Mortal Kombat (2021)- Its better then the 90s

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Mortal Kombat (2021)

This should come as no surprise to anyone but man, was I ****ing amped up for this movie. The first trailer made it seem like they had finally stayed faithful to the video game. The film from the 90s (Annihilation shall not be mentioned as a valid movie in any sort of way) severely diverted away from the violence of the video game. As amped as I was for this movie, I have to admit it is a bit flawed. Even with it being flawed, it's still an entertaining effort.

Warning: I don't know some of these character's names, so I did my best to describe them.

The good

Opening scene: That opening scene features so much violence that it immediately wipes the other two movies out of existence. On top of the expected violence, though, there were some very pleasant surprises from the director. He built some serious tension when Sub-Zero was taunting Scorpions family. Sub-Zero was perfectly played here, by the way. There was also a surprising amount of emotion here. Scorpion finding his frozen wife and child almost brought me to tears. Going into this, I would have put a million dollars on no way in hell would I almost cry during a Mortal Kombat movie. However, there I was fighting back some minors tears, saying Scorpion, you better **** him up.

The Fights: Gee, what a ****ing shocker that the fight scenes in a Mortal Kombat movie would be damn good. They got the violence right, and the over-the-top fatalities were pretty in line with the video games. The last 40 or so minutes of this movie was exactly what you would want from a Mortal Kombat movie. Kung Lao using his hat as a saw-blade on screeching wench (her character was outside my limited knowledge of Mortal Kombat characters) and cutting her in half was classic. Sonya sonic blasting a hole through Joker mouth lady was sweet. The fire dragon from Kang at the end got a lot of people in the theater (yes, I was one of those people) to let out some sounds of glee. The touch of over-the-top violence was good to see in the ending fight scenes. BBBuuttt ddammmnnn that final fight between Scorpion and Sub-Zero was epic. It was perfect to start and finish the movie with these two. Both of the battles will be known as classics.

Kano: This man carried the middle section of the movie. He was a riot throughout the dull middle section. I don't know the broski that played him but bravo to you, sir. His one-liners were delivered to perfection, and he was a real highlight to this movie. Anytime he opened his mouth, you were guaranteed a good ole hardy laugh.

Sub-Zero: OOOOHHHH, you a bad, bad zombie man. Frosty the Snowman ain't got **** on Sub-Zero. First off, they cast the right dude to play this character. Something that can not be said for other characters in this movie. This Sub-Zero was menacing and just a straight-up problem for anyone to deal with. His fight scenes were the highlights of the movie. However, the way he toyed with other characters was terrific. His intro to Jax and Cole was cool as hell. Having him slam the ice down on everything was great. Then having him freeze Jax's gun as it was firing was awesome. They nailed everything about this character.

- I liked the casting of Scorpion, Shang Tsung, and Kung Lao as well.

- Yeesss, they included the theme song. I dug the theme, changing it up and making it more orchestral. Much respect for including the original version during the credits.


The bad

The casting: As much as this movie wanted to be a major blockbuster movie, the casting and acting at times made it feel like a B-level Mortal Kombat movie. Some of the castings were good, but other ones were questionable at best. Johnny Cole was lame and not interesting at all. Sonya Blade was just bland. Even the lady who played Cole's wife sucked. After she is attacked by Sub-Zero, there is 0 panic on her face whatsoever. Like lady, a dude who controls ice and **** is chasing your family; maybe you should have a little pep in your step and be concerned. Not this bitch thought she looked like she could care less that killer Jack Frost was on her family's tail. Even Liu Kang felt wrong. Looks-wise he was pretty accurate, but his acting could have been better. There were times when he was talking to another character, but he was looking at nothing like his eyes weren't focused on the character but gazing off into a distant future.

Rushed Ending: Dear writers and director of this movie, next time, don't spend so much time wandering around in a desert and spend more time on fights. A lot of the battles here in the end just didn't enough time to breathe. They rushed the final fights between almost all the contestants. The rematches were just too short. Liu Kang disposed of the knockoff Predator too quickly. Jax just needed about a minute to squish hammer bros head in (did they even say his name?).


Justice for Goro: This man/thing gets no respect. Between the 90s movie making him look like a tree of dildos. Seriously he looked awful in it. And then being taken out by a kick to the nuts. This dude gets no love. Even here, he isn't established enough. He looks good, but I would have rather have him not fight Cole and save it for the sequel. They could have established him as a badass here by doing something evil. My vote would be to rip some people in half, but what does my bloodthirsty ass know. They could have just established his badassery and then go balls to the wall in the sequel.

