In 1992, Midway Games released a new arcade fighting game, Mortal
Kombat. Created by Ed Boon and John Tobias, the game was originally set to
be an adaptation of that year’s sci-fi action film Universal Soldier starring
Jean-Claude Van Damme; but, when that idea ultimately went nowhere, it was
transformed into a more fantastical fighting game defined by its incredibly
graphic finishing moves known as ‘Fatalities’. And while those Fatalities ended
up putting the game in some major hot water with certain crowds to the point
where it was largely responsible for creating North America’s video game rating
system, the ESRB, it also helped make Mortal Kombat an instant staple of
both the arcade and home consoles once the game was adapted to the latter
format. Since then, the series has spawned numerous follow-ups and spin-offs
that have sold around 54 million copies worldwide, and in 1995, it was brought
to the big screen courtesy of director Paul W.S. Anderson. Upon its release,
the first Mortal Kombat film did incredibly well financially, and
despite a generally mixed critical reception, mainly due to it being a heavily
toned-down take on the series so that it could maintain a PG-13 rating, it was
enough of a hit with fans that, even nowadays, it is still considered to be one
of the better films based on a hit video game. However, the same can’t be said
for its 1997 sequel, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, which, despite
boasting a budget nearly double the size of the original, somehow ended up
being an all-around cheaper production that promptly killed any chances for a
third installment.
Yes, because of how disastrous Annihilation turned
out, a planned third installment spent several years stuck in development hell.
It wasn’t until 2010 after Warner Bros purchased the franchise rights from
Midway when the latter declared bankruptcy when this proposed threequel was
finally shelved in favor of a full-on cinematic reboot. Originally, the project
was set to be developed by director Kevin Tancharoen and writer Oren Uziel, who
garnered a lot of attention that year when they made an eight-minute fan film, Mortal
Kombat: Rebirth. The short proved to be such a big hit that Warner Bros and
NetherRealm Studios granted Tancharoen the opportunity to make a web series
based on the franchise, Mortal Kombat: Legacy, which ran for two seasons
from 2011 to 2013. And while Tancharoen was then officially tapped to direct
the reboot, he ultimately backed out of the production a month after Legacy’s
conclusion. Thankfully, this wouldn’t be the end for the new Mortal Kombat film
as James Wan (who, at the time, was steadily becoming one of the most prominent
directors in the industry) signed on to produce it in 2015 with commercial
director Simon McQuoid stepping in as its new director. And now, nearly two and
a half decades after the franchise’s previous cinematic incarnation fizzled
out, the new Mortal Kombat film is upon us and promises to be a far more
faithful take on the franchise, especially due to its R-rating. As you might
have guessed, this means that we finally get to witness the Mortal Kombat
franchise’s infamous ‘fatalities’ in this all-around crowd-pleaser that may be
far from perfect but still manages to deliver on some utterly satisfying fan service.
For the past several centuries, the fate of humanity has
been dependent on the results of an intense tournament known as Mortal Kombat
that involves warriors from Earth, AKA Earthrealm, and the dark and mysterious dimension
known as Outworld. Unfortunately, for the people of Earthrealm, Outworld has
won the last nine tournaments, and if they win the next one, said victory will
allow the sinister sorcerer Shang Tsung (Chin Han) and his constituents the
opportunity to conquer Earthrealm. Thus, with the threat of Shang Tsung’s wrath
more prevalent than ever before, Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano), the god of
Thunder and protector of Earthrealm, begins to assemble a varied collection of
warriors, including Shaolin monk Liu Kang (Ludi Lin) and vicious mercenary Kano
(Josh Lawson), to train for the tournament. Another notable recruit is Cole
Young (Lewis Tan), an MMA fighter who learns that he has a significant
connection to Hanzo Hasashi (Hiroyuki Sanada), a warrior from 17th century
Japan who was killed by one of Shang Tsung’s warriors, Bi-Han AKA Sub-Zero (Joe
Taslim). As the Earthrealm crew soon discovers, however, Shang Tsung has no
intent on playing fair as he unleashes his minions upon them to ensure that no
one can get in the way of their conquest.
