An excerpt from my script review for Mortal Kombat which will be available 04/26/21:
3.) Quality of Characters
Cole.
From what I gathered, he’s a new addition to this story.
I enjoyed him, his relationship with his daughter, and his somewhat unusual marriage in that he and Allison were currently separated, but both wanted to make it work.
(Begging the question of why did they split up initially? Aside from the obvious, because…plot.)
Then onto those we know…
Reptile and Sub-Zero both had really cool intros. I’m not an MK superfan by any means, but even I remembered their powers and enjoyed how they were utilized in certain scenes.
But what about the clichés?
Yes there were those.
Kano and Sonya being two.
Kano was the asshole that is a constant thorn in Cole’s side only to turn buddy in the end.
Sonya, isn’t a champion…yet, but we knew it’ll be coming during the final big battle sequence.
But the last part I wanted to talk about here were all the other heroes and villains.
If you constantly need to include the original character descriptions in parenthesis throughout your script, you’ve got a problem.
Now Mr. Russo is working with source material, in this instance, that requires particular names and looks, but for your own script make sure you’re clearly defining your characters through their actions in relation to the plot.
(Especially if they have wings or unhinged jaws!)
Failure to do so, even if the names are clearly distinguishable, and your reader’s attention will become disconnected from the world you’re creating.
Remember we want readers to be so engaged they forget they’re reading.
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