MORTAL KOMBAT

[909]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAwWPadFsOA

A new film in the hit “Mortal Kombat” franchise is to begin pre-production this month in Australia. “Aquaman” director James Wan will be producing for New Line Cinema.

https://variety.com/2019/film/asia/james-wan-produced-mortal-kombat-to-shoot-in-australia-for-new-line-1203214146/

 

[Epic Springs]

If they get the same actor for Johnny Cage from the original then I'm in.

 

[Sabre]

I loved the original movie to hell, the sequel... not so much.

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

The original was so great. And the soundtrack was the best!

 

[Angle-plex]

Not gonna lie, I like the Street Fighter movie better than Mortal Kombat.

 

[Lazgistics Supervisor]

#banagnes

 

[Brocklock]

Street Fighter movie has some gold from Raul Julia/Zangiev and some hilariously bad acting from JCVD, but the whole Allied Nations plot and the lack of fights hurt it. Mortal Kombat is delightfully cheesy, but at least sticks to the plot of the games and is paced extremely well. Street Fighter is kind of boring at points.

 

[muzzington]

 

[SFH]

Man they are going for the hard R (rating)right out the gate. I'm looking forward to it.

 

[Brocklock]

It's kind of bad, but has enough fun moments to forgive it's shortcomings. It was a tad boring at times though, especially early on. Gonna do my best and be vague with spoilers, but still read with caution.

I much prefer the 95 movie, but this is much better than Annihilation. The dialogue is really weak and filled with way too much exposition. The 95 version had that too, but no one here has a weird screen presence like Christopher Lambert delivering the lines. The fights in 2021 are really good, but I think Johnny Cage vs Scorpion and Liu Kang vs Reptile from the first movie are the more inventive and better fights. The camera isn't Kevin Dunn levels of shaking, but it does move a little too much during the fights for my taste.

Sub Zero and Kano were great and I liked this version of Sonya even if she often has the worst lines. She has much more screen presence than the guy playing lead. Rest of the cast was alright to blah. Was excited that Kakihara from Ichi The Killer was playing Raiden, but he wasn't good here. There are a few great markout moments and I loved a lot of the references. I think 2 is gonna be the movie that people were hoping this was going to be.

The biggest problem with MK 2021 is the character created for the movie Cole Young. He's such a waste of a character to make the protagonist and almost feels useless to the story at points. You probably could've just cut him and made Sonya the protagonist because there are times in the movie where he's just hanging out and she is driving the movie forward.

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

It's kind of bad, but has enough fun moments to forgive it's shortcomings. It was a tad boring at times though, especially early on. Gonna do my best and be vague with spoilers, but still read with caution.

I much prefer the 95 movie, but this is much better than Annihilation. The dialogue is really weak and filled with way too much exposition. The 95 version had that too, but no one here has a weird screen presence like Christopher Lambert delivering the lines. The fights in 2021 are really good, but I think Johnny Cage vs Scorpion and Liu Kang vs Reptile from the first movie are the more inventive and better fights. The camera isn't Kevin Dunn levels of shaking, but it does move a little too much during the fights for my taste.

Sub Zero and Kano were great and I liked this version of Sonya even if she often got the worst lines. She has much more screen presence than the guy playing lead. Rest of the cast was alright to blah. Was excited that Kakihara from Ichi The Killer was playing Raiden, but he wasn't good here. There are a few great markout moments and I loved a lot of the references. I think 2 is gonna be the movie that people were hoping this was going to be.

The biggest problem with MK 2021 is the character created for the movie Cole Young. He's such a waste of a character to make the protagonist and almost feels useless to the story at points. You probably could've just cut him and made Sonya the protagonist because there are times in the movie where he's just hanging out and she is driving the movie forward.

I just finished watching this, and I couldn’t agree more with everything here. The acting was made for TV movie bad, outside of Kano who I thought was the best part of the movie. The writing was cheesy and bad. The fight scenes were very well done, but other than that, this was not good at all. The 95 version got to the tournament, had very good fights, and one of the best soundtracks ever.

 

[Brocklock]

The generic orchestral score and lack of rocking techno music really hurt it too.

