REVIEW: MORTAL KOMBAT (2021) – ManlyMovie
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What to expect: High budget trash, with good opening.

Score: 3 out of 10. 1 for Sonya Blade, 1 for Joe Taslim, 1 for me (I was in a good mood to watch this trash)

I honestly don’t know where to start, but let’s go…

I was an admirer of this franchise since I was able to play the very first MK on Sega Mega Drive 2 back in the day (yep I never played MK Iin the arcade). And I became a huge fan when MK2 was released, and since that time I pretty much played almost all MK games (I even manages to complete uber hard Sub Zero mythologies with secret ending LOL).

Then in 1995 came a Mortal Kombat movie from a director I really hate for what he did with the Resident Evil franchise (he just buried it alive, then geta it out, set its remains at fire, and buried it again). But he (Paul WS Anderson, if someone don’t know who this is LOL) somehow manage to make an MK film which not only was ok, but was actually great, yeah the movie wasn’t perfect and no blood, no fatalities etc. BUT, the actors fit their roles quite decently, and what a cast it was! Robin Shou, Lambert, Tagawa, Talisa Soto — holy shit she was hot, B. Wilson as Sonya was badass, Linden Ashby as Johnny Cage was something! And the film was entertaining enough, with good choreographed fights, nice story, it had an actual MK tournament, and cool one liners like “Those were $500 Sunglasses asshole !” and many others, not to mention damn fine soundtrack and badass main theme!

Now lets dive in to this shit, I mean movie…

First let me say about things which I loved…

Sonya Blade, I really liked how Bridgette Wilson portrayed her in ’95 film, but Jessica McNamee did a decent job as Sonya Blade, she looked and acted well enough to be a believable Sonya, unfortunately the movie did a very poor job not only to portray this character the right way, but this film didn’t gave Sonya Blade even one decent fight…

Kung Lao was also portrayed pretty good by Max Huang. I did like how nether realm was showcased in some shots, where we can see this world. Jax was portrayed really good by Mechad Brooks, I actually was impressed by how good he fit the part. Joe Taslim was really decent Sub-Zero I must say, he fit this character’s shoes so well. Sanada (one of my favorite Asian actors) as Scorpion was not bad, but I guess he is now a little too old for this character, and there is no question that for the most of his final fight as Scorpion he was dubbed by stuntmen, but still he was not bad.

Well that’s probably it…

Now for the bad, first and one of the most important thing, tournament, MK was always about the damn tournament, and here we are in Mortal Kombat film where there is NO TOURNAMENT AT ALL, yep this movie is about some MK characters and about that tournament supposed to happen soon but LOL it never happens! Ok I can understand that the filmmaker wanted to do a film about how it all happen how characters get to the tournament and in secone one show us the real tournament, ok, but this story which actually could be interesting if done right way, is super boring. I honestly almost fell asleep a few times during this MK film LOL.

The opening where we can see the main conflict between Sub-Zero and Scorpion, where Hanzo Hasashi and his family is murdered, is actually done quite well, and get you in to the right mood for the whole film, but that’s about it, it looks like after this opening both scriptwriter and director, just don’t know where to go and what to do with this characters. The main hero is Cole Young, who is pretty boring and the whole film till the end he is soo weak he can’t beat even one of the random fighters in an underground cage, where he fights to make a living… ’till the final part where he finally gets some, hmm…, strange powers (he manage to unlock his inner arkana or whatever it is and become powerful warrior) and for some unknown reason he together with powers gets some armour for his body (LOL only for upper part of the body though). Also the main hero later in the film is revealed as Scorpion descendant, but you don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to understand this in the first part of the film. I don’t want to tell you about whole story cause it was really, really boring one…

Both Raiden and Shang Tsung are the most boring characters in this story, They do not fight in this film, they just talk and sometimes use their powers in some situations. The acting is also quite mediocre. Kano even though he looked quite strange and not related to any of his looks from any MK game, with his dark humour one liners sometimes manage to let me laugh few times but that’s about it. So, we have a poor, boring story, no tournament, acting which goes from good to poor (depends on the characters and actors who portray them) what is left?

Right, fights! Funny but all fights in this film are bad, LOL no jokes, they all bad, badly choreographed, badly executed, badly edited (this ultra fast cuts, and bad camera angles, my eyes OMG). First of all, almost all fights are happening in the fucking dark, where you not always can even see what the hell happens (thanks to fast cuts).

