Raiden, Liu Kang, Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Jax, Sonya Blade, and now, Cole Young? You’re probably wondering, “Who the heck is this ?” Well, Mortal Kombat is here to introduce you to him. I wish I could’ve met under better circumstances instead of the steaming mess that is in this film.
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Based on the eponymous video-game franchise of the same name, Mortal Kombat follows Cole Young as he and a few others are chosen to fight to the death to determine the fate of Earthrealm in the supernatural, otherworldly tournament known as Mortal Kombat.
Mortal Kombat… Where To Even Begin?
A lot of crap ensued, this film was unimpressive, ripe with mediocre acting, and sloppy with the fight scenes. There was so much potential story-wise but the execution was underwhelming, so much so, that it was agonizing for me to watch. My favorite aspects were; Scorpion, Sub-Zero, and a humanistic element found in Cole’s character, however, those were not enough to salvage this train wreck.
Scorpion and Subzero were played by Hiroyuki Sanada and Joe Taslim respectively. They seemed like they were in a completely different movie from everyone else. Everything about their scenes was much better than this nonsense. It’s a tragedy that Scorpion and Sub-Zero didn’t receive more screen time, if they did, the entire film’s quality would have improved immensely.
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Lewis Tan played the protagonist, Cole Young. He was an MMA fighter and family man. Tan’s acting was quite inconsistent. On a few occasions, I noticed there seemed to have been a form of delayed reaction in his acting. When you’re acting, you need to always be present at the moment, which, Tan was not. He looked like he took a while to realize that the camera was on him then started acting.
Either he was trying too hard or not hard enough, I don’t know what was going on in his head. I did however like his scenes with his wife and daughter, his performance was at its best and his chemistry with them looked organic.
Weak Script
The rest of the cast wasn’t very compelling either but in all fairness, they did not have much to work with. The dialogue was taken out of every generic R-rated action movie from the 90s. 87% of words uttered began with the letter ‘f’ and ended with the letter ‘k’. The writers gave minimal priority to the dialogue, I’m convinced of that due to the limited range of vocabulary.
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To me, most of the actors were expected to act tough, look like they know how to fight, and use profanity as a second language. Don’t even get me started on Josh Lawson’s character, Kano. His mouth was practically a machine gun firing 500 expletives per minute.
Flawful Failure
I was quite disappointed with the fight scenes excluding Scorpion and Sub-Zero. Those scenes were anything but spectacular, from what I saw, the choreography was basic and not something you would expect from a professional level. This is the kind of choreography I would expect to see from an amateur low-budget fan film on Youtube, not from a theatrical feature film.
You can find Mortal Kombat in theatres and on HBO MAX if you so desire. There’s a heap of graphic violence and bloody fatalities, there’s also some fan service some may enjoy.
Stars: Lewis Tan, Jessica McNamee, Ludi Lin, Mehcad Brooks, Josh Lawson, Hiroyuki Sanada, Joe Taslim
Directors: Simon McQuoid
Writers: Greg Russo, Dave Callahan, Oren Uziel
Producers: Richard Brener, Michael Clear, Todd Garner, Lawrence Kasanoff, Simon McQuoid, Dave Neustadter, Victoria Palmeri, Sean Robins, Jeremy Stein, E. Bennett Walsh, James Wan
Synopsis
MMA fighter Cole Young seeks out Earth’s greatest champions in order to stand against the enemies of Outworld in a high-stakes battle for the universe.
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