Mortal Kombat: Movie Review

Cast: Lewis Tan, Joe Taslim, Jessica MacNamee, Josh Lawson

Director: Simon McQuoid

Sometimes, a film does exactly what it says on the tin and nothing more.

One such case is Mortal Kombat, the latest in a line of video game adaptations to hit the big screen, much to the nervous anticipation of fans and the general apathy of a public that's overwhelmed by soulless game movies that amount to nothing and rarely get a sequel.

There's plenty of fan service in Mortal Kombat that pays homage to its fighting platform roots.

From the dropping of lines from the game's various victory voiceovers to the general adherence to the lore, it's clear director Simon McQuoid knows who he's pitching the film to - it's just a shame the script and parts of the execution don't do more to build an excellent prologue that pitches both mythology, mystical edges and a desire for revenge through the generations.

In truth, nobody expects a deep plot for video game films - just something serviceable to make sure the film hits its required beats without feeling choppily edited. But Mortal Kombat serves up a 1617 Japan-set opening that hints at epicness and then plonks it into current day with a washed-up MMA Fighter Cole Young (Lewis Tan) being hunted by Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim) a dude who can throw ice and is taunting him about his destiny.

Soon Cole is slap-bang in the middle of a fight between good and evil as Earth's greatest champions face rivals from the Outer World, intent on destroying them.

Maybe it's churlish to expect more, because in truth, with Josh Lawson's boorish and crass Kano providing comic relief (and borderline harassment machismo), and with fight scenes that stick to the MK aesthetic of side-scrolling and providing locations-based backgrounds for said fights, there's much that Mortal Kombat delivers for fans - even if too much editing renders some of the fight scenes a little trickier to engage with and the cheesier lines cause eyerolls.

Certainly, the film gels with its R16 rating, with enough gore to satiate the horrific levels of violence from within the game - but a film like Mortal Kombat is beholden to picking up a wider audience, rather than just fans who will see it. It's here that it falls short, promising set-up for future efforts and teasing in its final few minutes that there could be more.

But without some deeper writing so that characters like Cole Young don't just feel like hollow cyphers for the audience to follow, the future of the franchise is on shakier ground than it should be. It's serviceable enough, yet it can't help but feel more like a technical KO rather than a flawless victory you'd hope Mortal Kombat would deliver.

And so a deadly rivalry begins. Get ready for Mortal Kombat this Friday in theaters and on HBO Max pic.twitter.com/YUo2ukMgbx

— HBO Max (@hbomax) April 20, 2021