This Week: Mortal Combat (2021)

Dear Hollywood,

There are about 20+ Mortal Kombat games out there and each one has dozens of different story arcs depending on which character you select and run through the tournament. Pick one, film it, and put it on the screen. That is all you have to do.

You got close in this one. Putting up the Sub-Zero VS Scorpion story was a FANTASTIC starting point. But then you decided, “Hey, let’s introduce a character nobody knows about and use him as the focus of the movie.”

Now, why did they decide to go with this unknown person as opposed to leaving the leading role to Liu Kang like they did in the other two Mortal Kombat movies? Simple. The guy playing Liu Kang can’t act. In fact, very few of them can. They were all billed on their fighting abilities. Which is part of the way to go. All these short videos getting on line of martial artists doing bad ass scenes with the captions of “Hollywood should get THESE GUYS to do the movie!” obviously don’t know what they are giving up. Yes, the fight scenes look kind of cool, but the acting, writing, and polish are not there.

So the fights are pretty cool for the most part, especially when they get to the finishers. They wanted the R rating for the gory finishers, and they give you the gory finishers.

And just in case you ever forgot that they were referencing video games, they will constantly bombard you with FATALITY, FLAWLESS VICTORY, and KANO WINS, just so we can go, “OH THEY SAID THE THING!”

Also they spend a good chunk of the movie trying to unlock the super moves of the main characters. I can’t even remember what stupid thing they called it, despite them saying it several dozen times. Basically every Champion has a special ability that allows them to fight in the tournament. And it isn’t just something like Ice Powers or Fire powers. It can be straight up growing robot arms or unlocking a suit of armor with matching tonfa. It really is just a stupid plot element. I would have been fine using that as an explanation of the ice, fire, or any of the energy techniques, but having it cover equipment and technology? That is just “wizard did it” levels of bad writing.

(Update from 2024) Almost 3 years later, I am calling an end to this review. The power system is stupid, the acting was bad, and they should have just taken one of the thousands of mortal Kombat stories and adapted that. I am pretty sure I changed the spelling in the title intentionally to distance it from the fighting game of my youth. Shame on you.