Mortal Kombat 2021 Review

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Staring Lewis Tan, Jessica Mcnamee, Josh Lawson and Joe Taslim. Earth realm is under threat from Outworld who have won 9 consecutive Mortal Kombat tournaments. If they win a tenth, the earth realm is theirs.

After much anticipation and lots of hype, I finally got to see the newest Mortal Kombat movie. This time around the cast of Mortal Kombat is spot on. Not that there was anything wrong with the cast of the original 1995 movie.

The original story from the first game was simply the Mortal Kombat tournament time has come once again. Outworld had won the previous 9 tournaments with their unbeaten champion Prince Goro. If they win a tenth, they get to take over earth realm. Earth mightiest warriors enter the tournament all with their own agenda.

Mortal Kombat starts with Hanzo Hasashi of the Shirai Ryu clan better known as Scorpion played by Hiroyuki Sanada (The Last Samurai, Westworld) with his wife, child and newborn. He leaves to get water and naturally the Shirai Ryu rival clan the Lin Kuei attack. Killing all the bodyguards. The wife hides the newborn before being killed with her child by Bi-Han also known as Sub Zero played by Joe Taslim (The Night Comes for Us, The Raid) Hanzo arrives, he finds his wife and child frozen solid. Overcome with grief and anger he slaughters all Lin Kuei ninja he encounters. Before encountering Bi-Han. Bi-han defeats Hanzo and kills him with his own weapon. After this we see Raiden (Tadanobu Asano) enter the house and find the newborn child, taking it away.

 

Cut to modern-day, centuries later we see Cole Young played by Lewis Tan (Deadpool 2, Wu Assassin, Into the Badlands) as a faded cage fighter who used to be a big deal. Taking any fight at short notice for money. Due to his reckless ways, he loses most fights that he should win.

Shang Tsung tired of winning the Mortal Kombat tournament the traditional way sends Sub Zero to assassinate all of earth realms champions. The champions all have the same birthmark passed down through blood or passed to them if they kill someone that has the mark. Jax Briggs (Mehcad Brooks) visits Cole. Of course, Cole has the mark. We later find out Cole is the descendant of Hanzo Hasashi through the child Raiden saves.

Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) and Jax are trying to find earth champions. They know all about the mortal Kombat tournament and other realms. A bit later while Cole is with his family, Sub Zero comes knocking who is centuries old by now. Jax arrives in a car to help them escape. Running straight into Sub Zero, Jax makes the fated decision to try to stop Sub Zero while Cole and his family escape in the car. Jax tries to fight Sub Zero but gets his arms completely frozen and shattered off. I think we know where that’s heading.

Once Cole arrives at Sonya Blades base we meet Kano (Josh Lawson) who is in chains. Kano also has the mark as he killed someone who had it.

Later on, we meet Liu Kang (Ludi Lin) and Kung Lao (Max Huang) who are with Raiden. They explain the tournament to Cole and the others. They need to be trained to unlock a special power the mark gives them. Each character has their familiar power the mark has given them. Liu Kang does his flaming fireball/fist thing. Kung Lao is awesome with his hat. Kano eventually learns his laser eye move.

Of course, Mortal Kombat 2021 is going to be compared with the previous movie back in 1995 starring Robin Shou, Christopher Lambert, Linden Ashby and Bridgette Wilson. The main difference being the previous movie was a PG whereas the current one is definitely not. Mortal Kombat near enough built its name on violence and gore. It’s what made it stand out instead of getting lost in the crowd of fighting games. The 1995 movie had very little gore. There were some scenes such as Sub-Zero freezing someone and they shatter into pieces. But this current movie, my god, there’s buckets of gore and then some as it should be.

Some popular fatalities do indeed make an appearance. Hearts are getting ripped out, people getting sliced in half, heads getting lopped off, head getting shattered to bits as well as the odd disembowelment.

The cast all perform their roles well, nothing comes across as badly acted or low budget. This time around Liu Kang doesn’t seem to be the main protagonist i.e. the chosen one to defeat Shang Tsung. The movie focuses more on the new character Cole. Sonya Blade and Jax are the tough non-nonsense army type. Max Huang is awesome as the ice-cool Kung Lao. We also have characters from later games appearing such as Kabal, Mileena and even Nitara who didn’t make an appearance until Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance. And how can we forget to mention Kano. Lawson portrayal of Kano near enough steals the show providing many comedy moments in a sadistic kind of way. The original movie had the late Trevor Goddard portraying Kano and he did it in such an iconic way that Midway adapted his performance into the later games for Kano. Kano in the games was a take on Trevor Goddard performance which Lawson is also portraying and like Goddard, absolutely nails it.

Apart from the opening scene, the proper fights don’t really start until halfway through the movie when Shang Tsung send his champions to take out earth realms champions. There’s quite a lot of fantasy and powers involved. Obviously, each character is a skilled martial artist My main gripe being is Sub Zero seems overpowered compared to the game. In the movie, he comes across as nearly unstoppable plus it doesn’t explain why he’s working for Shang Tsung.

The ending leaves it open for a sequel as this almost feels like a prequel. The tournament hasn’t even started yet. Shang Tsung just tried to take out the competition before it did giving him an easy tournament win. Plus, how can we have the first Mortal Kombat tournament without Johnny Cage who is teased in the end scene. Ryan Reynolds has already thrown his name into the mix with a Twitter post. Ryan Reynolds as Johnny Cage would be awesome. Although I’d love to see Matt Mullins from the web series return as Cage.

In conclusion, if you go into Mortal Kombat expecting a movie made of an extremely violent game you won’t be disappointed. It seems some people were expecting Shakespeare or The Shawshank Redemption academy award stuff. I seriously loved it more than the original movie but still not quite as good as Scorpions Revenge. If you loved the original movie and the games, you will love this.

Rating 3.5/5 belts