MORTAL KOMBAT (2021) Review
Ah MORTAL KOMBAT (2021)…you had me for a moment. You really, truly did but honestly that’s on me for once more falling under the spell of a movie trailer. Whereas that showcased legitimately awesome displays of fantastical and brutal hand-to-hand combat between electric gods, icy/hot demons, and dudes with bladed hats, the actual result of director Simon McQuoid’s feature film debut is about as exciting as one of those typing computer games. Actually, maybe a little less so.
For a film based off a popular fighting video game series that has somehow made it from the 90’s all the way to our present times, this modern attempt at bringing all the fatalities and gore and fun to the screen once more mysteriously misses the mark. Now, for record’s sake, I myself was never a huge Mortal Kombat guy — mainly because I was terrible at fighting games — but even so, I always had a macabre fascination with this game’s interest in lovingly visualizing spilled blood and guts onto the screen in new and imaginative ways. Rumors say there is actually a pretty convoluted and twisty lore to this video game series but honestly, I was just there to see the next bonkers fatality. Whether McQuoid and his merry band of writers (three of em: Greg Russo, Dave Callaham, and Oren Uziel) had played a Mortal Kombat game remains vague as their cinematic reimagining takes out a lot of fun the games while leaving less than tantalizing hints at that ever so popular “franchise” potential every movie is trying to latch onto nowadays.
Despite the presence of gods who shoot lightning out of their hands, kung-fu fighters who shoot fireballs from their palms, and even ogres, MORTAL KOMBAT (2021) decides to plop down with wooden “everyman” Cole Young (Lewis Tan), a fledging MMA fighter who takes the idea of being recruited to fight supernatural bad guys to decide the fate of humanity in pretty good stride. Cole is simply just a tool (both literally and metaphorically) to introduce the audience and fans to MK mainstays like lightening god Raiden (Tadanobu Asano), vulgar robo-mercenary Kano (Josh Lawson), and the “SPY VS. SPY but their ninjas” odd couple of demonic Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim) and Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada), among other video game series favorites. Not that they matter as McQuoid and the writers simply have them show up on screen for a bit, do one of their signature moves, and dip out/and or get killed off in unsettlingly bland fashion (sans one death scene involving a mentioned bladed hat that gleefully brings the wacky violence of the video games to the big screen).
Down the line, everything about MORTAL KOMBAT (2021) feels muted considering its source material. McQuoid, who doesn’t fare terribly in his first feature debut nevertheless struggles to inject any energy in a lot of scenes, turning one encounter where a giant humanoid lizard attacking Cole, Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), and Kano into a bland fight scene filled with less than stellar fight choreography and some shadowed (yet still noticeably shoddy) CGI. More or less playing it safe with the bonkers material offered by the world of Mortal Kombat, the director allows his plot points to make themselves pretty apparent that they might as well be another fighter on screen. Elsewhere, MORTAL KOMBAT (2021), despite its moments of looking like a big budget adaptation of a supernatural fighting game (displayed mostly in the fight scenes between the ice-powered Sub-Zero and the flaming Scorpion) shows its true face as a mid-budget action film leading to the disturbing reuse of settings and inconsistent CGI-effects throughout a nearly 2-hour runtime. Whether in a boxing gym, the tall mountains of the villainous Shang Tsung’s (Chin Han) lair in the evil Outworld, or in the sand pit of some kind of good guy temple, MORTAL KOMBAT (2021) looks as boring as it operates. Fittingly, outside of Lawson’s annoyingly vulgar Kano and Max Huang’s occasionally cheeky Kung Lao and even Taslim’s talent for glowering menacingly, the rest of the cast more or less show up on set in some well-crafted costumes to say some feeble fighting words and advance the movie towards its messy conclusion/table-setting finale.
Story wise, there’s not a lot that makes sense, which is fine considering the film deals with the idea of a literal fighting tournament that will decide the fate of Earth; however, the way the writers move their characters into one another feels incredibly circumstantial and unnatural in the worst of ways. Despite his initial scenes labeling him as an important character, Sanada’s Scorpion is sidelined for a long part of the movie only to show up and literally yell at our boring main characters in a language they don’t understand, confusing them and the audience in equal measure. But even if the story didn’t make a lick of sense, at least one could hope for a film with the word “Kombat” in it to dole out the goofy and exaggerated action of the games but even that wish is muted by choppy editing and unimaginative fight scenes — a shame considering the presence of a person like Taslim, who has proved in much better action flicks that he can deliver awe-inspiring choreography if needed. Granted, when your main character’s superpower is punching people really hard in an off-brand Black Panther costume, it’s not hard to expect the rest of the movie to mute the rest of its cool-powered roster (even though Sub-Zero gets some genuinely sick sequences here and there).
It’s in those moments where Mr. McQuoid and co. edge close to the film’s potential for energetic action where the frustration is palpable. Make no mistake, there are points where MORTAL KOMBAT (2021) delivers the goods but it’s surrounded by so much boring and unimaginative material that those glimmers of entertainment truly feel light. Whether in the sequel or in another reboot down the road, maybe the filmmakers will finally decide to take the leap into a world of crazy, high flying brutality and over-the-top characters. For now, enjoy this film’s less than stellar reimagining of the 90’s MORTAL KOMBAT’s killer theme song.
2/5
