Mortal Kombat (2021)
Warner Bros. Pictures, 2021
Mixed bag comes with Mortal Kombat movie reboot
The Mortal Kombat film franchise has been around for a long time, enough to have varying degrees of success and a reboot. That’s where we are with the latest live-action product: Rebooting the tournament to save Earthrealm. Its might is tested, and it comes out relatively well but not without scars.
MK 2021 is essentially the retold story of the first Mortal Kombat Tournament of the modern day. The usual players are here as before: Liu Kang, Sonya Blade, Sub-Zero, Kano, Reptile and Raiden. Shang Tsung is still skulking around doing his usual menacing, Earthrealm-conquering act. But there are some curious additions to this go around. Because technically while it’s named Mortal Kombat, there are elements of Mortal Kombat II and a small part of Mortal Kombat 3 mixed in. Characters like Kabal, who didn’t appear in the games properly until MK3, and Reiko and Nitara, who were MK4 and Deadly Alliance initiates – are front and center. It makes for a more interesting cast but also a few head-scratching lore questions for the more inclined and knowledgeable fan.
The story isn’t particularly close in most aspects aside from the almost required Scorpion and Sub-Zero rivalry and the inclusion of the tournament deciding the fate of Earthrealm. That’s disheartening because at this point in the game – pardon the pun – the story is already there and established over multiple games. The series itself had also undergone two reboots by this point so there was no excuse not to choose an acceptable reboot point and work from there. Also disheartening is the focus on the new character Cole Young. Cole is skepticism of Liu Kang being the “Chosen One” taken to a new level. His later revealed tie-in to the lore was a nice plot point, but he’s an expendable item in a sea of established characters. If you took the character out, it wouldn’t have harmed the movie at all. Let’s hope that with the announced and in-progress sequel that the focus will shift to bringing Liu Kang back to the forefront and also making Johnny Cage a focal point.
The characters are serviceable and the acting behind them is also decent. There isn’t anyone that particularly makes an impression aside from the humor of Kabal (Daniel Nelson/Damon Herriman) and Kano as played by Josh Lawson. The only other standout is the always fantastic Hiroyuki Sanada as Hanzo Hasashi/Scorpion. Sanada manages to shine while playing the living assassin and later undead specter in two fantastic fight scenes, and it’s safe to say we don’t get nearly enough of Sanada’s magic as Scorpion at all. Thankfully, Sanada is slated to return, and Scorpion is basically the face of the franchise in the media space, so we know we’ll see him again.
Mortal Kombat, as a reboot property, has enough going for it in name recognition alone to scare up some fun at the box office. With a little more fine-tuning of the script and a little less reluctance to lean on the established lore, this could be worthy of comparisons to the first movie.
Like the games: 5
Acting: 5
Story: 7.5
Total: 17.5 out of 30 or 5.8
HOW WE GRADE
We score the properties in three categories: Casting (or voice acting in cases of animated), plot and similarities to its source material. Each category receives points out of the maximum of 10 per category and 30 overall. The percentage is the final score.