Mortal Kombat is Not A Flawless Victory, but a Victory Nevertheless

I’ll try to keep this as spoiler-free as I can, but I just watched Mortal Kombat for the second time this weekend and I have some thoughts on it.

I’ve been a fan of the Mortal Kombat universe since the original game first hit arcades in 1992, so I was pretty excited for this movie, and I’m happy to say that it delivered for the most part.

It’s not a perfect film by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a great way to kill an hour and a half while mindlessly munching popcorn.

The filmmakers are clearly fans of the video games and mythos as well, and it really shines through in virtually every scene. Every character is thoughtfully cast and each actor embodies their video game counterpart convincingly (save for one).

The heart of the film is the blood feud between Scorpion and Sub-Zero, a smart move on the part of the writers and a brilliant way to ground the story in a historical context.

Joe Taslim, who portrays Sub-Zero with chilling perfection, has reportedly signed on for 4 more Mortal Kombat movies, which is another smart move because he’s easily the most memorable movie villain in quite some time.

The best character is Kano, played by Josh Lawson, who is having the most fun of possibly any actor in the movie as he pierces through each scene like a laser blast from the eye. His reactions to everything happening around him keep the tone from getting too dark but there are times when they could’ve dialed it back just a tad. Even Sonya Blade gets fed up with him at one point and vocally expresses what the audience is feeling.

As I indicated in the headline, the movie is not without its problems…

The scenes with Shang Tsung, who is supposed to be the story’s main villain, feel tacked on as an afterthought, and feel very, very rushed, like they only had a couple of days to shoot them and had to get them over with as quickly as possible.

Chin Han, the actor who portrays Shang Tsung, doesn’t seem to care about the movie he’s in and isn’t terribly threatening as an evil sorcerer who can pull your soul out of your body with his bare hands…

The weakest part of the film is unfortunately the main character and the narrative built around him. Introducing a new character in a popular franchise that is already filled with a diverse cast of characters is always a risky move, and in the case of new character Cole Young, the risk just did not pay off.

Not only is he an absolute bore to watch, his character is just utterly useless at every given opportunity. He continually loses fights, he fails to help the other characters when they need assistance, he needs help remembering the most basic of Mortal Kombat moves, and even after he gets a spiritual “upgrade" of sorts, he still gets his ass handed to him and needs to be rescued by another character…

Overall though, the rest of the movie makes up for its flaws by being fun, violent, and giving us just about everything you could ask for from a Mortal Kombat movie.

Well, except for that tournament everyone kept talking about, but maybe they’re saving it for the sequel…