'Mortal Kombat' film review: A flawless victory of fan service & bloody nonsense
Violent and filled with ridiculous action, the video game adaptation 'Mortal Kombat' (opening in theaters and on HBO Max April 23) is everything fans expect from a franchise known for hyper violence.
In short: MMA fighter Cole Young (Lewis Tan) learns he is one of Earth's chosen champions to compete in a fighting tournament - one with grave consequences for Earth should the planet's defenders lose. Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Tadanobu Asano and Hiroyuki Sanada also star.
First and foremost: the rebooted 'Mortal Kombat' looks and feels like a relic from another time. With its cheesy dialogue and sometimes questionable CGI, this 2021 adaptation of 'Kombat' is more polished version than its mid-90s predecessors, even if the tone and texture just screams 90s era action flick.
All that said: 'Mortal Kombat' is a lot of fun because it doesn't just lean into the trappings that hinder other video game flicks - it also adapts the source material in a plot that, against all odds, makes perfect sense for a feature film structure. For the uninitiated, 'Mortal Kombat' is a fighting video game wherein players select one of a dozen or so characters, who then punch and kick each other until one player wins. The winning player doesn't merely 'win' - they straight up murder their opponent in a variety of gruesome manners. Actually - this is basically how this 2021 reboot also plays out. And that's a good thing.
This reboot is totally a fan's love letter to the nearly three decade old franchise. Admittedly, if the cheeky video game memes and fan service were surgically removed from 'Kombat,' and it was just a generic movie about 'good' fighters fighting 'evil' fighters - this movie's dated feel and pedestrian plot would torpedo the movie. This movie hits every beat any 'Kombat' game fan expects - such as Scorpion harpooning his opponent and yelling 'get over here' or characters whipping out their signature martial arts moves from the video games. This film isn't merely fan service - it joyfully embraces the game's eccentricities and absurdities that made 'Mortal Kombat' one of the landmark games in video game history.
'Kombat' is so in the weeds of fandom that it borders on completely excluding anyone who didn't play the games. One short moment in the movie has characters training for the tournament - with one character just leg sweeping his opponent to the ground over and over and over. It's an innocuous and seemingly benign little scene - but anyone who played the original 'Kombat' knows the instant and profound frustration of playing against 'that kid' at the arcade who cheaply won fight after fight by abusing that overpowered leg sweep.
This 2021 reboot improves over the 1995 original film's slavish devotion to the video game. Remember - the video game is literally just characters fighting in a one-on-one tournament ... which resulted in the 1995 movie just being a series of one-on-one fights. This 'Kombat' finds a fun workaround that keeps the story moving ... well, until the second act training section, which is admittedly where the movie stagnates a bit. It's weird to call any 'Mortal Kombat' grounded, but at least this movie's structure just lends itself better to the concept of deadly combat - where the individual fights have more at stake and it actually makes sense these warriors wouldn't just fight to the death - they'd want to completely obliterate their opponent.
Final verdict: 'Kombat' is exactly the movie it needs to be - a worth adaptation of a pretty basic game that joyfully celebrates all the camp and gratuitous violence of the 'Kombat' franchise.
Score: 3/5
'Mortal Kombat' opens in theaters and on HBO Max April 23. This video game adaptation is rated R for strong bloody violence and language throughout, and some crude references and has a running time of 110 minutes.
