Mortal Kombat (2021)

I liked the movie, even enjoyed it. Loved all the little nostalgia nods. What bothered me though, outside of the weak story elements (which I really didnt expect much from a Mortal Kombat movie).. is that I thought none of the actors except Scorpion.. fit their role. I would have done an entire recast tbh. I dont see how kids would idolize any of these actors. They all look.. weak? I guess? Or maybe Im just remembering how bad ass the actors felt and how they filled what I thought they would look in the original movie.

edit: Ok, ok ya... Kano probably fit his role too.

Rime said:

...No overly woke bullshit...

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oh hey, thanks for reminding me.

so the producer said some rediculous woke nonsense for why johnny cage wasn't in the movie so there was some fears that there'd be woke nonsense in the movie itself. there isn't. there is absolutely zero woke/sjw subtext in any of this. in fact, i think cole being a male character shows there's none of that stuff in the movie, because it would have been PERFECTLY woke to have cole be a female with literal plot armor.

so yeah, put those fears to rest. and in this day and age, i think a story gets extra points when they go out of their way to not bring in identity politics

Daidraco said:

I liked the movie, even enjoyed it. Loved all the little nostalgia nods. What bothered me though, outside of the weak story elements (which I really didnt expect much from a Mortal Kombat movie).. is that I thought none of the actors except Scorpion.. fit their role. I would have done an entire recast tbh. I dont see how kids would idolize any of these actors. They all look.. weak? I guess? Or maybe Im just remembering how bad ass the actors felt and how they filled what I thought they would look in the original movie.

edit: Ok, ok ya... Kano probably fit his role too.

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Kano, Jax, Subzero, and Scorpion are the only people who 'felt' like a character from the game/story. The rest of them were either better in the 90s version or were not in that film. (Saw your edit now. Yeah.)

i think kung lao was pretty spot on as well. he didn't have a whole lot of screen time but he felt good to me, both in the way he physically moved and his attitude

Don’t worry haters, Johnny boy will come save the day in the sequel.

It was fun, hokey MK bullshit. If anything, it needed more gore and fatalities from the game. Not having Scorpion teleport was also a miss.

Pretty happy that they kept it at a tight 100 minutes, too. Wish more movies would come back to the magic 90 min run time and save the longer ones for films that need it.

Btw anyone looking to watch this for free in HD it's at a website I use for basically free everything for shows/movies it's at a website called soap2day dot com

you're welcome~

I feel like this movie was directed by people who were told the story/premise of Mortal Kombat by people who were told the story/premise of Mortal Kombat by other people.

It was decently enjoyable I guess, but I felt like it had way more potential had they just stuck to the original premise like the original movie did. It felt like though the more I watched, as soon as i'd start to get into it, there would be a shift in the plot, or a character choice, or a terrible choice for actor that just left me constantly saying



I thought I was a decently big MK fan, but even this shit had me googling characters that I thought were made up. (Vampire Bat Bitch and Hammer Guy)

I need Smoke to show up and have Raiden do the superman next movie

Yea....having actual plot armor make an appearance was laughably bad.

I'm sorry but I think fans have a right to be upset over how terrible this turned out.

When Kano is the best part of your mortal kombat movie, then you have failed.

Cole was pointless and the final stinger of him going to go find Johnny Cage was just adding insult to injury. Cole is the Gwildor of Mortal Kombat.

I appreciate that they used characters from across the whole series so that they could keep a bunch of fighters to kill off in each while still having major charavters to continue on, but I feel they needed a bit more oomph for this initial outing.

Liu Kang was a one-note character. Actually not even, he was a half-note at best. Did anyone else notice they never actually had the 'tournament'? Is that why they are going to look for fighters at the very end so they can train up before the real deal that takes place later that month?

I thought it was alright. Disappointing because this had potential to be great.

This COULD HAVE been the best video game movie to date, it was the chance for one of the easiest-to-adapt-to-film video game franchises to set the bar high. This movie missed the mark.

Characters:
PROS:
Scorpion: The actor, the costumes, speaking Japanese in that dark baritone voice = badass!
Kano: Actually felt like his character, only actor in the "good" crew that wasn't a wooden stick (other than Kung Lao)
Kung Lao: Well casted, well acted, instantly recognizable. Helped remind me that I was watching a Mortal Kombat movie

CONS:
Liu Kang: Worst casting choice in the movie. A gigantic downgrade from the badass iconic Liu Kang from the 1995 movie. This new Liu Kang literally looks 17 years old, barely has any lines. If they're not going to have Johnny Cage, Liu Kang should have been recast and made the protagonist.
Sub-Zero: Way too much magic being used, and it's just weird seeing Sub-Zero be on the evil side, he should've been on the good side and Scorp should have been neutral maybe
Cole: I don't know if this is even a character from the games? Bad actor, boring character who seemingly loses every fight, dumb ability
JAX: Jax was casted well (still prefer Michael Jai White from that old YouTube short film) but why did they need to give him those small little arms for so long? And why are his big arms part of his "arcana"? There's too much fucking magic in this movie even for the human characters.
Johnny Cage: He's not in here! Main relatable character that the audience can connect with, gone! Cole doesn't do the trick.

Overall they should have grounded the film's tone. What I mean by that was limit the use of magic to a greater degree, yes it is present in the franchise but this became Harry Potter with blood for a few scenes there. There should be much more focus on regular martial arts/fight choreography. This should be like Ip Man with fatalities and flawless victories, with some minor magic and signature abilities sprinkled in. We don't need entire sets that are devoted to showing how cold Sub Zero can make a room.

Plot and setting: They kept mentioning the Mortal Kombat tournament, Outworld, different realms and fighters, etc. However, what we ended up with were some fights that took place in Raiden's cave here on Earth... One thing the 1995 movie did right was have the fighters travel to Shang Tsung's island where an actual tournament took place. This movie could have benefitted greatly if it did something similar. It would have been fun to see the gang placed into fights inside an actual Mortal Kombat tournament structure on Outworld or in between the realms. Instead, we got Goro on a farm and a bunch of fights in a cave/boxing gym. Hopefully in the second movie there is an actual tournament with Johnny Cage front and center.

The opening scene was amazing though, I wish that level of quality persisted throughout the movie, that would have made for a great movie.