Mortal Kombat (2021) Review: Not Worth the Watch!

I gotta be honest I was rooting for Mortal Kombat to be good. But it isn’t. And even as biased as I am towards Mortal Kombat movies, there are just too many issues with this one to justify a good score. While it may start well, HBO happily teasing the first seven minutes to bait people into thinking the rest will be as good, it quickly plummets into a pit of robotic acting, bad writing, mediocre fight scenes, and bland CGI.

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It’s not all bad, though. There are flashes of decency in all of those areas as well, but while the best parts in the movie are all ‘kinda cool,’ the worst parts in the film are all horrendous. Before I get into it, I got to say that there are like SIXTEEN main characters in Mortal Kombat, and there are THREE that aren’t terrible.

Number 1! Sonya Blade. Sonya, while still poorly acted, is the only character in the movie that has a problem to get through and has to solve it herself, without any sort of Deus Ex Machina coming out of nowhere and solving the problem for her. Every single other character in the film repeatedly happens to have their problems solved instantly by magic. And that’s not an exaggeration.

Other than Sonya, every time anybody had an obstacle to overcome, their ‘magical powers’ kick in, and they win. How unbelievably boring. This movie is an hour and fifty minutes of people being lucky. Or just happening to be at the right place at the right time. Or just explaining their backstories as quickly as they can so they can fit as much exposition as possible.

At the beginning of the original Mortal Kombat movie, it starts with a dream of Liu Kang’s brother being murdered, Shang Tsung saying that his soul now belongs to him, and then Liu wakes up, showing the pain and anguish on his face. In six seconds, you know all you need to know about Liu Kang’s motivation and pain for the film.

In 221 Mortal Kombat, everybody just says out loud who they are and everything else they want the audience to know. But it takes FOREVER for them to spit it out when the writers could have just not been lazy and shown the audience instead of telling the audience. Showing vs. telling. That’s a big thing ineffective story-writing that Simon McQuoid (Director) and Greg Russo (Writer) obviously haven’t learned.

Number 2! Sub-Zero. Despite not giving him any real motivation that the audience can connect with, Sub-Zero is actually an effective villain. His CGI effects are the best in the movie, actually achieving ‘pretty cool’ levels once in a while, and he maintains a healthy amount of villainy and menace the whole time.

Is he generic? Sure. Is he acted well? Not particularly. Does he seem like he’s actually dangerous enough to pose a threat to the main characters? Well… yeah, actually. In that regard is where Sub-Zero shines as a villain. He seems dangerous, and I guess that’s the minimum he needed to achieve.

And finally, Number 3! Scorpion. Every scene with Scorpion is the best scene in the movie. Acted by Hiroyuki Sanada, and if you don’t know who that is, just picture the guy who plays the ‘mean but badass’ samurai in every modern movie involving samurai. That’s him.

Scorpion has the best fight scenes, is the most loyal character to their video-game counterpart, does the coolest stuff. I mean, really he’s the only reason this movie isn’t getting a lower score. Other than what I’ve complimented, everything about Mortal Kombat is bad. Worse than bad. Laughable.

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If the entire movie were just the first seven minutes and the last seven minutes, I’d probably watch it again. But as it stands, the other 95 or so minutes are too filled with inconsistencies, poor pacing, stiff acting, Deus Ex Machina, shitty costumes, lazy writing, garbage music, characters who try WAY too hard to be cool (Looking at you, Kano), and a ton more stuff wrong with it. Watch ‘Mortal Kombat’ on HBO MAX here.

Rating – 2/5 | Grade – C

Review by Jack Allen
Follow Jack on Instagram – @scoreeverything

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