Friday, April 23, 2021

Review: MORTAL KOMBAT (2021)

 by Rob DiCristino

Yes, they play the song.

Spoilers ahead.

It’s been a good long while since I popped a Mortal Kombat cartridge into my Sega Genesis, but for a stretch there in the early ‘90s, it probably happened every day. Unless you were around — and adolescent — at the time, it’s hard to appreciate just how seminal that original video game series was. Friends and I would smash controller buttons for hours on end in hopes of finally nailing that Flawless Victory or unlocking the hidden Fatality that our elementary school rivals swore they’d seen with their own eyes. For me, though, it was never about the violence; if you just wanted to hit things, you could always play a Street Fighter game. No, I was all about the mythology of Mortal Kombat, the centuries-old struggle between the forces of light and darkness that would eventually decide the fate of the universe. Heroes were good. Villains were bad. One guy could rip out another guy’s spine. What’s not to like?
That mythology was deepened in subsequent games, comic books, TV and web series, and especially in Paul W. S. Anderson’s original 1995 film adaptation. Here’s the basic gist: Our Earthrealm is just one of many governed by a group of Elder Gods. To keep the various realms from consuming each other, those Gods decreed that each generation may hold a tournament of champions to determine the balance of power. The sinister Outworld has defeated Earthrealm in nine out of ten consecutive Mortal Kombat tournaments. If they win a tenth, Outworld’s emperor and his armies are free to invade and pillage our world for the foreseeable — presumably apocalyptic — future. To prevent this, the noble Lord Raiden assembles a group of fighters from around the globe in the vain hope that one of them will be able to stave off annihilation for another generation. Don’t look at that too closely; it doesn’t make a ton of sense.

Hell, Simon McQuoid’s new film adaptation entirely dispenses with the actual tournament. After a brief opening scene establishing an ancient rivalry, this story begins with an MMA fighter called Cole Young (Lewis Tan). Long past his prime and struggling to support his family, Cole is approached by US Agents Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) and Jackson Briggs (Mehcad Brooks), one of whom shares the mysterious dragon-shaped brand Cole has had since birth. With Blade’s research pointing to the aforementioned apocalypse, the three enlist the help of cocky gangster Kano (Josh Lawson) — who also sports the dragon brand — in finding Raiden’s (Tadanobu Asano) temple. There, warriors Liu Kang (Ludi Lin) and Kung Lao (Max Huang) train our heroes to access their supernatural “arcana.” Meanwhile, Outworld sorcerer Shang Tsung (Chin Han) and his lieutenant (Joe Taslim as Sub-Zero) plot to assassinate Earth’s fighters before the tournament begins.
Far from the bloodless, New Line Cinema camp of Anderson’s adaptation, this Mortal Kombat thrives on brutality. Each set piece is punctuated by intense violence, adult language, and an altogether unnecessary level of gore. This ain't your daddy’s — read: my — Mortal Kombat, that’s for sure. Nor is it a showcase for elaborate The Raid-style fight choreography. There are a few acrobatic moments — especially Hanzo Hashashi’s (Hiroyuki Sanada) stylish blade-on-a-chain moves — but the film’s editing is far too jagged to establish any rhythm or continuity in the contests. Most of the characters are dispatched as quickly as they are introduced, especially the bat-winged vampire Nitara (Mel Jarnson), who is sawed in half in her tenth second of screentime. Still, fans of the modern Mortal Kombat games will likely appreciate the bone-crunching savagery and revamped designs of classic characters.

Far less impressive is the plotting, which gets lost in the muck of meaningless worldbuilding and asks our protagonists to forget critical bits of information whenever it needs to compound the drama. Borrowing from Enter the Dragon, Anderson’s original film established a neat framework for the action, gradually scaling the intensity and developing characters as the tournament went on. This version centers our story at Raiden’s temple before suddenly bouncing fighters around the galaxy to create the illusion of a climax. One scene finds Cole returning home — He forgot that he separated from his family in order to protect them from Outworlders who are drawn to his dragon brand — only to fight the four-armed Prince Goro (voiced by Angus Sampson) and immediately return to the temple. The character beat makes sense — Cole needed to protect his family in order to activate his aracana — but wasn’t he doing that to begin with? Doesn't matter.
The action should take precedence over the plot, of course, and no version of this story is without its flaws. But as Shang Tsung is never properly dealt with — He taunts our heroes behind a force field for most of the film before fucking off back to Outworld — this Mortal Kombat seems to exist only to set up a franchise. Only one character is given a complete arc, while Raiden tasks the others with assembling a new crew of champions for the next tournament. And, honestly, most of us will be fine with that. That’s our blockbuster landscape now, right? Just as Anderson’s film reflected the ‘90s cultural power of The Movie, this Mortal Kombat reflects the current cultural power of The Shared Universe. The kids who grew up with the 2011 reboot Mortal Kombat game are entering that same adolescence I remember so fondly, so why shouldn’t they get their own big-screen adventure? Let the kids rip out the spines of their enemies, dammit!

