is satisfying. I could tell the movie was full of callbacks from the game, even if I didn't get them all. However, even I got chills when I heard a Scorpion "Get over here!"
I don't have investment in any of the characters, so none of those inclusions or exclusions bothered me. Apparently, the protagonist of the movie, Cole Young (Lewis Tan), is an invention for the movie. Given that, I wish he was a little more interesting as a character. But he could fight, and that's all that matters. Joe Taslim plays a good Sub-Zero, playing the character much like a cocky Terminator. Hiroyuki Sanada makes a great Scorpion. Josh Lawson's Kano is the stand out character as the primary comic relief. No one in the cast is a big name or (not to be mean) likely to ever be one. They seemed to cast more for fit. What's nice too is that they don't have to worry about keeping the cast together for sequels, so they can keep future movies relatively cheap. I'd be fine with this becoming another Underworld series.
There is one absolutely unforgiveable aspect of the movie. They don't really use the Mortal Kombat song until the end credits. That's inexcusable. There isn't a 90s kid alive who wasn't watching this movie waiting for that needle drop to let them know that things were about to get nuts. I'll say, that's a lot of the reason I came out of this movie feeling like I only got act 1 of something. I appreciate the desire to save something for the sequels. There's a long list of characters they didn't get to yet. They don't even have the titular tournament in this. The song is not something you sit on for long-term payoff. That needs to be used once a movie. Hell, I'd be fine if they used it once a fight.
Mortal Kombat shows considerable restraint, even with all the excesses it does include. There's plenty to entertain the people who turn on the movie with the right expectations. It lays a great foundation for what I hope is at least a couple more movies. Other than the song whiff, I'm not sure what else I could've asked for.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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