In theaters where open and streaming exclusively on HBO Max on Friday, April 23.
[Rating: Solid Rock Fist Up]
A gore-happy love letter to a video game franchise that sold itself on excessive, over-the-top violence, Mortal Kombat is the film that fans of the franchise have been waiting for these last 28 or so years. Populated with bloody callbacks to moves, dialogue, and fatalities that inspired cheers and gasps throughout countless arcades, malls, and food courts, the movie front-loads itself with crisp fight scenes, essential world building, and all the contrivances needed to set up absolutely necessary lines like, “Flawless victory,” and “Kano wins.” And thank God for that, because no one needs a Mortal Kombat flick that’s trying to be a real movie. No, what this franchise needs are well-produced, tidy, gory AF fight scenes strung together for the sole purpose of ripping out hearts and crushing heads, and it delivers on that.
The plot, such as it is, comes in pieces throughout the first act, but is rooted in an elemental struggle between “Earthrealm” and “Outworld,” the former in danger of falling into slavery to the latter due to an interdimensional fighting tournament governance system. The losers of the last nine contests, if Earthrealm falls in one more tournament, Sorcerer Shang Tsung (Chin Han) will take possession of humanity on behalf of Outworld. Rather than actually fight the tournament, Shang Tsung decides to kneecap the competition, and sends his warriors to Earthrealm to assassinate the “Chosen Ones,” all marked with a dragon tattoo to indicate their tournament destiny.
Immortal ice demon, Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim), leads this attack on Earthrealm’s champions, some of whom, like the past-his-prime MMA fighter, Cole Young (Lewis Tan), don’t even realize they’re at the center of a universe-spanning feud. Other humans do know what’s going on, like special forces soldiers Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) and Jax (Mehcad Brooks), and once Sub-Zero and the other Outworld baddies commence their attacks, these good guys form up, get an exposition download, and go through their compulsory training montage.
There’s a heap of world-building and character introduction work that needs to be done to set the stage for all of this, but the film wisely keeps things moving, always opting for more fighting and less talking. This is a good thing, too, because when Mortal Kombat slows down long enough to let any of these characters speak about anything except the direction of the next punch, it comes off like a Reddit submission in a middle school fan-fic sub. Luckily, most of the actors seem to know what kind of movie they are in, and have fun with the absurdity of the concept: none more so than Josh Lawson, who plays assassin/smuggler/gang leader Kano with just the right balance of giddy sarcasm and snarl.
Lawson gets all the best lines, and keeps the broader effort from any threat of taking itself seriously, though he does run into some resistance in this regard from Tan, who plays the lead role with all the stoic resonance of a Captain America or Superman. And that’s not what this is all about, for Mortal Kombat is at its best when it keeps the Cole character and his needlessly detailed family history stuff in the background, and lets Kano wisecrack about Gandalf…er, Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano), or clears out room to allow Sub-Zero to freeze and kill shit. When these characters fight, which is often, the scenes do a great deal of work, incorporating crackling fight choreography, in-game easter eggs (like the cowardly repeat leg-sweep), and the over-the-top violence the game always hung its hat on.
And that’s the point, isn’t it? In a world of Street Fighters, Tekkens, and Primal Rages, Mortal Kombat was the bloodiest, most comically violent of all: with each new installment upping the ante on the gruesome fatalities that defined the franchise. People with even a passing familiarity with the game will come to Mortal Kombat expecting hearts to get ripped out, heads exploded, souls sucked out, and bodies sawed clean in half…and they will not be disappointed. The movie starts with fights, has fights up to and after the middle, closes with a big ass fight, and manages to make them all straight up slaughterhouses.
The 1995 version of Mortal Kombat made the mistake of thinking people actually wanted to watch a movie about all of this Outworld vs. Earthrealm bullshit, robbing it of anything worth seeing with its neutered PG-13 rating. This 2021 version doesn’t suffer this blunder, for while its predecessor teased audiences with violence to get them to see a movie, this newest incarnation inverts that maneuver, teasing audiences with a movie to get them to see violence. It also manages to squeeze over a dozen of the game’s classic characters into the action, which is no small feat considering its brisk 105-minute runtime.
Even so, some marquee names get more time than others, with Cole Young (not a franchise regular) weirdly getting the hero’s arc. His family’s connection to the tournament does anchor some of the narrative’s most tenuous load bearing points, yet having one of the game’s more recognizable faces lead the story’s charge would have been nice, as would more (any?) time with the actual tournament around which all of this is supposed to orbit. It doesn’t matter, though, because as was already covered: this isn’t really a movie. No, this is an excuse to watch familiar characters beat the life out of each other without going through the tedious process of learning move and fatality sets on a button layout. Director Simon McQuoid and his team of writers took this excuse and ran with it, playing the hits for fans of a gaming franchise that has been waiting a long time for someone to do right by Mortal Kombat on the big screen.
“Obvious Child” is the debut novel of Warren Cantrell, a film and music critic based out of Seattle, Washington. Mr. Cantrell has covered the Sundance and Seattle International Film Festivals, and provides regular dispatches for Scene-Stealers and The Playlist. Warren holds a B.A. and M.A. in History, and his hobbies include bourbon drinking, novel writing, and full-contact kickboxing.
Comments on this entry are closed.