The new Mortal Kombat movie is now on HBO Max as part of the same-day premiere series. I have never seen any previous Mortal Kombat movies; but this seems to be a completely new reboot.
Some background info for the review – I played the original game trilogy when it came out, but the games were too violent for my parents to have allowed me to own them. I haven’t played much of any Mortal Kombat games since the SNES/Genesis era (except for the DC crossover game which I loved).
There will be some minor spoilers.
The story starts in 1600s Japan with Sub-Zero destroying Scorpion’s village and then killing Scorpion. The story then fast-forwards to the present day. There are warriors throughout the world who have a mark on them (the MK logo), they have been chosen to compete in the Mortal Kombat tournament as Earth’s champions. Each tournament Earthrealm faces Outworld. Sub-Zero is the best fighter from Outworld. Earthrealm has lost too many tournaments in a row – and if they lose again Outworld will be allowed to invade Earth.
The movie then introduces Cole Young (Lewis Tan), a former MMA champion who’s now down on his luck. He’s had the Mortal Kombat mark on him since he was born, but he doesn’t know why. Sub-Zero appears and attacks him and his family, but luckily another one of Earth’s fighters Jax (Mehcad Brooks) also shows up to save them. Cole and his family are able to escape. Cole then seeks out Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) for help. She explains what she thinks is happening. Then, they go to Raiden’s temple to train. Outworld is trying to ensure their win by killing all of earth’s contestants before the tournament. Cole, Sonya, and Jax train under Raiden (Tadanobu Asano) and try to unlock their full potential. However, after Outworld invades Raiden’s temple with a sneak attack, they know they must take the fight to their enemies. After defeating the other Outworld warriors, their final showdown is with Sub-Zero. In the end the actual tournament never happens.
Is the movie good? Umm…well probably not, the story is both predicable and not entirely satisfying. One major plot point is a hero thought to be dead returns and they just wave it away saying “he wanted to come back”. The characters are very cheesy. Not all the acting is great, even for an over-the-top movie. But it’s dumb and fun.
And it’s dumb fun the way you want a Mortal Kombat movie to be. Lines from the games like “Flawless Victory” , “Get Over Here”, and “Finish Him” are spoken with seeming sincerity. The movie serves up perfect fan service from the original games. In parts it’s incredibly gory just like the finishers from the MK game series. Multiple times I was laughing or excited because “That’s Goro”, or “That’s their special weapon in the game!”. They may be cheap thrills but they work and they’re spread throughout the whole movie.
And the fight scenes are genuinely good. Some of the best martial arts choreography in an American film in a while. It was the right mix of actual martial arts, action movie, and video game presentation. That’s a much harder balance than people realize.
I thoroughly enjoyed this. No, it’s not a great movie, but it is a fun movie. And that’s all I really want out of a movie based on a fighting game. This is a definite HBO Max if you’re a fan of martial-arts movies or Mortal Kombat. If you have an aversion to gore or don’t see the appeal of fighting games/movies definitely skip.