Review: Mortal Kombat (2021)
Directed by Simon McQuoid; screenplay by Greg Russo and Dave Callaham; starring Lewis Tan, Joe Taslim and Jessica McNamee.
1.5/5
Get over here? More like get outta here! Boom, roasted.
But seriously, Warner Bros. needs to get out of here with stuff like this. My guess is that they were probably hoping this might survive on the Mortal Kombat name alone and I sincerely hope it doesn’t – really, I need that to not happen. It sounds harsh but seriously, it’s just bad.
The film was started out life as a short film directed by Kevin Tancharoen and written by Oren Uziel, constructed as a proof of concept for Warner Bros. The short isn’t mind-blowing, but it was simple things and was at least a little bit creative. The pitch was a success and the feature was greenlit in 2011 with Tancharoen and Uziel attached.
After budget issues arose, though, Tancharoen left to continue his work on his Mortal Kombat web series and, in 2016, the experienced advert director but first-time feature director, Simon McQuoid, was picked to helm the project, with Greg Russo aboard to write the script.
The first ten or so minutes are deceptively competent (you can watch this bit for free on YouTube now – save yourself the money, it’s downhill from here.) In 17th Century Japan, the Chinese assassin Bi-Han (The Raid’s Joe Taslim), armed with the supernatural ability to conjure and manipulate ice, murders the warrior Hanzo Hasashi’s family and subsequently defeats the old warrior (who is played by the immaculate Hiroyuki Sanada).
After it’s revealed that Bi-Han actually failed in his attempt to wipe Hasashi’s bloodline out when the god of thunder, Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano), appears and discovers Hasashi’s youngest child alive, we abruptly leap forward to the present day and meet Cole Young (Lewis Tan) our protagonist (might there be some possible connection between this child and Cole? Who could possibly say?!)
An original character for the film, Cole is introduced in the MMA octagon. He’s a skilled attacker, but his neglect for his defence ultimately lets him down. But this isn’t Raging Bull – there’s no metaphysical or religious component to Cole, his beatings aren’t self-flagellating. No – he’s just sort of incompetent.
But there’s no rest for the not-really-all-that-wicked and, when Bi-Han (now going by Sub Zero) reappears and attacks both him and his family, Cole finds himself suddenly flung into a world of multi-dimensional combat sports, wherein opposing dimensions gain dominance over one another through victory in the Mortal Kombat tournament.
Along the way he’ll meet a whole host of faces Mortal Kombat fans will undoubtedly be excited to see translated to the big screen – the most notable amongst them being the scene-stealing Kano (Josh Lawson) – but ultimately they will be disappointed when they realise they’re just punching bags and nothing more.
And that is my biggest gripe with the film. It’s so transparently attempting to cash in on the recognition of the adapted material’s aesthetics and names. There is absolutely nothing going on below the surface and, though we probably knew that would always be the case with something like a Mortal Kombat adaptation, it’s just upsetting to see to this extent.
Characters just sort of do things. There’s no real reason for any of it. A key part of the plot is that those chosen to compete are able to unlock mystical powers to aid them in the upcoming tournament, but the ways in which each character discovers their powers are just... not at all related to anything really.
Take Cole as a not-so-fine example. After he finds it a little bit difficult to unlock his powers, he just gives up and goes home. I’m not exaggerating, that actually happens. Inevitably, this leads the bad guys – a group of fighters from the Outworld led by the sorcerer Shang Tsung (Chin Han), hunting down their competition before the tournament starts, because it gives them… an advantage? – to his family where obviously they’re then threatened. This is what it takes for Cole’s abilities to kick in but what has he actually achieved here? He wasn’t lazy before, he just sort of sucked at defending himself, so why does his quitting and putting his family in harm’s way actually mean? And the plot always advances like this. It just trudges onwards, nothing ever matters; it’s completely baffling.
One thing I can’t stop asking myself is: who is this is really for? It’s just a little bit too dumb for any general audience to really glom onto without being so mind-numbingly stupid that it might pass into cult-classic legend like Paul W. S. Anderson’s take on the fighting game franchise did back in 1995. Moreover, I sincerely doubt fans of the games will take kindly to a rather bland, completely new main character hogging the limelight as much as he does after the whole thing was marketed on the beloved characters Scorpion and Sub Zero’s backs. Quite honestly, the only people who might be able to look past all of the film’s glaring flaws will be thirteen or younger but I can’t see many parents jumping at the chance to expose their kids to the kind of gnarly violence Mortal Kombat is known for.
You’re also probably wondering, is the (k)ombat worth it? No. It’s not, well, beyond that first sequence. The choreography is slow and clunky – aside from the bits involving the actors who clearly know what they’re doing – and McQuoid just makes bad decision after bad decision in a way that seems to almost purposefully inhibit any kind of visceral joy one might have otherwise been able to strain out of this husk.
It’s all CG, so there’s little to no weight to anything and for some reason each time any momentum starts to build in any given fight, McQuoid makes the executive decision to cut away to some other scene.
The fatalities are brutal, yes, but they’re also just uncreative and joyless. There’s not set up to payoff with the fountains of blood, there’s no visual effects wizardry, they’re all literally just digital translations of pre-existing moves from the games that were already digital.
Seriously, just buy the games and play those.
Watched on 12 May 2021