0
0
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
MORTAL KOMBAT!!!!!
There were many arcade games growing up that I loved. There was Street Fighter with the likes of Colonel M. Bison or Ryu. How about that old school Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. Get four of your friends and try to make it until the end. The one game that stood out for me was Mortal Kombat. I grew up in a small town, and the one place that had Mortal Kombat was Pizza Hut! You read that right, Pizza Hut had the game and my brother, and I looked forward to playing the game. We tried to go every Saturday. The easiest character by far was Liu Kang with his flying kick and fireball. Everyone knew, and my absolute favorite was SCORPION! The whole, “Get Over Here” with his spear that he threw and pulled people to him. The move that followed was the uppercut. Oh, how that game was so awesome. With the likes Raiden, Sonya Blade, Sub-Zero, and Johnny Cage all in your way from winning the game. When the words “Finish Him” flashed, trying to move the joystick around to perform the fatality. Mortal Kombat, the film came out around when I was in 5th grade. I remember watching the commercials and getting all hyped to go see it. My friends and I used to talk about it all the time. Just remembering it right now brings back memories.
When I was in 5th grade, this movie was awesome. It had all my favorite characters from the video game. I didn’t care about the plot and the acting. I wanted to see Scorpion and Sub Zero do their thing along with Raiden and to see if Johnny Cage would do his splits and punch to the no man’s region. That’s all I really cared about then.
Looking back on it and recently watching it now, Mortal Kombat is one of those movies that is bad but oh so good at the same time. I am going out on a limb and saying that Mortal Kombat is one of the best video game adaptations ever. Yep, I said it! It is the BEST video game adaptation made into a film ever. It has it all: the fight scenes are above average, the acting and dialogue is so video game cliché, and the CGI is freakin priceless. What do you expect from a movie that is based on a video game?
So the storyline isn’t that hard to follow. Probably one of the easiest to understand. The plot actually combines several Mortal Kombat games together, but who really cares. Every generation, a fighting tournament called Mortal Kombat, is fought between the representatives of the realms of Earth and Outworld. If the Realm of Outworld wins Mortal Kombat ten consecutive times, its Emperor Shao Kahn will be able to invade and conquer the Earthrealm. The film picks up with Outworld winning the past nine tournaments from the leadership of Shang Tsung (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), an evil sorcerer for Outworld. Opposing Shang Tsung is Raiden (Christopher Lambert), the God of Thunder. Raiden recruits Liu Kang (Robin Shou), a Shaolin monk, Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby), a movie star and Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson), a military officer to be the ones to stop Shang Tsung from his evil forces of Scorpion, Sub Zero, Kano and the general Goro.
That is it. That is pretty much the whole movie. Think of this entire movie as Enter the Dragon but with outrageous characters and some of the best techno music to fight to. The film has dialogue, but it is only there to understand what is going on. Raiden is cool with his special effects and being a god, but I wanted to see him roast someone and maybe do a little fighting. Lambert made Raiden into a HUGE BOSS. When you’re a God of Thunder, you don’t need to throw a punch. The definition of his fighting ability is when he watched Liu, Johnny and Sonya fight, and all he does is applause. Just when the second wave is about to attack, he lifts his index finger, and with the crackle of lightning in his eyes and finger, people back down. He also made Scorpion and Sub Zero look like punks.
Overall the whole movie really revolves around Liu Kang. Shang Tsung killed his brother, and he seems to be the only one to truly match power with the evil sorcerer. He even is the de facto leader and gets the girl, Princess Katana. He seems like he is the only one that is capable of beating everyone that stands in his path but wait! He is a complete wimp sometimes as he just wants to fight Shang Tsung when Raiden tells him many times he isn’t ready.
Now some of the best parts of this film are the fighting scenes, CGI, and theme music. The fight between Scorpion and Johnny Cage was decent. Now the whole spear change of Scorpion is BLAH! What the freak were they thinking? What type of spear was that? That was the only fight where we saw a fatality but not really because the person doing it still lost. Then how Reptile was done was interesting and good. This film had only one, yes ONE uppercut. That was done by Sonya Blade. Pretty much the actual fighting and ranking for the tournament goes out the window pretty quickly. Almost like, “What tournament? You have to beat us and survive.” The best part of the whole movie is the theme music. When the voice screams, MORTAL KOMBAT! And that techno music comes on, you want to fight. When it says “Test Your Might!” that is the best part.
I say it before, and I say it again, Mortal Kombat is the best video game adaptation into film ever. Is it like a poor man’s version of Enter the Dragon? Of Course. BUT if you liked the video game, then you will at least like this film a little. It’s not the best, but it is better than other video game films.
