I dunno guys…it delivered everything I wanted a Mortal Kombat movie to give me. I mean I pretty much just went for the fatalities, but I think it did what it did pretty well. I didn’t even mind the “flawless victory,” silly though it was.
I thought the story was less dumb than Godzilla vs. Kong. And it delivered more fighting.
My expectations were ridiculously low, but I had a good time.
I’m pretty much of the same opinion - I’ve got a ridiculously low bar for mindless beat ‘em ups and this ticked the mindless and beat ‘em up boxes but good!
I just saw this and thought it was pretty darn fun. I’m glad the gore was CGI though, I know it looks worse than practical effects, but if they went in on full body horror I couldn’t have enjoyed it. I also enjoyed the call outs to the game, but maybe because the last time I actually played a MK game was before some of these characters even existed.
The sweep attacks over and over again on Kano until he cried out “Do you even know other fucking moves” fucking nailed it.
FUCK.
They were so goddamn close! They… asffasdf
FUCK
This was hilarious and truly meta! I don’t think I’ve played ANY fighting game where I didn’t hear someone whine about exactly this.
The first two are super cheese fests. But they do not take themselves the least bit seriously and there’s fun bits and also Johnny Cage.
This movie took itself super fucking seriously. Both movies do lots of callouts (e.g. using specific moves from the game, using lines from the game), but everything here is done as straight forwardly as possible. And it’s just. . . deeply ungood. And the bulk of the fight choreography isn’t really better than the earlier films. Flashier in places - using more “cinema modern” martial arts at times - but a lot of it comes off as flat.
And seriously. An anticlimactic fight with Goro in a driveway is the best they can do? Awful.
This movie got too dumb I had to abort.
A friend and I decided to watch the 90s movies before this one. Conclusions:
The 1995 movie is still cheesy fun, and worth revisiting if you’re nostalgic for it. A lot of that is due to Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa’s pitch-perfect performance as Shang Tsung. And boy is that theme song great.
The 1997 movie is just bad. Not so good it’s bad, just bad. Terrible effects (somehow worse than the previous movie), even less of a script, ragged pacing, Raiden in a pleather vest… it’s just bad.
The 2021 movie is technically better than the 1995 version in most respects, from effects to script, but it’s not nearly as much fun. And I can’t believe that they didn’t re-use the original song. They use orchestral versions of it in a couple of places, which only serve to remind you of how much better the original is. Huge miss.
I noticed HBO Max has 6 Mortal Kombat movies right now, not 3 like I was expecting.
I was excited when this started because I thought this was going to be like Highlander except with Hiroyuki Sanada. Nope! They completely waste him.
Even then I could have enjoyed it if the fight choreography was decent, but it was so, so bad. You could see the punches not connecting.
This movie was terrible.
I just watched all three and I’d put this one on top.
First of all, making a PG-13 Mortal Kombat with barely even a single drop of blood, CG or otherwise is just ridiculous before you even start.
The first one was terrible. It had two decent fights and some brilliant set design, but the actors felt like they had been picked off the street, and Chris Lambert had this knowing smirk with every line, like he was showing everybody that he wasn’t even gonna try for this dumb crap. The only person in that movie who felt like they knew what they were doing is the guy playing Shang Tsung.
The second one is the worst movie I can remember seeing. It is The-Room-bad, to the point where every character introduction, I was expecting someone to go “Oh hi Sheeva”, or whoever happened to flip in from up high.
I went into 2021 expecting more of the same, so I was pretty surprised by what they brought. I think it’s a really good popcorn movie!
I liked a lot of the banter, there were a couple of genuinely good lines, the fights were pretty slick. It had a better class of actor all round. No stardust, but at least they didn’t seem confused by the lights and the cameras, like most of the cast in the original movies.
The one thing that bothers me is that after watching the original Shang Tsung, the guy they got for this one was brutally underwhelming. Loved geriatric Scorpion though.
Another thing is that it’s made in a time when Marvel rules Hollywood, so of course they end up borrowing a lot to try to be superhero-adjacent, because that’s just how you sell a movie right now.
The funniest thing to me is that I think the story of Mortal Kombat 11 is better than all of them. I was pretty blown away when I picked it up. They really went balls to the wall with that one. It’s loopy and whacky, it goes all over the place, and there’s no way you could ever sell it as a movie, but I’m glad it exists!
I haven’t watched this movie yet. Apparently they’re casting for a sequel.
https://www.darkhorizons.com/karl-urban-is-cage-in-mortal-kombat-2/
I can’t really see him as Johnny Cage. like, at all.
I’m hoping to be pleasantly surprised though!
I couldn’t sleep last night and watched this on Netflix. It wasn’t very good. The only saving grace was Kano. I’d watch a movie about him doing his Kano things.
+1 I recently played MK10 and 11 on a forum member’s advice and they were great.
It’s the same with the injustice games. WBs movie division should consider poaching the NetherRealm writing staff.