I remember vividly the first time I saw Mortal Kombat at the arcade. We had been used to bloodless cartoon violence and then this tidal wave of brutality hit our little eyes and we wanted more. It was a wild reinvention of the genre visually, but the gameplay was much the same.
Mortal Kombat (dir. Simon McQuoid) has a difficult challenge. Does It have to appease the loyalists that played the game years ago? Does it attempt to make a film that keeps the action fans happy? Does it just have to be a good video game adaption? Is it all three?
The film immediately plunged into the goodwill of the game fans and action fans by starting with the classic battle between Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada) and Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim) in feudal Japan. This fight sequence is not for the faint of heart. It is brutal. It lives up to the ethos of the game, gore on top of gore. People were looking away from the screen in disgust. So far, so good. until….
It cuts to the modern-day and immediately loses the fans by introducing Cole young (Lewis Tan), a new character created just for the film. He is a human punching bag that is struggling to support his wife and child while getting involved in underground MMA fights.
The film then follows Cole as he learns about the bigger battle going on behind the scenes. The control for Earth is in the balance. Mortal Kombat is a fighting tournament between the many realms, Earth just happens to be one.
This info dump requires a lot of exposition but it’s done quite well with the introduction of Kano, played by Australian Josh Lawson. He steals most of the scenes he is in by unleashing a torrent of insulting barbs that were equally crass and funny. He is the person having the most fun and I think who the audience identifies with the most. At one point another character shoots fire from their hands, and he asks when is he going to learn that. He is really responding to the absurdity of the situation he is facing.
The film then progresses with breaking a lot of its own rules that it set up for itself as it tumbles towards the final fight of the film and if Earth wins or loses. The fight scenes are a mixed bag, some a good, others a bit of a CGI mess, while others are inventive and fun.
As a Mortal Kombat film, I think maybe 6.5, it didn’t really nail the lore of the games, and after so many games there is a lot of lore they could have drawn upon. It wasn’t an amazing action film. Some fights were good, others blah. As a video game movie adaption, it actually might be the best one, but that isn’t a very high bar to beat. As a big dumb action film that knows its a big dumb action film, then I think yeah, it was a bit of fun, especially Kano.
30 April 2021
Luke McMeeken-Ruscoe