Directed by Ethan Spaulding and starring the voice talent of Jennifer Carpenter, Joel McHale, Ike Amadi and Steve Blum. Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle Of The Realms is a sequel to 2020 Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpions Revenge. Earth realm is fighting off Shao Khan’s outworld invasions only for Shao Khan to propose an end to the bloodshed with one final tournament and winner takes all.
A while back we couldn’t get a Mortal Kombat movie for love nor money. Now we have one live-action and 2 animated movies in the space of 2 years and I really can’t get enough as Mortal Kombat is one of my favourite franchises. I’ve always liked it better than Street Fighter which I also think is past due for another awesome animated movie.
Once again, we are treated to an 18 rated gore fest and I think the violence is even more extreme than Scorpions revenge.
Theirs heads getting torn off, arms getting torn off, guys getting ripped in two down the middle and of course the bone-crunching x-ray moves which I don’t remember seeing in Scorpions Revenge.
The movie starts with Shao Khan’s demon army invading earth realm. A temple is under attack. It is being defended by series favourite Kung Lao and some monks. All seems lost before earths other mightiest warriors arrive. Jax and a welcome return of Stryker. I always found Stryker quite familiar. He wasn’t there in the first tournament, no chosen one or magic fireball/shadow kick mumbo jumbo. He’s just a cop that got caught up defending earth when outworlds forces invaded. Of course a highly-skilled fighter but he just uses police guns and batons.
Series regulars, Liu Kang, Sonya, Johnny Cage and Raiden arrive and while the two sides are battling, Shao Khan arrives and makes a proposal to Raiden. Speak to the elder gods and propose one last mortal Kombat tournament, winner takes all. The elder gods agree and Raiden has one last stipulation. The elder gods make him mortal so he can compete in the tournament.
As the main story arc progresses, once again we have a side story arc with our favourite anti-hero Scorpion. Shinnok is trying to persuade Scorpion to break into a temple to get the Kamidogu to resurrect the one being. Scorpion rebels of course and escapes. We see Sub Zero (younger brother of Bi-Han the original Sub Zero) training with Smoke. They are called to the Lin Kuei grandmaster where they are informed the Lin Kuei has been tasked with catching Scorpion and they will need to become cyborg ninjas as Cyrax and Sektor walkout. Neither being happy with this Sub-zero and Smoke fight back with Smoke being captured. Later Sub Zero meets up with Scorpion and they join forces to try to stop the Lin Kuei’s Cyrax, Sektor and now cyborg Smoke from capturing the Kamidogu for the grandmaster to give to Shinnok.
Back at the tournament, we are introduced to a whole bunch of new fighters. With Johnny Cage facing off against D’Vorah. Raiden against Reiko, Stryker against Baraka and whole a bunch more such as Kitana, Jade, Li Mei, Kitaro, Shang Tsung and of course, Shao Khan.
This time around, there are some fan favourite character deaths but being Mortal Kombat and for anyone that’s played the games know characters don’t stay dead for long. So just because they died, doesn’t mean they won’t be in future instalments.
In terms of the game storyline, I guess it kind of tells the story of the 2nd game with Shao Khan being the end boss, Kitaro being the sub-boss and the earth realm being invaded. There are lots of later game characters in there though.
Once again like Scorpions Revenge my main gripe is some of the fights are a little short and still no Mortal Kombat techno music. Plus, things like Raiden getting his arse handed to him a bit, I mean the guys had thousands of years of fight experience. Even mortal he should be more than a match for any other mortal in the tournament
In conclusion, I’m going to have to compare Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle Of The Realms with Scorpions Revenge and I’d say it’s not quite as good, the ending was a little over the top. It actually reminded me of the last game, Mortal Kombat 11 where Liu Kang became a god at the end to battle Kronika but still a great addition to the franchise and I hope they do more of these movies as I really can’t get enough. Check out the trailer below.
Mortal Kombat battle for the realms is available to buy on blue ray now.
Rating 3.5/5 belts