 

[Brocklock]

I had to listen to the first soundtrack to wash away my disappointment of the complete lack of the original theme song despite the director falsely saying it was in the movie. Just some lame sounding dubstep remix that would've fit in 2009 and an orchestral version of the opening Mortal Kombat beat.

And yeah, the guy playing Kano definitely was the only character that had what the tone of the movie should of been. I did like grim dark Sub Zero because Joe Taslim is awesome, but Kano was hilarious and has the right amount of cheese and hamminess a MK movie needs. I missed the likes of Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa, Linden Ashby, and even Lambert's weird screen presence as Raiden. Those actors completely got the tone of the movie right in the first one. The characters are mostly flat here. I still can't get over how much Cole Young sucked. Maybe he gets the Johnny Cage Annihilation treatment in the next movie when it eventually comes out.

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

I did pop when Johnny Cage was mentioned at the end. He was a favorite of mine when I played the original game, and I missed him in this movie.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

Thanks for the reviews, not gonna waste my time with this. Just gonna find a way to watch the ‘95 version.

 

[Brocklock]

I watched the Liu Kang vs Reptile and Johnny Cage vs Scorpion fights, Shang Tsung saying IT HAS BEGUN, and a youtube vid that has all of Christopher Lambert's whispery dialogue to get my MK mojo back.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

I liked it tbh. The fight scenes were good. The acting wasn't great but it was shit in all of the other movies too. It gave me over the top violence and lots of little MK references that showed they actually really were into the games. I have a pretty low bar for video game movies and this more than met it.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

It was fine for what it was trying to go for but I feel like it took itself a bit too seriously at times. My random musings...

- I did like that they tried to fit in the Sub-Zero/Scorpion storyline into this movie but I felt like it was detracting from the whole towards the final act of the movie. I did pop for

Spoiler

Scorpion's return

though. Shang Tsung was very underutilized considering things and choosing Cole as a main character felt more like a storyline purpose than a thematic choice. As Brocklock said, Sonya was as much a driving character in this movie and actually would have made more sense given her story arc too.
- The fight scenes were really good and the blood was a great addition to see. Some of the kills were pretty brutal and worthy of an MK movie.
- Kano was a true highlight of the movie acting-wise. Just over the top, goofy fun reminding me of the tone of the 1995 movie. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie didn't quite match that tone and it stood out in a bad way.

- A lot of the characters felt underutilized or watered down thanks to a poor script. I'm a big fan of Mehcad Brooks so his portrayal of Jax was a pretty big letdown for me. Liu Kang and Kung Lao were solid but it felt like the script was torn in trying to keep the Cole Young subplot going with trying to keep Liu Kang as a 'leader' of the group but even then, it never really came off as naturally done.
- The CGI was okay to mediocre at times. I really liked the

Spoiler

dragon effect

but Goro looked wonky in that he looked okay for CGI but you could really tell it was done with CGI manner. The odd thing is stuff like Mileena's face/jaw and even Kano's eye were pulled off really well.

My biggest issue? This didn't feel like a Mortal Kombat fighting tournament movie so much as just random fights at random locations. The '95 movie was able to pull this aspect off by calling it a true tournament but still doing some random locations and such including using the infamous pit stuff. This movie felt like it wanted to be a Mortal Kombat movie with an actual subplot story from the game... but missed that the tournament was a key part of the game. In a lot of ways, I was actually reminded of the '94 Street Fighter movie at times in this regard and it felt more exposition/talking about it being this specific thing than actually showing us it was.

5/10 - Kano was awesome and Joe Taslim as Sub-Zero/Hiroyuki Sanada as Hanzo Hasashi were solid. The plot felt out of the MK: Sub-Zero game at times, which I thought was a good subplot choice. Most of the fights were good, some memorable kills that I won't forget namely

Spoiler

Mileena's

, but the lack of a standout soundtrack and some story choices kind of represented big missed opportunities here.

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

Regarding the tournament, that was a huge missed point. I was waiting and waiting for them to get there since they kept talking about it, that by the time the big climax fights came along, I was drawn out of the movie and not caring so much about it anymore. I think that’s partially why they had the climax fights in different locations, to give the feel of the game fights.

