Mortal Kombat was released on April 23, 2021. Here are my thoughts about this movie. Spoiler warning before you continue; so if you haven’t seen the movie, I would say turn back now. You have are warned.
Sub-Zero and Scorpion
The film’s beginning sets up how the feud started between Sub-Zero of the Lin Kuei and Scorpion of the Shirai Ryu clan. In 17th century Japan, Bi Han (Sub Zero) attacks Hanzo Hashai’s (Scorpion) home. Bi Han’s purpose in doing this was to destroy Scorpion’s entire bloodline. He was able to kill his wife, son, and him. However, his daughter survived and was saved by Raiden. I think this was an excellent start to the movie; however, they lost me when it jumps to the scene of Cole Young.
Joe Taslim As Sub Zero In Mortal Kombat (Warner Brothers) Hiroyuki Sanada As Scorpion In Mortal Kombat (Warner Brothers)
Enter Cole Young
Cole Young is a former MMA fighter who is taken fights for 200 dollars. Jax is observing the fight. Jax later asks Cole about his dragon tattoo, and he says it was a birthmark.
There is a lot of stuff in between, but the bottom line is Outworld has won 9 tournaments, and they need to win one more to invade earth. This is where the movie takes a hell of a turn for the worse. Instead of fighting in the tournament, Shang Tsung has sent assassins to kill those with Dragon Tattoos so that earth will be defenseless with no tournament participants.
Mortal Kombat Rules
The rules of this Mortal Kombat dictate that killing someone with a Dragon Tattoo is passed along to the person who killed them. Also, you have to awaken your arcana to access superhuman moves. For example, Liu Kang arcana allows him to shoot fireballs; Kano’s allows him to shoot a laser from his eye. You must have a Dragon Tattoo to access arcana.
The movie tries to pay homage to the game by referencing the character’s catchphrases from the game. The special effects were not that great either. This did not appear to be a 50 million dollar film; it seemed as if it was more like a badly dubbed Kung Fu movie.
Conclusion
The irony of the entire movie is, it is based on a game, that a tournament fighting game, but guess what? There was no tournament. Out of everything, there was not a tournament. Yes, characters were fighting each other, but there was no official tournament.
In the end, they teased that the sequel will be the tournament. I think they thought too highly of themselves even to think Warner will payout for the sequel to this; they would have been better off doing the tournament. On top of that, Liu Kang did not play a pivotal role as he did in the previous movies and the game.
If anything, the movie was mislabeled. It should have been a story based on Scorpion and Sub Zero. Their story was the most cohesive, and their fights were the best. The movie was better than the last Mortal Kombat movie, which was in 1997, and it was called Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. However, it just didn’t hit the mark of what you would expect from a series based on one of the bestselling games of 2019 that have sold more than 8 million copies worldwide.
Matt C Bennett here. Feel free to reach out to me with your comments about this blog and other suggestions for me here