Mortal Kombat (2021) Movie Review: Testing its Might

 by Karl W.



In the almost 30 years since its inception, Mortal Kombat has grown from the violent arcade game that caused moral panic across the United States to a large and credible franchise. We've seen action figures, TV shows, an animated kids show (yes really), and games that get increasingly more violent and gory with each iteration. Of course, there are also movies as well, with the 1995 movie being a cult classic among fans, even despite the PG-13 rating at the time, cutting out a lot of what made Mortal Kombat...Mortal Kombat. Now we have a new Mortal Kombat movie, one that has the R rating fans have been yearning for for years now, and one that has its fair share of gruesome, bloody combat, releasing in theatres and HBO Max for streaming. 

As for the movie itself? Well, it's a movie that does have its fair share of flaws, but it is one that does pretty much all it needs to: to make a movie that establishes its world and gives us good combat along with bloody finishers as apropos to the series itself. It's a popcorn flick, in its purest form, but it's also a movie that appeals to those in that demographic that enjoys this violent action movie or are fans of the source material. It appeals to a more niche audience than most, and could easily be a deterrent for those unfamiliar with the source material, and for people that don't like the source material, I doubt this will change your mind.

The story involves Cole Young, a new character for the movie, who finds himself fighting for the fate of the Earth after being pursued by an assassin with ice powers called Sub-Zero. He pairs up with other fighters from across the world to fight Sub-Zero and other invaders from a plane called Outworld. He also learns that he has a mysterious mark that was with him since birth and unlocks an arcana with proper training that will allow him to defend the Earth alongside other characters from the Mortal Kombat world, including Sonya, Jax, Kano, Liu Kang, and Kung Lao. The dragon markings is a new plot point introduced to the series, and I don't mind its inclusion, helping add a type of mysticism to the plot and an explanation for certain powers that weren't explained in full in the games. That's not really a bad thing.

I just wish we had a more compelling lead character. This isn't to say I think Cole Young is a terrible character, or even that Lewis Tan is a bad actor. In fact, to get this out of the way, the acting overall ranges from acceptable to actually pretty great, the highlights being Josh Lawson playing the smarmy, despicable, and really charismatic Kano to the upmost degree, and Joe Taslim as Sub-Zero, who sells this cold, threatening assassin purely through the visual acting alone, not to mention his action scenes being particularly brutal. Seriously, Sub-Zero being written as this imposing, nearly unstoppable force is one of the best decisions in this movie. The problem comes in how some of these characters are written, and I'm sorry, Cole is not a compelling character whatsoever. He is a down-on-his-luck MMA fighter with a family that is supposed to be the tether character to take the audience into the world of Mortal Kombat, but there isn't much to the character asides from finding out the mystery of his dragon mark, which becomes pretty obvious after the opening scene. He doesn't even win the fights he is in without being backed up by another character in this movie. We don't feel his progression, and for a character that is supposed to be the anchor character for the audience, that's a pretty big flaw. If anything, the supporting characters in this have more compelling arcs, including Sonya coming into the tournament without a dragon mark and trying to find ways of being useful without it, and Jax losing his arms in the first act of this movie and learning to pick himself up after the fact.

However, I would say the bigger problem here is the pacing. That's not to say the movie drags to a crawl, as the movie is still plenty entertaining all throughout, but you do feel the pace slowing down around the second act where we get our training montages and our explanations of the tournament and the dragon marks. Then, when we get to the third act, it almost feels like it's going too fast in places, the fights moving through with quick pace with not much of a real investment in the characters, and this is all taking place before the tournament even takes place proper. It makes this movie feel more like setting up for events to take place in a future movie, and for the first movie to do that, without even knowing how well this movie will succeed, is not a particularly good idea.

But fine, let's talk about those fights, and where we find that problem of inconsistency still ringing through. There are a few fights here that I would say are legitimately excellent, in particular the final fight against Sub-Zero that has been built up by the trailers and really pays off at the end. Another highlight comes in the two fights in the cabin, where the environment really plays a factor in the fights to exceptional degree. However, those are only three fights out of dozens of fights in this movie, most of which lack the stakes or even the brutality that the sparse selection of fights entail, not helped by the closeup angle most of these fights are shot at. Most of these fights happen towards the latter half of the movie as well, meaning the luster of it all becomes lost after a while. The end of the movie does feature the most of the brutal fatalities (one of which made my jaw drop due to how brutal and sudden it is), but we don't really feel the danger of it all that the games were able to convey. The combat should play a big feature in these fights and half of the time, they feel oddly limp. Same could be said for the effects, some of which are impressive and impactful, while others look pretty bad (especially concerning the character Goro).

But still, there is a lot of fun to be had in this movie. I do think the first act is really great, and offers some of the best fights in the movie and some great suspense. We do also have some standout moments with character interactions, especially the ones involving Kano, who runs away as the most compelling character in this movie. And yeah, the fatalities are brutal and bloody, just what you would want in a Mortal Kombat movie that we didn't get in the previous movies. Even still, I think this is about on par with the 1995 Mortal Kombat movie, just in different aspects than that film (definitely better than Annihilation though). I feel like if some of the kinks were ironed out in the script and the editing and pacing were improved, then I feel like we could've gotten something truly great rather than being a decent popcorn flick that seems more invested in the setup rather than the payoff (odd given the nature of this series). Still, this does have its fair share of fun moments and enjoyable action that it is still worth a recommendation regardless, mainly for the fans of this series or of some good, bloody combat. It might not be a flawless victory, but still a good time to be had.


6/10

Decent

Comments