Mortal Kombat

Following up the spectacular disaster of competing fighting game turned movie, Mortal Kombat succeeded where Street Fighter failed. Not a fantastic movie nor one that goes in my top ten, but Mortal Kombat (without a doubt) is one of the better game-based-films.

MK wisely avoids inventing plot in unwelcomed places and sticks to the game as frequently as it can get away with. Actually the biggest contradiction that comes to mind is Scorpion and Sub-zero on the same team. Die hard fans will call the screenwriter on this, the rest of us won't care.

All the mistakes Street Fighter made, MK avoided. Instead of colorful campy cameo-fest, Mortal Kombat comes across as a dark tale about a handful of martial artists shot with an exaggerated epic style with humorous undertones to provide comic relief every now and again. Then again, it is ironic that Street Fighter would feel cartoony and Mortal Kombat more concrete when looking at the style of the games (drawn sprites versus live actors). MK is a little silly when reproducing game effects and trademark moves, though now more and more films are moving in that direction (Matrix, anyone?)

The movie's premise is the first Mortal Kombat arcade game featuring a few plot hints (journey to Outworld) and a few characters from Mortal Kombat 2 (Kitana, Jax, a youthful Shang Tsung.)

Christopher Lambert and Cary-Hiroyuki Takawa make the most memorable impact as Thunder God Rayden and Shape-shifting Sorcerer Shang Tsung. Both ham up their performances just enough to remind us that we're watching a live-action video game, but they don't go overboard into Street Fighter's territory. The rest of the cast plays their part straight forward and makes their characters believable.

It's a quick and slick film, gets to the action and gets over with before you can ask too many questions. It's a pretty decent martial arts film, and an outstanding ‘video game' film. And in 1995, it was the best game-inspired film you could find. Today it's still in the top five.

Movies based on video games usually aren't that great but I think Mortal Kombat is one of the better ones. Sure, it has some flaws, but it also does a lot of things right. The characters look like the ones in the game, they perform some of their trademark fighting moves, the plot centers around a fighting tournament with no other boring plotlines thrown in, and the locations look excellent.

The flaws would be some cheap looking cgi (which is not too often, so I don't have a problem with that), and the often talked about fact that Mortal Kombat the game was very violent and graphic, but none of that is in this movie. Yes, I think the movie would be a bit more effective if there were those bloody fatalities, but then again I think somehow the movie manages to create the mystical atmosphere of the games even without the over-the-top violence. Yes, it's also cheesy and comedic, but I think in the right way. It's just a very entertaining action movie.

And that really says a lot about how the not-so-current trend of games-to-movies are received among critics. But this one was easily the best of all of them. This is easily in a league higher than the likes of Super Mario Brothers, Double Dragon, Street Fighter, Wing Commander, the Tomb Raider movies, Resident Evils 1 and 2, House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark, not to mention that this was one of the few that actually stayed true to the game, from the costumes to the tourney fights, from the characters to the plot lines, everything was done right, and it makes for one hell of a fight-'em-to-the-finish type movie.

But heed my warning: AVOID THE SEQUEL AT ALL COST! Just stick with the original. You won't be disappointed (well, maybe you will, just maybe).

OK, so this was the first time that "Mortal Kombat" was gonna be made into a movie and they wanted to make it as above and beyond as possible and that in all the cool effects that everyone who plays the games would have appreciated and then they totally missed the movie all together. Is it ridiculous? Yes. Is it poorly acted? Absolutely. Do you have a fun time? Heck yes!

Just don't take the movie seriously or expected to be as loyal to the video games and you'll have a good time.

"The essence of Mortal Kombat is not about death ... but life." Mortal Kombat is filled to the brim with bad acting, terrible dialogue, and horrendous CGi.

But outside of that, what we have here is a film that cares for its source material and is not afraid of showing it. Whether it be Scorpions fire-spitting skull head, or Johnny Cage doing his splits nut-punch, it shows the creator knew and cared about Mortal Kombats origins and ridiculousness.

It doesn't shy away from having a lot of fights too. Although not as bloody and gruesome as you'd expect, they still feel impactful enough to get the point across.

Mortal Kombat pleasantly surprised me with how it stayed with its source material unlike most video game film adaptations. It had a pretty decent story and lots of good fights, but it does suffer from some poor acting and dialogue along with some of the worst CGi i've seen. The Goro animatronic was impressive though!

EDIT: Reptile is my all time favorite Mortal Kombat character so seeing his HORRENDOUS appearance kind of upset me. But then thankfully redeemed it in the end.