I thought it lacked the charm of the original but I was still entertained. As you'd expect, there was some clunky dialogue, a convoluted story, and the low budget really took some bite out of the costume design and fight choreography. That said, Kano stole the show and the fatalities were pretty awesome.
Also, the idea of the dragon mark and arcana was a fresh take. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it, but I definitely didn't hate it, I know that much. I am a little confused as to what Cole's arcana was supposed to be, though..
Spoiler!
As a huge Mortal Kombat nerd, there were quite a few things that bothered me:
1) Liu Kang and Shang Tsung took a backseat as secondary characters. Shang Tsung should be the main baddie and Liu Kang is the fucking Chosen One.
2) The original character Cole Young was completely unnecessary. MK has like 100 fighters they could have chosen for a lead role, and they decided to create a new one for no apparent reason.
3) Building on that last issue, they featured fucking Reiko and Nitara in this one? Lol. Like, I literally couldn't think of two less interesting characters from the MK roster.
4) I'll start by saying Kung Lao was fucking awesome. Outside of Kano, he was the best represented of all the characters, I think. His intro throwing the hat, teleporting into the hat, the fatality, etc. just.. *chef's kiss*. It was exactly what the 8 year old in me wanted to see.
But, kinda going back to my first big issue, I think they missed an opportunity here. They built up Kung Lao as the Chosen One which is kind of cool. Apparently, he was originally selected and trained as the great savior since he's the direct descendant of the Great Kung Lao, but he washed out for some reason and it ended up becoming Liu Kang instead. They could have transferred the mantle here, but didn't. They had Lao unceremoniously killed by Shang Tsung, Raiden's all like "lol sorry bruh", and Liu Kang made it seem like they were gay lovers ("we were supposed to die together").
Killing Kung Lao could have been the spark that set Liu Kang on his destiny as the Chosen One. Or, ya know, he can shoot fucking fireballs from his hands. 'Member when he met the other guys and immediately blasted them only to be like "totally kidding, I'm not your enemy"? Why not do that shit and save your cousin?
5) Raiden was absolute trash and the most worthless character in the movie
6) They killed Goro already. Dude was the 9 time MK champion and they kill him off before the tournamenr even started. He's been running fades and killing folk for 450 straight years yet some douche whose secret power is literally plot armor killed him in his driveway lol hate it, hate it, hate it.
Originally Posted by ThaVirus:
I thought it lacked the charm of the original but I was still entertained. As you'd expect, there was some clunky dialogue, a convoluted story, and the low budget really took some bite out of the costume design and fight choreography. That said, Kano stole the show and the fatalities were pretty awesome.
Also, the idea of the dragon mark and arcana was a fresh take. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it, but I definitely didn't hate it, I know that much. I am a little confused as to what Cole's arcana was supposed to be, though..
Spoiler!
As a huge Mortal Kombat nerd, there were quite a few things that bothered me:
1) Liu Kang and Shang Tsung took a backseat as secondary characters. Shang Tsung should be the main baddie and Liu Kang is the fucking Chosen One.
2) The original character Cole Young was completely unnecessary. MK has like 100 fighters they could have chosen for a lead role, and they decided to create a new one for no apparent reason.
3) Building on that last issue, they featured fucking Reiko and Nitara in this one? Lol. Like, I literally couldn't think of two less interesting characters from the MK roster.
4) I'll start by saying Kung Lao was fucking awesome. Outside of Kano, he was the best represented of all the characters, I think. His intro throwing the hat, teleporting into the hat, the fatality, etc. just.. *chef's kiss*. It was exactly what the 8 year old in me wanted to see.
But, kinda going back to my first big issue, I think they missed an opportunity here. They built up Kung Lao as the Chosen One which is kind of cool. Apparently, he was originally selected and trained as the great savior since he's the direct descendant of the Great Kung Lao, but he washed out for some reason and it ended up becoming Liu Kang instead. They could have transferred the mantle here, but didn't. They had Lao unceremoniously killed by Shang Tsung, Raiden's all like "lol sorry bruh", and Liu Kang made it seem like they were gay lovers ("we were supposed to die together").
