Mortal Kombat review

MORTAL KOMBAT: 

THIS “KOMBAT” GIVES FANS OF THE LONG-RUNNING VIDEO GAME FRANCHISE THE RELENTLESSLY VIOLENT SLAUGHTERHOUSE THEY’VE BEEN WAITING FOR!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

WARNER BROS. PICTURES AND NEW LINE CINEMA

Scorpion and Sub-Zero in the new film adaptation of Mortal Kombat

 

            Kombat returns to the big screen in Mortal Kombat, the latest film adaptation of the enormously popular video game franchise of the same name and the first Mortal Kombat movie to be released in theaters since Mortal Kombat: Annihilation in 1997. If you’ve read my review of last year’s direct-to-video animated film, Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge then you know I wouldn’t call myself a Mortal Kombat purist, but I’ve played a handful of the video games throughout my life and have seen the previous live-action films that were released in 1995 and 1997. 

            But in case you haven’t, here are my quick thoughts on the earlier films, the first Mortal Kombat movie from 1995 despite being rated PG-13 and lacking the hyper-violence its source material is known for is enjoyable as a dumb, fun action flick and one of the better video game film adaptations released back then with the highlights being the theme song and the best-looking Goro ever. However, its 1997 sequel Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is best described as the video game movie equivalent to The Room or Batman & Robin where it’s so incredibly cheesy and stupid that it’s borderline hilarious, and this was long before Movie Satan gave us Uwe Boll. 

            Due to the critical and commercial failure of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation a third film was canceled and languished in development hell until it was resurrected shortly after Warner Bros. acquired Midway Games (The original publisher behind the Mortal Kombat video game series) and began development on a reboot film that would be closer in spirit to its source material than the 90s version. And by that, I mean an R rating and tons of blood and gore with James Wan (Saw, The Conjuring 1 and 2, Aquaman) producing and newcomer Simon McQuoid directing as well as an awesome direct-to-video animated film released the year prior known as Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge which brought the Mortal Kombat universe to life in animation form, bloody fatalities, and all. 

            So, how does this new live-action Mortal Kombat film hold up when compared to the previous attempts at bringing the game to the screen? I think it’s good, not great but as ridiculously over-the-top and violent action films go, I had a lot of fun and it’s a much more faithful adaptation than the 1995 film and Annihilation. 

            The film follows MMA fighter Cole Young (Lewis Tan-Iron Fist, Into the Badlands, Deadpool 2) who discovers he has been chosen to participate in a fighting tournament in the realm of Outworld where participants fight to the death for the continued safety of their world known as Mortal Kombat. In order to stand a chance Cole seeks out Earth’s greatest champions consisting of Special Forces agent Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee-The Vow, Sirens, Battle of the Sexes), mercenary with a serious temper…and an eye laser Kano (Josh Lawson-House of Lies, The Little Death, Bombshell), Special Forces Major Jax (Mehcad Brooks-Desperate Housewives, Glory Road, Supergirl), Shaolin Monks Liu Kang (Ludi Lin-Power Rangers (2017), Aquaman, Black Mirror) and Kung Lao (Max Huang), appointed Earthrealm protector Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano-Silence, Thor: Ragnarok, Midway), and Hanzo Hasashi/Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada-The Last Samurai, The Wolverine, Westworld), an undead ninja specter who seeks revenge for his death as well as his family and clan at the hands of Bi-Han/Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim-The Raid: Redemption, Fast & Furious 6, Star Trek Beyond). 

            Together, they must battle against the forces of Outworld and protect Earthrealm from the soul-eating sorcerer known as Shang Tsung (Chin Han-The Dark Knight, Contagion, Captain America: The Winter Soldier). 

            The film also stars Nathan Jones (Jackie Chan’s First Strike, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Scorpion King: Book of Souls) as Reiko, Damon Herriman (Mindhunter, The Nightingale, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) as the voice of Kabal, and Angus Sampson (Insidious franchise, The Mule (2014 film), Mad Max: Fury Road) as the voice of Goro. 

            Overall, Mortal Kombat probably won’t win over any newcomers, but fans of the video game will be treated to a relentlessly violent death-match with plenty of fan service and characters from the source material, cheesy dialogue, and an onslaught of bloody action and delightfully grisly fatalities. I wasn’t going into this movie expecting high art or to get wrapped up in the story and character development, I just wanted to see a dumb, over-the-top blood-fest with characters I know from the video games…that’s basically what I got. 

            The story is very standard, and the main characters aren’t anything that interesting especially Cole who is completely made up for the movie like what Alice was in the Resident Evil films. He’s not a bad character or anything, he’s just incredibly bland and the stereotypical former fighter turned family man type of character who’s trying to protect his loved ones, I feel like they should have just replaced him with Bob Odenkirk’s character from Nobody. 

            Thankfully, there’s still plenty of screen-time for characters who originated from the games, some of whom have greatly improved since the 1995 film. The most notable example is Kano, who is an absolute riot in this film, a washed-up mercenary with serious anger issues and can shoot an eye laser, it seems Josh Lawson is having a lot of fun chewing the scenery with his performance and he delivers some of the funniest lines in the entire movie, I smile every time he shows up. 

            Scorpion and Sub-Zero are also done better justice to in this film than in its predecessors, their backstory is lifted straight from the original games and was previously adapted as part of Scorpion’s Revenge and you get a pretty damn exhilarating recreation of Scorpion and Sub-Zero’s origins at the beginning of the film. Granted, it was quite disappointing that there isn’t much screen-time for Scorpion in this film aside from the beginning and during the final battle, but whenever he’s on-screen and battling Sub-Zero it’s a blast. 

