There used to be 2 camps, those who played Mortal Kombat and those who played Killer Instinct. I hated KI, I can’t remember why, I think because of how the characters moved. It felt more sluggish, which means a lot when you’re playing a fighting game.
Ever since the first Mortal Kombat game came out, I was pretty obsessed with it. And when I heard they were making a movie I couldn’t be more excited. They talked about the movie in a magazine but in it they promoted their website, the first time I’ve ever seen anything like that done before.
But instead of a simple web address like we have now, back then you had to type in 20 different letters and numbers, all of this printed in a magazine like it was a clickable link or something.
You also needed to type it in perfectly or you’d get an error and you’d have to do it over again, which I remember having to do numerous times on the school computer.
And I’m pretty sure looking up the Mortal Kombat movie on the school computer wasn’t something they allowed.
I was a Sega kid while everyone else I knew in my neighborhood was full on into Nintendo, but as soon as the first game came out on the Genesis, I fell in love with fighting games. And unlike the SNES, the Sega Genesis got all the violent fighting games.
There are so many terrible fighting games out there that I played just because it had a little bit of blood in it.
The ones off the top of my head (that I can remember) are Clayfighter, the dumb claymation fighting game, Primal Rage, the dumb fighting game with dinosaurs, and Samurai Shodown, I missed a lot of the 2nd act to Waterworld because the theater I used to go to had an arcade with Samurai Shodown in it. Which was rare since it was pretty violent.
Because of how violent Mortal Kombat was, you really couldn’t find it outside an arcade unless you owned a console version.
That changed around MK3, that seemed to bring the franchise into just about everywhere, they had MK3 at this Super Walmart that I’d play all the time while my parents went off to buy groceries.
This one time I managed to get to the final boss, but this way older guy showed up and basically took over, saying he knew how to beat him, but ended up getting instantly killed. What an asshole.
It was around MK4 I kind of started to lose interest. They switched to 3D graphics that just looked terrible. I think I stopped going to arcades around this time and mainly only played on the PlayStation.
My interests went more towards survival horror games once Resident Evil came out and I can’t think of a fighting game I’ve played since then.
I was so excited for that first Mortal Kombat movie, but oh man was I let down when I watched it in the theater. A PG-13 Mortal Kombat movie is just ridiculous. Also the 1995 SFX were bad even for that era’s standards.
I think the thing people liked the most about it was the soundtrack, which my guitar teacher at the time loved.
I guess the movie does have its fans, but I just found it lame. But not so lame I didn’t also go see the sequel in the theater on opening day as well. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation might have been the movie that taught me just how bad movies can be.
It’s infamously one of the worst films ever made.
So the question of the hour is where exactly does this new Mortal Kombat movie stack up? It’s better than Annihilation, but literally any fighting game adaptation would be, even the Street Fighter movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme is better and that movie is legendary for how terrible it is. Another stinker I had the displeasure of seeing at the theater.
I also think Mortal Kombat 2 is better than the last film, at least the lead this time wasn’t a character they just made up for the movie, whose powers are basically literal plot armor.
They do give that character Cole a nice sendoff by getting his head crushed to a pulp by Shao Kahn, our evil final boss character from the games.
Cole’s head was the only thing that didn’t have plot armor. And just to really make sure you know he’s dead, Shao Kahn just kicks his headless body into a pit of acid.
I would say Johnny Cage is the lead this time around but not really. As the film goes on it becomes clear that Olivia Munn’s doppelganger is the real main character, whose name is Kitana.
The film opens with Shao Kahn invading Outworld, which is currently ruled over by King Jerrod from Subway. This is the first fight we get and it’s a pretty cool one, each fighter getting their licks in, but ultimately Shao Kahn is the victor, slicing off the King’s fingers and running him through with his giant hammer. It’s a move that kills several characters in this movie.
That’s also a good thing about this movie that I liked, you never really knew who was going to win, as this film has zero qualms about killing off any character.
When taking over Outworld, Shao Kahn also adopts Kitana as his daughter, even taking her mother the queen as his concubine.
Years later we are back to Mortal Kombat, a fighting competition that decides who gets to rule Earth.
All of Earth’s warriors have lost and now in the final 10th tournament. They either win it or all is lost.
To even the playing field, they visit Johnny Cage, a washed-up martial arts movie star, who might as well be Jean-Claude Van Damme, played by Karl Urban.
I’m not fully sold on Karl Urban being Johnny Cage, you know who would be a better match, the actor who plays Homelander opposite Urban on The Boys.
Johnny Cage joins the fight, but bails once he learns the fight is to the death. But the gods who run this thing have already made their decision, forcing him to fight anyway.
