Review of Mortal Kombat (2021) by Saxdude1 — 26 Apr 2021

Tl;dr this is a poorly made film that rides more on the name rather than any actual substance.

The fact that this is the feature directorial and writer debut of Simon McQuoid is not all surprising thanks to how poorly this film is made. First off, the story. Instead of heading directly to the tournament, this film works as a prequel of sorts by focusing on the attempts by Shang Tsung to kill the chosen fighters before the tournament to secure an easy 10th and final win and be allowed to conquer Earthrealm. This isn't necessarily a bad idea, but it's a needless change when all the character "growth" could have still been done in the tournament proper. This change, comes more to add more weight to the death of Hanzo Hasashi (Scorpion) earlier in the film due to some prophecy that a descendant of Hanzo would win the 10th tournament. This descendant is non other than the new protagonist Cole Young.

Cole is one of the biggest problems of the film. The character was clearly made to put more focus on Scorpion and Subzero, due to Cole being from Scorpion's bloodline. While that makes sense as Scorpion and Subzero are the mascots of the series, Cole is a terrible character to do it, as he is poorly written and acted, creating a generic and cliche character that comes off more as an author self insert rather than someone that belongs among the regular cast. This pushes Liu Kang out of his regular protagonist role and relegates him to minor character status. That fate also occurs to most of the other series regulars. Any weight that they have in the games is lost here, as the creator is relying on fans' familiarity with the characters to create emotional investment as opposed to developing them within the film's narrative. This comes back to bite the film as whenever characters are killed, there is no emotion for those with no prior knowledge of the games and characters. Kung Lau is the biggest example of this, as his death has no meaning though it is supposed to be an emotional low point. His connection to Liu Kang is only done through exposition, so it is difficult to really empathize with Kang as his lost. The films bad pacing also plays a part in the lack of emotional investment. The film swings between fights and exposition without time for character, leaving any emotional stakes in the fights nonexistent. The only character that really gets any character development is Cole, except it is trite and cliche, without doing anything that makes it unique. So any emotional stakes in his fight are more contrived.

The fights themselves are not poorly choreographed, but they are poorly shot and edited, with many of them also being poorly lit. This makes the fights difficult to watch and not even delivering on empty spectacle. The only fight that is decent is the final fight between Scorpion and Subzero.

The special effects overly rely on low-quality CGI that looks unfinished, minimizing much of the impact the amount of gore could have. When a body gets cut in half, it comes off as unconvincing as the effect looks fake. The only times the effects look good are when they were done practically, or used Subzero's ice (the only good CGI in the film).

Overall this is an incompetent film that can't even deliver on blind spectacle action like other franchises can due to the ineptitude of the creation. The only reason it is so pervasive in the zeitgeist is due to the mass marketing relying on the name of the brand, being on of the most popular fighting game franchise of all time. While a sequel is undoubtedly on the way, hopefully it is made with people who actually know what they are doing and try to make a decent product first as opposed to a cash grab.