A Review of “Mortal Kombat (2021)”

 

I am a huge fan of the Mortal Kombat games. They have very creative gore and fatalities but another thing that makes it special is the lore, story and characters. Video game movies are starting to get better so I had some hope for Mortal Kombat (2021) especially since it was going to be R Rated. The premise is “Hunted by the fearsome warrior Sub-Zero, MMA fighter Cole Young finds sanctuary at the temple of Lord Raiden. Training with experienced fighters Liu Kang, Kung Lao and the rogue mercenary Kano, Cole prepares to stand with Earth’s greatest champions to take on the enemies from Outworld in a high-stakes battle for the universe”. So is this a flawless victory or fatally flawed?

Firstly, I love the casting choice. Joe Taslim as Sub Zero and Hiroyuki Sanada as Scorpion is phenomenal casting as both embody their characters. John Lawson steals every scene he is in as Kano. He is hilarious and genuinely some of the best parts of Mortal Kombat (2021). Ludi Lin as Liu Kang, Max Huang as Kung Lao, Mehcad Brooks as Jax, Jessica McNamee as Sonya is all also great casting as they resemble the characters from the game perfectly. Tadanobu Asano is very majestic as Lord Raiden and Chin Han is very sinister as Shang Tsung. I also really appreciate having an Asian be the main character with Lewis Tan as Cole Young. It’s great that the director, Simon McQuoid, is giving Asians more representation in mainstream media and I can appreciate that.

A lot of video game movies don’t work because it is clear the director and writers are not fans of the respective game. However, this is not the case here and this clearly shows within the movie. They have authentic casting so characters that were Asian in the game are played by Asians in the movie, characters act and resemble their game counterparts, gruesome fatalities and a lot of game references. Additionally, the first 10 minutes is amazing and is such a great start to the movie. The last 15 minutes of the movie is also really good which is down to the fact that any scene with Sub-Zero and Scorpion is great. The score by Benjamin Wallfisch is also quite good at times when orchestral instruments are used.

However, sometimes the score can be quite odd such as when electronic sounds are used in the 17th-century scene which doesn’t sound right. Furthermore, the editing of certain scenes is quite bad. Despite casting an actual martial artist who can fight, the director still uses a lot of quick cuts in fight scenes that just ruin it. It even happens during sparring fights which just makes it very disorienting. The most jarring editing comes around the middle where multiple fights are occurring with different characters and the scene just keeps constantly swapping between all of them. Instead of just focusing on one fight at a time which would result in a more pleasant experience. On that note, the action scenes not concerning Sub Zero or Scorpion lack a lot of brutality, grit and damage. You don’t feel like the characters are getting hurt enough as during fights it feels like they are just slapping each other about. Where are the broken bones, bruises or physical impact in these fights?

Another major flaw is the main lead Cole Young as he is very bland and uninteresting. The only thing about his character is he a chosen one and he has a family that he cares about. It’s boring. The supporting characters are not that great either since there are way too many characters and not enough time exploring them. Liu Kang and Kung Lao appear but are pretty much just the strong yet generic Asian guys. Jax and Sonya are just initially there to get the plot moving and then fight some people which is all there is to them. Mileena, Goro and Kabal are in the movie but are just there to be fodder for the heroes. We get absolutely no information about them, not even an explanation on why Kabal has super speed. Raiden is a good powerful guy and Shang Tsung is a bad powerful guy. Both barely appear and when they do it is when the plot needs teleporting stuff.

MINOR SPOILERS HERE
Following that, the story is a mess. It starts in the 17th century with Scorpion and Sub Zero. Scorpion’s family gets murdered and he dies as well but goes to hell. However, his thirst for vengeance for his family being murdered by Sub Zero will bring him out of hell and that alone is an interesting story. Such a shame we ignore that and just focus on boring Cole Young. The marketing plays up Scorpion’s role but he is only at the beginning and the end. He also just randomly appears at the end with little to no explanation. It’s very baffling even to me, a Mortal Kombat fan. Throughout Mortal Kombat (2021) there is a lot of build-up for this tournament. It feels like the movie will conclude with the tournament but it does not which is kind of annoying. They spend two-thirds of the movie leading to it but then decide in the 3rd act just to forget about it. This is where Mortal Kombat (1995) does better as the 1st act is the setup and the 2nd and 3rd are the tournament which is way better.

Overall, Mortal Kombat (2021) does a lot of right in satisfying fans but doesn’t do enough to bring new people in. It feels like they were just ticking boxes instead of making a cohesive and good movie in general. Mortal Kombat has great characters which are why the movie should’ve just focused on one of them instead of just bringing in as many characters as they could. The movie has a fair amount of things better than the 1995 version but a fair amount that isn’t as well. The only conclusion that I got out of it was that at least it was way better than Mortal Kombat Annihilation and honestly that is a huge win in my book.