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.

PROS:

• To be fair to this movie it stays faithful to the video games, it delivers nice fan service on that front.

• Depending on the mindset you have going into this movie, it can be a fun watch.

CONS:

• The action looks very staged and therefore the choreography is quite poor.

• The special effects are awful, especially with the actors having no idea what is happening in front of them. They didn't have the resources to pull off the amount of CGI things they attempted successfully.

• It is very campy and cheesy.

• As it has a PG-13 rating, there is nowhere near as much violence as the games contain.

A much bettwr movie with decent fx and choreography. Granted the story is cheesy and this is no Enter the Dragon but, not as bad as has been made out. If you are a fannof the game you should share some appreciation to this.

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.

"Mortal Kombat" in my opinion is just an awesome movie. I think because I was such a fan of the video games, the days when Sega was the "thang". LOL, way before Playstation there was Sega! But, I really just loved the characters and this story just always appealed to me. I think because also my friends and I enjoyed acting the movie and video game out. No, we didn't kill each other, we just loved the characters.

Yes, despite this being a typical video game movie, I still think it was cool to watch, still to this day I don't mind watching. It has an awesome soundtrack, excellent moves, and a great look and feel to the movie itself. Just let go and have fun with it, if you enjoyed the video games, I think you should enjoy "Mortal Kombat". It's just cool to watch and keeps you on the edge of your seat in excitement!

7/10