 

[Gary]

I didn't hate it, but yeah, it's not very good. As everyone else mentioned, Kano was the highlight (though Kabal got a few laughs out of me). However, this could've used more humor. Like, do it as a blend of action and a splatter comedy, or lean a little more into the ridiculousness of the whole thing. The fight scenes are hit and miss-some of them are great, but others rely way too much of quick cuts and poor editing choices. The gore was cool, but it...actually wasn't as over the top as I thought it would be. The new lead was dull, though his fight with Goro was fun.

Maybe it's just me, but after seeing some of the action movies that have come out over the past several years ("John Wick", "Mad Max: Fury Road, the wave of action movies from Indonesia and even some DTV ones), this just feels like small pickings.

Finally, I never really was a fan of the first MK movie (come on, a PG-13?) and I've never seen "MK Annihilation", so whatever.

 

[Brocklock]

I wanna pay tribute to a good original character in a MK film

 

[muzzington]

Happy to hear Josh Lawson as Kano was a highlight. Wasn't sure how he'd go in this type of movie.

 

[RedJed]

I think the plan, according to the screenwriters, is to make this a trilogy, in which the tournament would be in the second film as a whole, and the third would be a post-tournament situation. So that might explain why this felt incomplete in a sense.

FWIW, I thought this was a pretty fun ride of a film. I enjoyed the throwbacks and thought the tone of this was so much better than any of the previous Mortal Kombat live-action entries. It just simply seemed to flow better and had a much extended and richer story to it than either of the other films did, by far. The original is a nice nostalgic trip, but the effects don't hold up very well (especially the bad CGI) compared to the excellent digital effects in this one. This was a movie fit for the IMAX format too, it worked well in that aspect.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

I’m watching this now, I have nostalgia for the old games but don’t remember much about them. I’m willing to rate this trash on its own merits. I’ll post my thoughts when I’m done. I’ll say that so far the set designs look pretty good.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

The beginning with sub zero’s hand was a cool reveal though.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

The special effects are all really good too IMO

Goddamn we finally get the title after all that action what an intro I’m loving this so far
Lmao making modern mma a part of this the old school ufc events were inspired by mortal Kombat so I guess this brings it full circle

Damn he got goodridged and then tapped to a neck crank good way to show the saviour when he’s down in the dumps

The mirror shot with the demon got a good reaction out of me

Sub zero bringing the outworld into the real world was a sick scene too. That whole sequence was like a tribute to classic 80s slasher trash

Felt bad about Jax falling, but this could be an origin story. Sonya explaining the tournament is a good way to show trump his way of working is over, this tournament is referenced by all cultures and is internationally respected baby
DAMN the flashback to the mirror nice



Kano McGregor as scum of the earth is pretty good and then taking the heart was also good character setup. Great alley oop from Sonya. Sonya treating him like a piece of shit in the desert was also good

I don’t know why people are mad about the lack of a tournament. Maybe if that was all you wanted out of the movie, but we accept superheroes doing like three or four origin movies with in a couple of decades we can have a new one for MK over twenty five years later.

Bah gawd it was an origin story for Jax



Also even if they didn’t have the tournament in this movie the way they addressed it was by “bringing the tournament to them” which was a good enough explanation for me. The fight scenes were close enough to being like tourney fight matches anyway.

Sonia getting the marking from Kano and Jax doing crush’s finisher was sick too and there was plenty of dry action wit in this movie that would make Bart Simpson proud.

I will end up writing way too much but this movie was sick, highly recommended

I can also understand not liking Cole Young but if you think of him as Johnny Cages long lost mma relative he’s pretty cool. The fight scene with Goro was pretty sick. I like the general discoveries of their inner powers too. I like how they killed off so many characters too because it allows them to invite new ones and added a lot of drama to the movie.

AND THEN AT THE END OF THE MOVIE HE GOES TO FIND CAGE BAHHHH GAWWWD



perfect setup for the sequel 10/10 on the trash action scale

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

yeah i thought this was a perfectly fun trasha ction movie