12 comments:

  1. "The kids who grew up with the 2011 reboot Mortal Kombat game are entering that same adolescence I remember so fondly, so why shouldn’t they get their own big-screen adventure?"

    As someone who grew up with the original, the reboot game and the two games the followed actually have an insanely fun story that build off the originals in a way that involves the timeline getting altered to increasingly disastrous results. As someone who largely stopped caring about stories in video games, the recent MK games are almost like the Fast & the Furious franchise with the writers going gleefully over the top and knowing exactly what it is they're making.

    Part of the reason I'm not especially excited for this MK movie (even though I'll watch it when I have time), is because there's no way the story can really touch what the games have been doing. And yes, I realize the absurdity here of gushing over the story of three Mortal Kombat video games of all things but I honestly love what they've done.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've always heard good things about the reboot series! I'm just too slow for modern fighting games. Maybe I'll watch some cutscenes for the story?

      Delete
    2. I bought the newest game without playing the previous two, and had no idea what was happening with the story. I'm sure it makes more sense if you're caught up, but diving in midway through, it felt incredibly convoluted. Still a fun game though.

      Delete
    3. I wouldn't worry about being too slow as I think the story modes have adjustable difficulty levels, and they're still pretty fun to play. Cost of buying 3 games (plus the first one came out on older systems) would be the bigger barrier.

      There is apparently and 11.5 hour compilation of the story scenes on youtube though.

      Delete
    4. I love how the games' stories got more and more ridiculous (in a great, fun way). It went from Enter the Dragon to Avengers Endgame more or less.

      Delete
  2. It was a film that would have worked better with no dialog

    ReplyDelete
  3. Has anyone noticed the director’s only other credit on imdb is a one minute short from 2014? Or that one of the two screenwriters, Greg Russo, has no prior screenwriting credits but 13 upcoming. I feel like this is yet another troubling step towards the contentification of movies. The studios aren’t even bothering to find some indie darling to helm their new blockbuster because why should they? These films require no real performance from the actors, the CGI sets mean most shots are going to be previsusled before they’re even hired, and the scriptwriting is so dictated by worldbuilding that any polish you do is gonna awkwardly stick out. Look at Monkey Punch Lizard: you can see people like Wingard and Dougherty trying to imbue any sense of personality in the film but it’s like pushing the freighter one degree in the right direction. At the end of the day WB is going to look at the difference as negligible. And if you’re a young filmmaker why would you want to make such a big leap from the independent to 100 million budget? The only one who really did something special with the opportunity in my opinion was Rian Johnson and look at how that turned out for him.

    I’m 22 and have always felt a sense of resistance when I listen to you guys lament the modern blockbuster scene because I feel a weird sense of ownership over it the same way we all feel to the decade of movies that came out between the ages of 15 and 25. But it’s becoming harder and harder to bring myself to watch these movies, especially separated from the actual theater going experience. I think Disney moving so much of their Star Wars/Marvel production to Disney Plush shows is another troubling sign that less and less effort is going to be put into movies. I don’t know why I felt the need for this long rant but this movie really depressed me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I support this rant. What sucks is that you're coming up in an age when the internet has really shown everyone how the sausage is made, which ends up making everyone part of the process. Studios are then too receptive to what people think they want and often forget to give them what they need.

      Delete
    2. hat’s exactly how I feel when I hear news about Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield being in Spider-Man 3 or Michael Keaton being in Flash. If that’s the stories those the filmmakers want to tell I’m all for it but I fear it’s studios seeing fan made posters and Into the Spider-Verse box office reviews and pushing those stories. In solidarity with your brave Marvel ranking last week I’ll admit one of my favorite MCU films is Far From Home, in no small part thanks to the scene where Peter breaks down in front of Happy. Not only do I think that’s it’s the best acting we’ve seen out of Holland and Favreu in the series but it’s directly tied to the weight of the great responsibility Peter feels as Spider-Man. And I’m just afraid that for every scene where we have to explain why/how Alfred Molina and Jamie Foxx are in the movie there’s less of a chance that we get scenes like that.

      Delete
  4. You want a good MK movie, watch the animated movie Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge

    ReplyDelete
  5. This series needs some stunt casting.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I was super pumped after watching the first 7 mins on Youtube. But aside from some visuals here and there (Sub Zero freezing Jax's gunfire, Kung Lao's fatality) I was disappointed.

    ReplyDelete