‘GET OVER HERE!’
Of all the arguments that raged across the playground at my primary school, SNES vs SEGA was right up there. This could be broken down into a series of smaller arguments. Mario vs Sonic. Zelda vs Streets of Rage. And perhaps most pertinently of all, Street Fighter vs Mortal Kombat. The verbal battles that we fought whilst flying the flag for our favourite fighting game might not have ended in someone having their actual head ripped off, but they did often end in tears. Usually my own tears. I was an overly passionate child.
As a sworn SEGA man, I was always a Mortal Kombat loyalist. Many a sunny afternoon was passed eating bags of Choc Nibs and button bashing (not a euphemism) in search of a flawless victory. And so. Whilst the first effort at translating Mortal Kombat to the big screen was utter dogshit, the child inside of me grew excited when I heard that a reboot was in the works. And surprisingly, it’s pretty good…
Hmm… the plot. Well. Cole Young (Lewis Tan) is an MMA fighter with a ridiculously ornate ‘birthmark’ who is recruited to fight in a high stakes battle to the death against the evil empire presided over by the mysterious dark lord Shang Tsung (Chin Han). Various other franchise favourites appear, most notably Kano (Josh Lawson), Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) and Liu Kang (Ludi Lin). Any other plot element outside of this main storyline is better off ignored.
Let’s begin by addressing the elephant in the room. If someone who had never played a Mortal Kombat game tried to watch this movie, I can only assume that it would be an incoherent mess. The plot, such as it is, is rushed and derivative, many of the characters are interchangeable (aside from Lawson’s Kano who is undoubtedly the highlight) and the ending, oh that ending, is just plain terrible. I can’t recall a movie that commits so wholeheartedly to a sequel that it forgets to actually provide a fitting conclusion in the first place.
That being said, for fans of the franchise there are plenty of lovely nods to the video games and some of the fight scenes are genuinely joyous. Surprisingly, the script is smart and funny in places, and nobody is taking any of it too seriously. As previously mentioned, the characterisation of Kano is a joy and the rest of the cast get the balance just right between mock severity and downright parody. If you can look past the cynical ending and just enjoy the first live action Mortal Kombat adaptation to enjoy any measure of success then you will leave the cinema satisfied. Here’s to the sequel.
Finish him…