Also all fighting happens on earth, and not one of our heroes never reach nether realm, that’s right, all what this movie is about is how few of the best warriors from earth realm (Cole – guy who cant beat anyone, Sonya Blade – she doesn’t even have this dragon mark which allows you to enter the tournament, and basically she is almost a hobo, LOL. Yeah, she lives in some fucking trailer park or whatever that poor place was, and Kano) trying to unlock their inner arcana and find their inner powers which will allow them to complete with netherrealm warriors, and about Shang Tsung who using his assassins (Sub Zero included) to kill off all earth realm warriors before the tournament even happens. It sounds cool, but executed poorly…

All fights, (except opening which I loved and maybe final fight between Sub-Zero and Scorpion which was not bad but still not enough to redeem this poor mess…) are short, and some of them yes, had a fatality…

Now about fights, I mean Shang Tsung did not fight in this film at all, he just grabbed Kung Lao and suck his soul lol, no fight just like that LOL, or that LOL moment, where Kung Lao fights Nitara that was just a LOL moment, he just throws her hat and slice her in two part (beautiful actress but they gave her like a few shots, no dialogue and the rest is poor CGI) , yep no fights, nothing just this fatality for fatality’s sake LOL, or when Sonya, Cole, and Kano, first time meet with Liu Kang, Kano says something, and Liu Kang immediately throws a fireball at him LOL. Just for no reason at all LOL, or GORO LOL he only fights with main hero and where you think fight happen? In fucking garage, or barn or whatever fuck that place was LOL and then they continue on the street LOL. And Goro himself look like a CGI model done for PS4 (I’m a CGI creator myself, so I know what I’m talking about) he doesn’t look like a believable creature at all. In the ’95 film it was animatronics and also looked bad, with today’s technologies and CGI abilities this Goro could look sooo damn real, but we got this…

Really, the most disappointing thing in this film besides the weak and boring story, sometimes stupid character motivations and their background, are the FIGHTS! A movie about fights where every fight is either just one hit fatality or fast cut short fight in the dark, is strange…

If you think I’m lying, go watch this shit and look for yourself! If you aim for fight quality and choreography like in “Night Comes for Us” or similar, forget it, this is not even far from that, it is very, very far from that… The director and scriptwriter started quite good with the opening, but then it all falls apart, and even final fight between Sub-Zero and Scorpion can’t redeem it for me. What else? Did i mention that there is Kabal and Meleena? Yes they both here, and Kabal actually looks not bad, but his character’s story never fully explained, and his confrontation with Kano never resolves, he is just there and he is bad, that’s it, his fight with Liu Kang is short, again fast cuts, and that’s it, Dragon fatality from Liu, end. Mileena is here, they made her black for no reason at all (probably PC shit etc.), which again doesn’t bring anything to the table, and except an ultra short fight with Sonya Blade, and later on with Cole, I guess there is nothing for her to do.

Funny, if making Meleena black was a politically correct move, cause they take most ugly female character in MK (from classic MK characters I mean, LOL) and make her black LOL I would understand if they bring Jade for example and she was black, but no they did this…

Also, the soundtrack… maybe this is good? No, very generic soundtrack, I would say, it all sounds like I’m watching not an MK movie, but a some random super hero film LOL. A few times I even thought Henry Cavill in the Superman suit will appear to save the day from this boredom but nope… During some of the final fight between Sub-Zero and Scorpion they even included a badly remixed version of main theme from the ’95 movie, that was really out of place, if they did include the original, at least that would be a cool moment, but no they used this poor club remix…

For MK admirers or fans, this is a VERY bad film, with too much fan service thrown at your face at the final part of the film. Poor and badly written story, boring main hero, very bad choreography for fights, short fights, no MK tournament, bad soundtrack. Good opening and not bad final fight between Sub – Zero and Scorpion, but this is not enough to redeem this high budget trash. Why the studio gave MK property to the director and scriptwriter who don’t have any credits, is beyond me…

Not recommend this even for rental, browse your local torrent store if you still want to watch this. And don’t look at most of the good reviews at IMDb for example, look at the authors, most of them registered a few months ago on the IMDb LOL.

P. S. No tournament, poor fights, no Shao Khan, no Kitana, poor acting from half the cast, boring main hero and story, boring and bad acting from both Raiden and Shang Tsung, netherrealm only in few shots, nothing really happening there. Some of the character’s motivations are dumb and stupid, some stupid and boring story moments even by MK standards. This is a mess I cant recommend. Only if you’re drunk and have a free copy of this for a laugh!

Shadow.