            What this film gains in extreme violence lacks in world building and this is the one thing the 1995 version actually does a lot better. This one doesn’t have much of a tournament despite it being discussed often nor does it establish the realm of Outworld that well, the 1995 film is rated PG-13 and lacks the blood but at least you felt immersed in its world whereas with this, not so much. 

            Despite its flaws, Mortal Kombat is gory fun for fans of the source material, whether you’re watching it in theaters or streaming it on HBO Max, this bloody tournament delivers. 

Zack Snyder's Justice League review

ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE: 

SNYDER CUT DOES THIS “LEAGUE” MUCH MORE JUSTICE THAN ITS ORIGINAL 2017 RELEASE! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

HBO MAX/WARNER BROS. PICTURES

The Flash, Superman, Cyborg, Wonder Woman, Batman, and Aquaman in Zack Snyder’s Justice League

 

            Director Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead (2004), 300, Watchmen) finally brings his original vision to the (small) screen in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, the highly anticipated director’s cut of the 2017 DC Extended Universe film, Justice League. For those who don’t know, Justice League had a very difficult production and reportedly Warner Bros. was unhappy with the results of Snyder’s original cut despite his best efforts to flesh out the characters and lighten the tone of this film because of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice’s criticisms of being too dark and lacking in humor and fun. 

            So, ultimately Warner Bros. brought the director of the first two Avengers movies, Joss Whedon onboard to rewrite the script and help with reshoots until Zack Snyder’s daughter passed away several months before the film’s release, so he along with his wife and producer Deborah Snyder left the project with Whedon finishing the film. When Justice League was finally released it received mixed reviews and underperformed at the box office resulting in Warner Bros. changing the DCEU’s direction to focus more on standalone films like Aquaman, Shazam!, and Birds of Preyrather than a shared universe. 

            However, things changed when news broke out about the footage that was shot before Snyder stepped down, fans and even cast and crew members petitioned and demanded that this director’s cut be finished and released to the public, most notably through the #ReleasetheSnyderCut hashtag which pretty much took over the internet. Because of this, Warner Bros. finally allowed Snyder to finish the movie the way he originally intended and release it on HBO Maxas Zack Snyder’s Justice League. 

            Despite not being the biggest fan of Snyder’s previous DCEU films (Man of Steel was okay while my thoughts on Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice are extremely mixed!), I was very interested in seeing his original vision of Justice League but also a little skeptical because it was going to have a 4-hour runtime. Avengers: Endgame was 3 hours and while I enjoyed that movie a lot, I felt it didn’t need to be that long, same goes for this. 

            Now that we have this “Bigger, Longer, and Uncut” version of Justice League, how does it hold up? Honestly, it’s pretty good. Yes, the 4-hour length is pretty excessive for a movie like this, but it’s much better paced, a lot more exciting, and establishes the characters and their backstories even stronger than the original where it felt like two completely different directing styles clashing with one another. 

            The plot is pretty much the same as in the original, Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck-The Town, Argo, Gone Girl), Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot-Fast & Furious franchise, Triple 9, Ralph Breaks the Internet), Barry Allen/The Flash (Ezra Miller-The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Stanford Prison Experiment, Fantastic Beastsfranchise), Arthur Curry/Aquaman (Jason Momoa-Stargate Atlantis, Game of Thrones, See), and Victor Stone/Cyborg (Ray Fisher-True Detective, Women of the Movement) join together to stop the villain known as Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds-Munich, There Will Be Blood, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2) but they also have to resurrect Clark Kent/Superman (Henry Cavill-The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Mission: Impossible: Fallout, Enola Holmes) who was killed in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, in order to stand a chance. But this version also more backstories to characters introduced in Justice League like Aquaman, The Flash, and Cyborg as well as a much better depiction of Steppenwolf with more scenes that show just how much of a threat he really is, and unlike in the original version he’s the henchman of iconic DC Comics villain, Darkseid (Ray Porter-Almost Famous, ER, Teen Titans) this time. 

            This version also expands upon various scenes from the original and gives more backstory, most notably when Wonder Woman tells Bruce Wayne about the origin of Steppenwolf (Now the origin of Darkseid) and when Amazons, Atlanteans, Kryptonians, and Lanterns engaged in battle against his forces and Cyborg’s origin which was barely touched upon in the original version, it shows that Snyder clearly has a better understanding of these characters than Whedon whereas with him it felt like he was trying to do what worked in the Avengers films but with DC and failing. 

            This version also fixes one of the most disappointing aspects of the original film, the climax. Snyder’s cut removes the saving a single family from Steppenwolf and his army climax with a more team-based one that showcases just what the Justice League is capable of doing together, THIS IS THE AVENGERS-STYLE BATTLE THESE HEROES DESERVED! And it delivers all the exciting superhero action you’d expect from the Justice League. 

            Zack Snyder’s Justice League follows in the footsteps of other great extended cuts of superhero movies like Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, Daredevil: Director’s Cut, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice: Ultimate Edition, and Spider-Man 2.1 and is sure to please longtime fans of the source material. It expands upon what worked in Justice League while reducing and removing what didn’t, resulting in a far more interesting and exciting cut with a coherent narrative, consistent tone, and the vision of a director who I think will finally get the credit he deserves after the release of this film. 

Original Justice League Review