Johnny Cole: **** the new guy. Johnny Cole was a complete waste. They wasted a lot of screen time for it to go absolutely nowhere. They made it seem like he would eventually turn into Scorpion, but nope Scorpion was his own entity altogether. If I'm supposed to believe that some sort of third-rate MMA guy, who lost his fight, by the way, is gonna protect the earth, then I might as well get used to being a slave to Shao Kahn cause Johnny Cole ain't gonna save ****. They could have just easily shown glimpses of Scorpion killing demons in hell and then still have him come back in the end. Have him say I have conquered hell in order to kill you, Bi-Han. Bam, I'm a better writer than whoever wrote this movie (I'm well aware of how terrible my writing is, so **** off).

-Clarify beef between Sub-zero and Scorpion. What exactly was the original beef. I'll assume it was Scorpion wiped out Bi-Han's clan, but it could be he ****ed Bi-Han's mom, and now he is his new daddy, and he doesn't like that. It's probably option A, but hell, if I know


Ultimately this is an upgrade from the 90s movie, but it's still a disappointment. The fact that the Mortal Kombat tournament doesn't even happen here already discredits this movie. This should have either been re-titled Mortal Kombat: Beginnings or something, or it should have been a limited series leading up to the movie. Then that movie is actual Mortal Komabt. Besides the lousy plot, ****face newbie, and no actual Mortal Kombat, this movie is still a fun watch. There is enough lip service to fans with lines from the video games, and there is enough over-the-top violence to keep people happy. It's undoubtedly no Mortal Kombat Scorpion's Revenge, which if you want over-the-top violence, then go watch that. I set a high bar for an abundance of violence, and that movie still delivered way more of it. This movie though, is a solid jumping-off point for this franchise but for ****s sake, give us the tournament in the sequel. 7/10

for more review go to tjkellyrants.com



I don t think it s better , it has maybe a better character development in some places but the original is better paced, more coherent,with a legendary score, has that dread feel, and cary tagawa was just a much better chang sung, all in all i prefer the original



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
The Fight Scenes: With the exception of Sub-Zero vs Scorpion at the end, I felt like the fight scenes were edited poorly. Watch any Jackie Chan movie or the recent John Wick movies and they let the audience see the action. The fluidity of the scenes make it easy to see the moves and enjoy the pace of the fight. I felt like this movie did a bad job at that and I'm willing to ding it a bit more because this movie is ABOUT FIGHTING.

The Acting: Bad all around. Kano was the Johnny Cage of the original, giving some funny one-liners and actually breathing some life into a rather dull ensemble. Everyone else was pretty poor and I'm willing to say Raiden was mis-cast completely. Horrible film presence and I did not once get the God of Thunder vibe from him. Add onto that the bad eye glow and the character (one of my favourites) was a real low-point for me. Sub-Zero and Scorpion were pretty good though.

Dialogue: Terrible from start to finish.

Finding their powers: I laughed for awhile when Jax's arms changed into super arms. That scene was confusing, dumb and laughable. His inner power was to...lose his arms so he could one day get mechanical ones and then transform them into super mechanical ones? Does your power change based on what your inner struggle is?

The blood: I get it, it's Mortal Kombat and it was a nice nod to the audience with fatalities and using the R rating to their advantage. But the blood was excessive. If you want me to try and take the film somewhat seriously, make the blood a little bit more realistic. I'll throw the language in here too, feels out of place.

No one screaming Mortal Kombat with techno music blaring over an image of a dragon with flames behind it....literally unwatchable. (jokes)


This movie was not good and there is no...Mortal Kombat in it. This was a classic case of setting up a better movie, but do we care about seeing the next one? Why make a bad one to start off just to set up what you really want to do? I mean, I'll watch the next one just because I AM a fan of the video game series, but to me they had an opportunity to really dive into the lore of this series and they kind of dropped the ball.



Welcome to the human race...
OP, if you're going to go to the trouble of describing the fights in this much detail then you might as well look up the character names to match rather than come up with phrases like "Joker mouth lady" (unless the point is to joke about character' wacky appearances/lack of personality, in which case you don't admit to not knowing the names from the start).

Anyway, I think a good point of comparison here would be the Hellboy reboot that also jacked up the violence compared to previous cinematic adaptations but which ultimately prioritised edginess and universe-building over providing any actual substance (which even Mortal Kombat needs at least some of in order to ground its violence - the cold open certainly seemed to understand that). Too bad it makes up a generic protagonist and contrives a needlessly convoluted plot and mythology (the whole birthmark/power maybe could've worked but it's never put to good use beyond some weak chosen-one plotting and also some absurd scenes of earning power like Kano's). I thought Tadanobu Asano could've worked as Raiden (his turn as the perpetually-amused interpreter in Silence felt of a piece with the kind of cackling energy Christopher Lambert had in '95) but it just didn't work out because they wanted him to be this super-jaded god who was disappointed in his subjects (because EDGY - see also John Hurt and Ian McShane offering vastly different takes on Professor Broom in the Hellboy movies). Also odd to think about how bloodless the movie could be outside of a couple of the fatalities.
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This movie barely rates a meh. If you saw the trailer, that's as good as it gets. So stupid. The introduction of some new random dude who is not even part of the game as the main guy is one of the biggest mistakes Hollywood makes these days and they did it again here. I don't watch a movie like this for a good story. A little bit of decent writing is all I ask. This movie has neither. Meh...
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I mentioned this in the Oscar chat last night, but this wasn't just bad, it was bad in genuinely confusing and maddening ways. Example: at one point a fighting coach (or something) is talking to Cole and his wife's there. The coach turns to her and says "Staying for this one?" This is a good line! It's simple exposition (it tells us she usually doesn't like watching his fights) that's also natural and realistic. It's a thing a real person might say that tells us things without saying them outright.