Killing Kung Lao could have been the spark that set Liu Kang on his destiny as the Chosen One. Or, ya know, he can shoot fucking fireballs from his hands. 'Member when he met the other guys and immediately blasted them only to be like "totally kidding, I'm not your enemy"? Why not do that shit and save your cousin?
5) Raiden was absolute trash and the most worthless character in the movie
6) They killed Goro already. Dude was the 9 time MK champion and they kill him off before the tournamenr even started. He's been running fades and killing folk for 450 straight years yet some douche whose secret power is literally plot armor killed him in his driveway lol hate it, hate it, hate it.
Yeah, pretty good points.
Spoiler!
Kinda pissed me off that Kung Lao was so fucking cool, and yet he was the first one to die. The actor really nailed it, and then boom a lame grab from Shang Tsung and he's a shriveled afterthough? That just didn't make any sense, and as bad ass as that actor was, that was a complete waste. When he was provoking Kano trying to get him to find his arcana, that was good stuff.
Same with Goro. The instant Goro showed up to kill Cole, I had a bad feeling they were going to waste Goro just so stupid Cole could get mad enough protecting his family to find his arcana. Totally backwards. Goro should have kicked the holy fuck out of him at that point.
Raiden should have been this powerful badass that dominated his scenes. But this actor was immediately forgettable. Just nothing at all to give the character any cool detail other than him teleporting around. Felt so flat, when he should have been the opposite.
Was pretty disappointing to see Liu Kang use his powers as a spaceheater about as many times as he actually shoots any fireballs. The fire dragon was cool though.
Sub Zero was pretty evil for most of the film. Really did well making him a ruthless bad ass.
Originally Posted by Fish:
Was pretty disappointing to see Liu Kang use his powers as a spaceheater about as many times as he actually shoots any fireballs. The fire dragon was cool though. [/SPOILER]
Watched with super low expectations, but was pleasantly surprised. Fight scenes were fantastic (but JFC it's way too dark, turn you TV brightness up a million), and Kano definitely helped make the crappy plot moving scenes more bearable, [Reply]
Looks like im in the minority on this one. This is hot garbage IMO. Whoever wrote this, and people like them are the reason you cant get good movies based on videogames.
What's that? I have a metric shit ton of well established, fan favorite characters to draw from?
Nah pimpin. Im good. Im going to pull the most boring, basic, b fighting movie cookie cutter character out of my ass and insert him as the main character.
Now you would think that if one were to insert an all new character in place of all of the others, that new character should be good, right? Even so cool to the point that fans want this guy in the new games that come out.
Unfortunately, that did not happen. Cole Young is ****ing boring. I dont give a shit about him. His "ability" isn't even explained and best i can tell its a combo ripoff of Colossus from Xmen and Black Panther. And the way he learns his ability is the most vile, unearned slap in the face of the whole film.
Spoiler!
They served up Prince Goro to this turd. Yes. The original champion of Mortal Kombat, absolutely destroyed by this turd in his front yard in front of his barn. This dude who earlier in the film got ****ed in half by a two bit club fighter. Like, you DO realize that there are a whole race of shokan right? It didnt have to be Goro that was sent to kill him. Having Goro die to this dumbass was just really really ****ing stupid.
I checked out at this point. I know theyre setting up for more, but I just dont care. When you relegate big names like Liu Kang and Kung Lao to little throwaway support characters, you better know what youre doing.
The film borders on false advertisement, as the hype is all for Sub Zero and Scorpion, and there's probably 5-7 minutes of that in total, and thats basicly the best parts of the story.
Visually there's some good stuff and callbacks to the game, but the story is just abysmal. Not even the Johnny Cage tease at the end interests me, because like the rest, he will be a throwaway background character. [Reply]
Yeah Goro being killed like that is absolute bullshit. I would’ve had more respect if they threw us a curve ball and had goro killed all of them right then and there.. now that would’ve been epic and unexpected and great story telling. [Reply]
