OUT NOW: Mortal Kombat

Earth is in trouble - if a group of human warriors cannot win an intergalactic fighting tournament, then the planet will be conquered by the evil Shan Tsung (Chin Han).

Can Cole (Lewis Tan), Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), Jax (Mehcad Brooks), Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), and Kung Lao (Max Huang) defeat the alien menace?

Some movies become successful because they hit every aspect of production out of the park. Other movies succeed because enough of those elements work that it gets over the finish line. And then there are the movies that have all the elements, but they do not work together. Within this group of movies are movies which hit certain elements so well that viewers are willing to let them go.

This accounts for a lot of genre movies and franchises with established formulas. If the filmmakers execute the elements that are associated with the series effectively, then that can be enough: jokes in a comedy; the importance of gore in slasher movies; the James Bond formula.

Mortal Kombat definitely falls into this subset of movies.

Before anyone jumps in, just know that the only thing I know about Mortal Kombat is the song. I have never played the games and I have never seen the movie. I saw the trailer to this movie, which was so good Mortal Kombat shot to the top of my 'must-sees'.

The expectations for this kind of movie are not the same as other movies - I did not go into this movie expecting great characters or a complex plot. All you want is a straightforward reason for a collection of fight scenes. If those fight scenes are well-choreographed and cleanly photographed, then you have a winner.

Mortal Kombat ís a strange beast. It is pretty earnest and tries to give its protagonist - human fighter Cole (Lewis Tan) - an arc, but those elements almost felt like a drag on the movie. 

The movie has plot points - if I wrote them down in order they would resemble a character arc and a story. But the movie does not really cohere.

I almost wonder if the movie would worked better if the movie kept the structure of a tournament. With this movie I did not expect I would want the movie to be simpler and more familiar, but this plot line - based around an original character who is an entry point for new viewers - feels like it needs to be fleshed out AND tightened.

I expected clean choreography and disgusting violence - the movie has both - but I had trouble with the structure of the movie. 

I could have used some of the cliches - some training montages; an announcer clarifying the rules (Are Scorpion and/or Sub-Zero mortal?); and I wanted way more of the iconic theme song.

At the midway point, our heroes are at their lowest point, just before the tournament. But at this point our heroes come up with a plan to control the locations of their future combat.

Convention would dictate that we would get some set up for this plan, but the movie thrusts us into each set piece and intercuts between them.

I could have used at least an establishing shot so I knew where these scenes took place, and some boring voice-over to explain why each environment was important. 

Intercutting set pieces is such a difficult thing to do - you need to ensure that each scene builds in its own terms, but also complement each other. The back half of the movie is a little haphazard and does not build in a particularly satisfying way.

All this being said/written. I kinda liked this movie. The pre-credit sequence (which is already available online) is a nice self-contained little story. The filmmakers have also tried to avoid a lot of green screen: there are a variety of different locations in the movie, including a coal mine that serves as Outworld.

The movie has scope, but the third act kinda drops the ball by throwing our heroes into a couple of obviously green screened environments that lack the same visual pop.

The elements I thought would be good in the movie - the villains - were pretty good. My only problem (and it is a good one) is that I wanted more of them onscreen.

Weirdly, while the movie takes time with Cole and the other heroes, I wanted more of the villains. I am always a fan of great bad guys and I wanted more scenes showing just how bad and powerful they were. 

Josh Lawson adds some welcome swagger as the egotistical Kano, and Sisi Stringer licks a blood-encrusted blade.

Lawson fades away as the movie goes on, while hench-persons like Stringer’s Mileena, Prince Goro and that flying woman do not get as much action as I anticipated. I was surprised we did not get a few more scenes of the villains obliterating other champions. 

While the script is not great, the acting is pretty solid. Tan is stuck with a non-descript hero role. He is not bad but the character always feels like an archetype. He also gets his thunder stolen by having to share the final set piece with Scorpion, who has the best motivation in the movie.

It is great to see actors like Tadanobu Asano (as Lord Raiden), Chin Han (as Shang Tsung) and Hiroyuki Sanada (as 

Scorpion) in a big production like this.

I was particularly keen on the appearances of Sanada fighting Joe Taslim. Sanada is a fine actor 

who I have seen in so many different projects. It is cool that he was cast as Scorpion rather than 

some action star or stuntman.

Chin Han is also good as Shang Tsung, the villain’s big bad. As with most of the bad guys, he 

does not get that much to do but he brings a preening confidence that works for the character.

The standout of the cast is Joe Taslim as Sub-Zero - he’s a great actor and carries himself 

with such confidence and physicality. He is genuinely menacing, and the filmmakers give 

him the appropriate buildup as the film’s Big Bad.

Now to the main reason people will want to watch this movie: the fight scenes.

The movie is a vaguely enjoyable collection of fight scenes - some good, others less.

Some of the fights are good but once again the CGI works against it. Apart from the beginning and The end, the set pieces suffer from over-cutting and the camera is often too close. Combined with the CG enhancements, there is a blurry quality to the fighting which made parts of the scenes hard to see.

Part of the issue is that some of the cast are martial artists and others are not. The filmmakers resort to quick cuts and close ups to mask their abilities. 

The movie features some familiar comedic beats, including a joke about the spelling of the titular contest. While the humour is not great, I kinda wanted more of it. The movie is earnest, but I wanted it to lean more into  the silliness.

 I feel like I have been listing problems but I still liked the movie. This movie feels like a promise - the cast are strong, the aesthetic choices feel correct, and that song does show up eventually. This is an overlong way of saying I would be curious about a sequel - especially if it means more Joe Taslim v Hiroyuki Sanada beatdowns.

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