His first opponent is Kitana, who kicks his ass but does spare his life. Sonya is also called on, sent to fight Shao Kahn’s zombie ex-wife, who gets a pretty nice death in this with a floor spike through the face.
After the fight Kitana shows up at Raiden’s temple, revealing herself to be a spy for the good guys.
I forgot to mention Kitana has a bodyguard named Jade, the bald lady from the last season of The Last of Us and the new Naughty Dog game Intergalactic, which I don’t think a single person is at all excited for.
I’m assuming Jade is a known MK character, but if I’m being honest I never really played any of the female characters, since my mains were mostly Sub-Zero or Scorpion. Because they were ninjas and ninjas are cool.
Why do you think I went to the theater to see 3 Ninjas? Not because I was a kid and the film starred kids, it was because it had ninjas in the title.
Anyway, Jade finds out that Kitana is betraying Shao Kahn and has her captured.
Thankfully the film does the smartest thing it has ever done and brought back Kano, the foul-mouthed Aussie with a laser eye.
He switched sides to the bad guys in the last film, before getting killed by Sonya. But he is resurrected because he stole this amulet that can give you immense power, something Shao Kahn wants before he enters the tournament.
But to charge this amulet, he needs the power of a god, a god like Raiden.
Realizing how much Outworld kind of sucks, Kano switches back to the good guys’ team.
A sneak attack on Raiden’s temple leaves the lightning god with his throat slit, spilling light, which is a pretty cool scene.
His energy fills the amulet and super charges Shao Kahn, who is now basically unkillable.
There’s then a Jax and Jade fight, I like Jax, I used to play him a lot in the 3rd game because that’s when he got his robot arms, I think.
And by law the only thing cooler than ninjas are robot arms.
It’s weird but I don’t remember a single person asking about or upset that Cole died. He was such a prominent character in the first film, but now all he does is get terrible dialogue and his head crushed.
Another person that sucks in this is Liu Kang, who was the lead character in both of the older Mortal Kombat movies. He’s just kind of there in these newer ones.
Something really weird happens later on during his fight with Shao Kahn. He gets bested and just turns into a fire dragon thing and just flies away.
It was like that Simpsons meme, I have to go now, my planet needs me.
Johnny Cage, Sonya and Jax sneak into Shao Kahn’s castle to steal the amulet back but get caught. Jax gets killed with Shao Kahn’s signature move, pointy end of hammer handle through the neck.
With that mission a giant failure, Johnny Cage and Kano team up to go to the NetherRealm, which is essentially hell.
They need a guide, so they turn to Scorpion for help, who only agrees once he learns Sub-Zero is the one guarding the amulet.
While Johnny Cage and Kano are off on their mission, the Earth’s fighters are still fighting in Mortal Kombat and getting their asses kicked.
Honestly, they lose. All of the fighters still in the tournament are out, the only thing that saves the day is just Kitana switching sides, which seems to be very much against the rules.
She steps up as the main character and kicks Shao Kahn’s ass, only after Johnny Cage, Kano and also Scorpion destroy the amulet supplying Shao Kahn with ultimate power.
His death scene was pretty cool, with Kitana using her fan blades to slice off the top of his head.
They do set things up for a sequel, teasing how they need to bring everyone back to life with the help of the captured sorcerer that brought Kano back.
I don’t know how realistic it will be for a 3rd film. The opening weekend wasn’t too bad, but it quickly dropped off on the second week.
This film got held back a year because it didn’t want to go up against Bugonia, I guess. So instead, they chose to go up against The Devil Wears Prada 2 on fucking Mother’s Day!
I’m still debating what to rate this. On one hand, they did listen to the fans and killed off Cole almost immediately. And the fight sequences were pretty cool to watch. I liked you really had no idea who was going to win or face a brutal death. However, the dialogue in this is just absolutely terrible.
The plot was also lacking, I was meaning to make this a longer review since it has been a while since my last one, but the majority of the movie is just fight sequences.
The plot we do have is a bit silly, basically it’s McGuffin the Movie with everyone after this damn amulet.
The only time the humor really worked for me was when Kano enters the picture again. Right off the bat he’s hilarious. He keeps pestering the guy who resurrected him to make him a new eye.
I didn’t care much for Jade and Kitana, I mentioned it before but the actress that plays Kitana might as well be a clone look-alike of Olivia Munn. It was super distracting.
But maybe not as distracting as the chest armor she wore, as it would move hilariously up and down on her chest as she breathed.
I guess I’m looking at a RENT rating. It wasn’t very good, at least not good enough to see in theaters. I’d honestly just wait until it comes to HBO.
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