'Mortal Kombat' Misses An Important Event: Actual Mortal Kombat
Starring Lewis Tan, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Joe Taslim, Mehcad Brooks, Hiroyuki Sanada
Rated R
Action/Fantasy
Run time: 1 hr, 50 min
Directed by Simon McQuoid
On HBO Max April 23, 2021 for a limited time
Let me preface this by saying I know nothing about the video game of Mortal Kombat other than of its basic existence and premise. And if you are like me, this movie is going to not make a lot of sense. And you may or may not really annoy the person you watch it with by asking a metric ton of questions. Just throwing that out there for any potential viewers. Again, not that I did that or anything. I kind of suspected I would be a little bit lost as there could be some lore I didn’t know, but I’ve seen many a movie based on an existent property that I wasn’t entirely familiar with and I was at least able to be entertained by. Sadly, Mortal Kombat is not one of those movies.
Without looking at any additional information or seeking clarification, I’ll try to explain what I think the plot of this film is. Once upon a time, there was a great warrior who was tracked down by his mortal enemy who then swears to end his line. But alas, maybe that was not the case, as there are people with his warrior symbol that have just appeared on their bodies, like a perfectly shaped dragon birthmark. Oh, and also this enemy is from another realm, and there is apparently a competition between the champions of the realms, known as Mortal Kombat, and I’m not really sure what happens if you win or lose. But the point is that there are champions on earth and a woman - who is not one of said champions - is trying to collect them all to get a full box set and win this competition. Some champions have powers, others have to find their powers and there is no guarantee when these powers will arrive. And that isn’t even explaining who all the characters are.
The truth is that they don’t really give us much insight to who these people really are. The cast of characters is so large - some of whom were seemingly alive in the prequel-esque opening scene from hundreds of years ago - that it’s hard to devote too much time to any of them. The most we get is that one guy is a fighter and he has a partner and a daughter he loves. And a woman has a lot of determination to put together this team to win Mortal Kombat. Which I don’t think actually affected her in any way? To be completely frank, my entire review could be the question: “huh?” But I figured that would be just a bit too short, and there are some really cool aspects to this film. The problem stems exclusively from the script and storyline itself, and when that is off, it’s really hard for a film to recover.
The stunts are (unsurprisingly) incredible. Just like you watch Godzilla vs Kong for the monster fights, you watch this movie for some pretty phenomenal battles. It is incredibly gory and graphic at times, which I’m told follows the example of the video game, but clearly this is an incredibly talented cast of fighters. I was legitimately in awe watching the choreography of some of these battles. Hand in hand with the solid stunts are the visual effects. This is a really beautiful film at times, with some really creative worlds that I can totally see being impressive on a big screen. However, a pretty-to-watch film is only so strong when the actual plot of the movie is held together with a single thread. I recognize I could have come to this film with a bit more knowledge than I did, but it is pretty alienating that your average moviegoer can’t just let go of the confusion and enjoy an action film. However, I will watch any further ones in this series, but it will be in hopes that I will get to someday hear a How Did This Get Made podcast episode about it.