Guess what the next line is?

"You know I never stay for his fights."




I'm still glad I watched it, though, and I still want them to make more. I just want them to be better.

I've accepted I can't be reasonable about some franchises, and this is probably one of them.

My brain: this is terrible.
My heart: MORMAL MOMMATT!!! DUN DUN DUN DUN DO-DAH DUN DUN DUN DUN



Welcome to the human race...
That exchange still has nothing on

WARNING: "MK2021" spoilers below
the part where Cole is pairing his companions off into one-on-one fights at the end and he decides to pit Sonya against Kano where he says something along the lines of "you've fought him before, but this time he has a laser, so be careful"



A system of cells interlinked
I saw this over the weekend. For the first few minutes, it seemed like they were aiming for a cheap knock-off, as far as the art direction and cinematography, of something like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Sadly, we weren't getting even that. It was as if they filmed the opening scene first, then decided it was too much time and effort, so they blew off any further attempts at being even slightly artful. I get the idea they filmed the opening as some sort of teaser or proof of concept, then phoned the rest in once the film was green lit.

I chuckled a couple of times at a joke or two, and was occasionally entertained by a fight, but man, the writing was atrocious throughout, and even though I would normally never say this about a film like this, but it needed more time to unfold the story instead of just rushing from location to location, checking off fatality boxes.
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Did they even play the song? I honestly can't remember.
The provided a remix but at the end credits only lol



Can't even see where the knob is
I thought it was bad and actually worse than the original. In addition to looking and sounding very cheap, I got the distinct impression that none of the actors wanted to be there. The world-building and dialogue are also completely awful, resulting in badly timed moments of forced exposition and weirdly on-the-nose name-dropping and referencing. It was tacky as hell and not in a good way.

I don't know, they had some room to improve over the 1995 movie, but they sadly went the budget route and gave us a cheesefest on the same level of production as something like Xena Warrior Princess. Except that show was more entertaining.
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How am I supposed to find someone willing to go into that musty old claptrap?



Watching the little weasel whose "Good at calculations" from The Dark Knight playing this evil soul sucker guy was an interesting and odd thing too. I just kept picturing him with a bunch of money in his mouth while he was saying his lines. Made it a little funnier. For me.



I liked this reboot a lot, I know a lot of people don't. I've recently uploaded a review to YouTube, search 'Mortal Kombat (2021) - Movie Review - Spoiler Free' to find it. I'm too new to post links, but would appreciate any views and feedback, planning to do some more reviews in the future.



When you watch the original Mortal Kombat movie from back in the 90s it is very corny/cheesy. Probably because it’s outdated now.

I liked that 90s movie when I was young, but now it’s lame.

I still haven’t seen the 2021 MK but based on the trailer alone, it has to be better than that the 90s version.



Welcome to the human race...
When you watch the original Mortal Kombat movie from back in the 90s it is very corny/cheesy. Probably because it’s outdated now.

I liked that 90s movie when I was young, but now it’s lame.

I still haven’t seen the 2021 MK but based on the trailer alone, it has to be better than that the 90s version.
Well, yeah, the whole point of a trailer is to make the whole movie look good regardless of whether or not it actually is. The 1995 movie has elements that haven't aged well, sure, but it's still a sufficiently functional action movie at the end of the day (and is at least aware enough of how cheesy it is not to try pretending to be anything else), which is more than I can say for the 2021 movie that's still an ugly bore even with the advantage of better technology or martial artists.



The original was cheesy fun with a great theme song. The new one was just moldy cheese on stale chips.

...and how dare they start off with a pretty nice scene, then totally screw the pooch after that.
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It is no better - definitely not.
And so the new movie is better than expected. There are very few successful screen versions of computer games.
Tomb Raider is so-so. Hitmans are not even close to their prototype. Maybe Silenthill, but the game is still much better.
Mortal Kombat from 1985 is the best adaptation of the game of all time - with the best music and morals, which is missing from the new version.
What's Mortal Kombat without a tournament?