Mortal Kombat (2021)

Mortal Kombat is a 2021 game adaptation, martial arts-action film based on the Mortal Kombat franchise own by NRS.

Plot
Do to an upcoming tournament, Raiden tries to get all of his fighters to participate in the Mortal Kombat tournament and he tries to send his allies to find the people that have the tattoo of the dragon, while Shang Tsung tries to kill his numbers before it begins.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Misleading title: Despite being named after the game, the combatants do not participate in any Tournaments, in fact most of the movie’s duration takes place inside a cave.
 * 2) Plot hole - Raiden answered that he is not allowed to use his powers on any enemy fighters on Earthrealm only for him to use his powers to zap Shang Tsung back to Outworld despite being in Earthrealm.
 * 3) Some of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation problems resurfaces from this movie:
 * 4) * The movie brings a bunch of Mortal Kombat characters that most of them don’t have any characteristic or background other than the studio using the “If you know their names or know how they look like then you know who they are” excuses and the villains (except the “important” ones) only serve to get killed/defeated by the heroes.
 * 5) * Despite Scorpion & Sub-Zero being the “faces” of Mortal Kombat, they also get little screen time.
 * 6) * The movie also is over-relying on actions scene even if the scene doesn’t build up or comes out of nowhere.
 * 7) * Unlike the dragon tattoo from Annihilation, the dragon tattoo makes a return in this movie but it’s purpose has been altered and also has a lot of inconsistency such as implying fighters are “born” with it, however, there is some of the fighters that unknowably got it because they killed someone who also unknowably had it also the fighters struggled to gain their powers while Sonya gained it in the matter of seconds and how Jax got his new arms out of nowhere.
 * 8) Cole Young is one of worst & boring exclusive fighters of this movie, as now only is he the wasted roster pick for Johnny Cage but he has the most generic motivation and the most forced fights as he can easily beat Goro despite Cole never winning any boxing matches in a year also getting beaten up before the fight with Goro and his powers comes of nowhere which the media dubs his powers as “plot armor”. He is also completely lacking of any personality and he wouldn't affect the movie in the slightest if he was a character from the games.
 * 9) Most of the villains don't have any motivation and especially Shang Tsung who never mentioned his purpose of the tournament. In fact, Shang Tsung really feels like he's there because the movie needed an antagonist, as he's quite generic.
 * 10) One of the most controversial moments of the movie was the “Kung Lao death scene”, the scene was mainly panned because how none of the hero fighters decides to save him since all just stood there and watched and both Raiden & Liu Kang also choose to not use their powers to attack Shang Tsung and the evil fighters are completely absent form this scene instead of being used to prevent the heroes from doing anything to save him.
 * 11) Unlike NRS’ depiction of Raiden, this movie’s depiction of Raiden is more unlikable as he is more rude, harsh, and very unhelpful to his fighters and this worse by how Raiden barely confronts Liu Kang over the death of Kung Lao & also because he never used his powers to force his enemies away or being sent back to Outworld.
 * 12) There’s many changes from the source material such as Bi-Han purposely choosing to kill Hanzo and his family, Reiko being Shao Kahn’s general only tuned into a hammer swinging dumb muscle, Reptile being referred by his real name, and Shang Tsung able to kill Raiden’s fighters before the tournament without any punishment from the elder gods.
 * 13) The final battle was awful & force as the villains don’t put up much of a fight now and now get defeated easily and all the individual fights are short as they last for a minute or two.
 * 14) The dialogue is simply awful and hard to take seriously.
 * 15) In general the acting is mediocre, especially for Lewis Tan as Cole Young, as he shows no emotion and his performances are at times laughable.
 * 16) A small amount of the costumes are very goofy looking and extremely fake looking.
 * 17) Although still looking cool, Reptile is simply too different from what he was like back then.
 * 18) The subplot regarding Arcana is pointless and really does nothing to contribute to the movie already basically nonexistent plot.

Good Qualities

 * 1) The visual effects are very impressive and the visual effects to the various characters that use their abilities.
 * 2) Despite being short, seeing Scorpion return to finally fight Sub-Zero is one of the best moments of the movie.
 * 3) Despite Kano being annoying at times, he is a decent comedic relief and is very funny.
 * 4) Since this is a Mortal Kombat movie, some of the fatalities are amazing and graphic.
 * 5) Some of the costumes of the characters are great, especially Scorpion's costume.
 * 6) Seeing Liu Kang mourn Kung Lao’s death was generally upsetting.
 * 7) Some of the interpretations of the characters are unique such as Sub-Zero having some of Noob’s qualities, Kabal using his speed to his advantage in other ways and how Mileena hides her actual mouth.
 * 8) The film actually has the graphic violence that the series is known for; something that the previous two movies were sorely lacking.
 * 9) It is far better than Annihilation, despite sharing some of the same flaws.
 * 10) The soundtrack is very nice, especially the remix of the classic Mortal Kombat theme from the games.
 * 11) Despite already being flawed, it is still at least a fun movie.
 * 12) The fight scenes may not be as great as the ones in 1995, but they are at least pretty good.
 * 13) Despite the unnecessary changes of the plot and characters from the original series, this movies does a good job at remaining faithful to the source material, as it at least has the spirit and charm of the Mortal Kombat games -- just like the original 1995 movie. The same sadly can't be said for other video game movies.

Reception
Mortal Kombat received mixed-or-average reviews from critics, but positive reviews from audiences, who praised its action sequences, musical score, acting (particularly Lawson, Taslim and Sanada), visual effects, and faithfulness and references to the source material, but criticized the screenplay, pacing, script and introduction of a new lead character (unrelated to the games' lore). It currently has a 55% "rotten" critic score and an 86% "fresh" audience score. The Critics Consensus reads "Largely for fans of the source material but far from fatal(ity) flawed, Mortal Kombat revives the franchise in appropriately violent fashion." and the Audience Consensus reads "The acting is spotty and the storytelling is a bit rushed, but if you can turn your brain off for a while, Mortal Kombat delivers plenty of graphic violence and intense fight scenes for fans of the video game series." It currently has a 44 "mixed or average" score on Metacritic and a 6.3/10 "generally favorable" audience score, and has a 6.1/10 on IMDb.

Trivia

 * Mortal Kombat is a remake of the original 1995 film, making it some of the first remakes of a video game movie since the 2018 Tomb Raider movie.
 * The film was initially rated NC-17 upon first submission to the MPAA for graphic violence. Director Simon McQuoid later hired an additional editor to cut down several gory and brutal fighting scenes to achieve a commercially desired R-rating.
 * The red band trailer has clocked 116M views in its first week, becoming the biggest red band trailer of all-time, besting the 4-day mark of Logan (2017) and Deadpool 2 (2018), until the release of the first trailer of The Suicide Squad a month later.
 * It is one of the multiple Warner Bros movies to be both released in theaters and on streaming service HBO Max.
 * It was in development hell for 9 years.

Videos
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