Mortal Kombat - Movie Review

Critics Score - 4 of 10

General Audience Score - 6 of 10

Video game adaptations to the big screen have a very spotty track record at best, from some of the original NES games getting adapted back in the 90’s, through to today, with a resurgence of popular games from Sonic to Resident Evil to a Tomb Raider reboot finding space on the big screen. But these films are often cash grabs with a marketable name and already established fan bases to secure dollars in the bank for studios looking to make a quick couple million, with very little quality going into the overall product. In comes the new Mortal Kombat film, ready to take on all comers with it’s spine ripping, blood soaked and fatality loving fan base hoping to make an inspired transferral to the theatrical. With two other Mortal Kombat films that predate our current century and are generally regarded as low caliber movie fare, can this new outing into the Earthrealm improve in elevating the brands video game to movie adaptations? For a film from this genre, that’s a tall order, a tough fight, the kind of Kombat not made for mere Mortals.

SYNOPSIS - This tournament kicks off with a Japanese family from the 1600’s getting attacked by a Chinese Man named Bi-Han (Joe Taslim) that has the ability to freeze things and the ninja husband and father Hanzo (Hiroyuki Sanada) fights valiantly against him but to no avail. A child hidden under the floorboards is the only one to survive and then we fast forward to present day where Cole (Lewis Tan) is a two bits fighter with a heart of gold who loves his daughter and wife and scraps up whatever fights he can to take care of them. The convoluted story that seems like it was being written as they filmed then takes us to the Outworld and we learn that there’s a tournament of champions called Mortal Kombat that, Earthrealm has lost nine in a row and the rules state if they lose to Outworld one more time, Earthrealm is going down. Seems like a dumb rule to me. So they need to get all the “chosen” fighters together which ends up being a pretty rag tag team of misfits to stop an Outworld boss of sorts Shang Tsung (Chin Han) and his group of badass ultimate bad guys. The story and plot are pretty much pointless, nobody is here to watch and great dialogue or extremely dramatic tension hanging in the air between these actors. Which none of these performers are really trying that hard or look that interested in it all as they go about their work of becoming the next American Ninja Warrior.

By the time a whole lot of blood has spilled to the point that everyone in the film should be seriously woozy and getting themselves to a hospital for a much needed transfusion, we’ve learned that there’s a reason why nobody recommended this film to us. Mortal Kombat revolves around the ultra violent fight sequences, some of which are inventive and well choreographed, the fluidity of the action and the CGI that is used is generally decent enough to keep the average watcher entertained. The film does have a good amount of total fights throughout and uses some inventive techniques to execute interesting things like special power discovery and the infamous Fatality to keep action enthusiasts and fans of the games intrigued. There’s also a fair amount of humor used and while some of it falls as flat as a fighter post beatdown, it does have some amusing moments and funny one liners. But you generally know what you’re signing up for when you sit down to watch Mortal Kombat, there won’t be anything worthy of Academy Awards consideration, there’s no acting on the level of say, Daniel Day Lewis, but there will be blood.

SUMMARY - This film is watchable, it edges out it’s predecessors, even the better of the two, by a narrow margin. But this is not very good cinema, I would hesitate to use the word good at all, but it’s perfectly fine for what it is; a bunch of characters you knew as a kid pummeling each other into an oblivion. So don’t go in with expectations, because they won’t be met, but it’s serviceable in offering up some big, dumb, bloody, sometimes funny, Mortal Kombat.