I'm not ashamed to say it, but I love the Mortal Kombat franchise. I have loved it ever since I was a kid, and it played a major part as my inspiration for wanting to learn martial arts. Of course, at the age of five my obsession came from how cool the characters looked, in particular the ninjas Scorpion (shown above) and Sub-Zero. Even though technically I should not have been allowed to view what many consider to be one of the most violent franchises in gaming, I still could not get enough of it. So you can imagine my uncontrollable excitement when I first learned that a film adaptation of Mortal Kombat was produced. Granted, I did not learn of the existence of the film until I was nine, but regardless I could not wait to see it.
I first saw it on TV one New Year's Eve, and it was at the time my favorite movie. Everything fit my at the time naive perceptions of the game. The action was great, the characters all looked cool and the story was fun. When I eventually received the movie on VHS one Christmas, I could not stop watching it, losing count all together at around sixty. Then, as time passed, I stopped watching it and moved on to bigger and better action films, and for a long time I left the VHS sitting in the closet until it was put in a box with all the other VHS tapes and stored in the attic.
It wasn't until 2011, the release of the latest game
Mortal Kombat, that peaked my interest back in the franchise. After playing the game, I realized that I had not seen the movie in so long and decided it would be nice to indulge my nostalgia. Fast forward to March of 2012 and I found a copy of the film on Blu-Ray and purchased it without hesitation. As I inserted the disc into my PlayStation 3, the first question I asked myself was what I would think of it. Would I still find that feeling of excitement and joy I experienced watching it over and over again as a kid? Would I look at it with complete disgust that something so ridiculous actually entertained me?
The answer to this question: a little bit of both. When I watched it again after a long period of time, I found myself noticing a lot of things that I never thought of in the first place because I was too young to even care. For starters, some of the special effects are plain awful. Two in particular come to mind: Scorpion's "spear" and Reptile's reptilian form. I'm sure at the time these were incredible for early CGI animation, but in today's standards it's painfully obvious how terrible they look. Are they as bad as in
Mortal Kombat Annihilation? Not really, but that's for another entry. At the same time, the some of the other effects are not that bad. I found Sub-Zero's ice attacks generally good and Raiden's electricity still looked cool too. The best effect of the movie in my opinion is Goro. In an age where such a character would be depicted in CGI, it is nice to see animatronics done relatively well. Overall, aside from a couple noticeable standouts, the movie is still appealing to look at.
What really stood out to me was the acting, and it really shows how campy this film is meant to be. I appreciate that the actors all seemed like they were having fun with their roles, in particular Christopher Lambart as Raiden and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Shang Tsung, because it made the film more enjoyable to watch. Granted, the writing is pretty bad here, with a lot of failed punchlines delivered by Linden Ashby as Johnny Cage, but it did not really matter so much because you knew none of the actors were really taking this film too seriously (at least that was how I saw it). Interesting to note that originally Cameron Diaz was cast to play Sonya Blade, but after she injured herself while training Bridgette Wilson took her place. I do not know if this ended up being for the better or worse, but after seeing Diaz handle action relatively well in
Charlie's Angels, it always makes me wonder how it would have turned out. I was also very interested to find out that Trevor Goddard's portrayal of Kano was well received by the Ed Boon, the creator of the franchise, that he changed Kano's nationality to match that of the film's.
Of course, I was not watching
Mortal Kombat for the acting or special effects. I was watching for what inspired me to take martial arts in the first place, the fighting. Almost twenty years has passed since the release of the film, and I have to say it still delivers on the action. The fights are well choreographed and fast paced. The best part of these fights was you could clearly see everything that was happening because there was no shaky camera editing that has plagued action films these days. They are not by any means the best fights, but they are still very entertaining.
Apart from the action,
Mortal Kombat accomplishes what many adaptations off of games fail to do: it stays true to the source material. Some may argue against that due to the inclusion of Kitana and Reptile, two characters who did not enter the franchise until the second game, but the story itself follows exactly how the first game plays out. Every character also looks and acts just like how their respective character would in the game. The back stories were also the way they should be, minus a couple minor changes, which is important because if the characters are not faithful to the source material, then the film has already failed.
Unfortunately, as most people have rightfully pointed out, the film lacked the one thing that really put the franchise on the map: the blood and gore. I knew the violence was going to be toned down a bit because of the PG-13 rating, but to have no blood or gore at all was highly disappointing (and I do not count the incredibly fake looking blood when Scorpion was killed). On top of that, fatalities, a feature that I particularly enjoy about the franchise, were almost nonexistent. I was very surprised that I did not pick that out when I first watched the film as a kid, but now it is the one thing holding it back from being great.
In the end,
Mortal Kombat is not exactly the same film that I enjoyed watching over and over again as a kid. The sub-par special effects, lazy writing and lack of genuine blood and gore keep the film from being the perfect adaptation. At the same time, the fun, campy acting, nearly spot on connection to the original game and the fast paced action make this a very enjoyable film and in my opinion the best film adapted off a video game. If you are a fan of the franchise and have not seen it yet, I highly recommend checking this one out. Do yourself a favor though and skip
Annihilation.