One of the first questions that I’m sure a lot of people have
about this film is if it manages to deliver on Mortal Kombat’s trademark
violence in ways that the 1995 film didn’t, and simply put, it does. Now,
obviously, it doesn’t go ‘all out’ with its violence to avoid getting hit with
the dreaded NC-17 rating (which means that it’s objectively less violent than
the games themselves), but still, what’s there is presented in all its ridiculously
messed-up glory thanks to the film’s excellent action sequences that, for the
most part, help to make up for its narrative shortcomings. For one thing, given
that this is clearly meant to be a ‘franchise starter’ film, it starts off on a
bit of a slow note (not counting the excellent pre-title sequence that sets up
the conflict between Hanzo Hasashi AKA Scorpion and Bi-Han AKA Sub-Zero,
arguably the franchise’s most popular characters) in its efforts to set up the plot
and the world of Mortal Kombat. It also doesn’t help that, when it comes
to said plot and character development, it’s a lot of generically basic material,
especially when it comes to the film’s main protagonist Cole Young, a film-exclusive
character who’s mainly just your typical audience surrogate. Despite all this,
however, it all comes together nicely in the film’s second half since that’s where
all the best action sequences occur along with some great nods to the franchise,
including a pitch-perfect utilization of the franchise’s iconic theme song, ‘Techno
Syndrome’ by The Immortals. In short, it’s a lot like what happened with the
first Avengers, which also had a basic plot and started off rather slow but
then got going at just the right time to deliver on exactly what fans had come
to see.
When it comes to the previous live-action Mortal Kombat films,
their casting efforts admittedly garnered mixed results. While the first film
featured standout performances from the likes of Christopher Lambert as Raiden
and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Shang Tsung, the rest of the cast could be hit or
miss, which only proceeded to get worse with the sequel, Annihilation,
especially since more than half of the main protagonists were recast. Thankfully,
this isn’t the case with the 2021 reboot, which spawns a much better all-around
ensemble. Despite what I said earlier about his character being a basic
audience surrogate who is largely overshadowed by all the other classic Mortal
Kombat characters, Lewis Tan does headline the film nicely as Cole Young. The
same goes for Jessica McNamee in the lead female role of Sonya Blade, who gets
a bit more to work with as her arc revolves around her efforts to prove herself
since she’s not immediately tapped as one of Earthrealm’s heroes. Ultimately,
though, the biggest standouts of the cast are its supporting players such as
Ludi Lin and Max Huang as the duo of Liu Kang and Kung Lao and Josh Lawson, who’s
a full-on comedic riot as the hilariously scummy Kano. And then there’s the duo
of Sub-Zero and Scorpion who, despite their enduring popularity, were mostly
underused in the original Mortal Kombat films. It’s a much different
story in this film, though, with Joe Taslim being perfectly intimidating as Sub-Zero
and Hiroyuki Sanada getting some of the best dramatic moments in the film even
if Scorpion isn’t in it as much by comparison.
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have much of a
history with the Mortal Kombat games. In fact, to be perfectly honest, the
build-up to this film’s release was the main reason why I’ve even started
playing them recently since my only real experiences with the franchise
beforehand was via the original films and the rare instances where I came
across an MK game in an arcade. And when it comes to the latter, I do
mean ‘rare’ since once I was old enough to legitimately show any kind of
interest in the franchise, it was at a point where most arcades began to rely
more on newer games rather than older ones. Nevertheless, I was well aware of the
franchise during my teenaged years, which then led to me watching the undeniably
flawed but largely entertaining 1995 film adaptation… and its infamously
horrendous 1997 sequel. And now that I’ve seen this new one, I can safely say
that 2021’s Mortal Kombat is the series’ best film adaptation yet and
one of the best video game films ever made, even if the latter half of that statement
isn’t saying much given most of the other films in the genre. Now, don’t get me
wrong, it’s far from perfect; it takes a while to get going and is as basic as
you can get from a narrative perspective. And yet, thanks to an awesome second
half that gives us much of what has made this the smash hit of a franchise that
it is, this is very much the snazzy and highly faithful big-budget cinematic
take on Mortal Kombat that fans have been waiting to see for years. As
such, I’m sure I’m not the only one who would love to see this get a sequel
that, should it follow the example of the best parts of its predecessor, could be
an even better showcase of everything that is MORTAL KOMBAT!!!
Rating: 4.5/5
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