Movie: Mortal Kombat (04-23-21)

[Ms Harmless]

I couldn't have cared less about MK before this movie but my partner's coming over and we're gonna watch it, looks excellent

[VinylGuy]

ill watch this one this weekend

[BurtReynolds]

I like that they got rid of Johnny Cage for this. What a shitty fucking character.

*punches you in the nuts*

[Revelator]

This was unsurprisingly terrible.

[BurtReynolds]

Everyone hates this movie it seems.

[Stickman]

This was unsurprisingly terrible.

What were the highs and lows?

[Norah]

Objectively bad but I had fun watching it.

[VinylGuy]

This was fun!
The Scorpion -Sub Zero match was cool!! pretty gory, cool fights...yeah.

[Birds in Hell]

I understand this was entirely filmed here (Adelaide and surrounds), so that's nice (?).

[Revelator]

This was unsurprisingly terrible.

What were the highs and lows?

My expectations were crazy low to start but as someone else said some of the fights and fatalities were pretty cool. I will say I stayed along for the entire ride where I turned Godzilla vs Kong off about 20 mins in. The lows for me, as expected, were the incomprehensible story (par for the course for MK, but I really wish they could do better somehow) and a majority of the acting was abysmal. Again, this should come as a shock to no one. The special effects were decent though, you can tell they sunk a bit of money into this one. Haven't decided if this is worse than the 95 film or not. I'll also be the first to admit I'll watch the terrible/inevitable sequel on day one.

[Ensign9]

I rewatched some scenes from '95 last night. Not quite as good as I remember it being but some solid stuff in there (the music; the Liu Kang/Shang Tsung finale fight). The storytelling in '95 is definitely more coherent and it felt more like a cohesive film whereas '21 feels like an extended series of video game cutscenes.

[VinylGuy]

yeah, i can agree with that. I havent seen the 95 movie in a very long time though.

[Ello Sailor]

I like that they got rid of Johnny Cage for this. What a shitty fucking character.

*punches you in the nuts*

Those were $500 glasses, asshole.

[Revelator]

I rewatched some scenes from '95 last night. Not quite as good as I remember it being but some solid stuff in there (the music; the Liu Kang/Shang Tsung finale fight). The storytelling in '95 is definitely more coherent and it felt more like a cohesive film whereas '21 feels like an extended series of video game cutscenes.

Spot on, yes

Spoiler: show

The Kung Lao fatality was bad ass, that one's always been one of my favs from the more recent MK games.

[Ms Harmless]

I think this being a "messy prequel" to the tournament, where you just get brief intros to characters, makes a lot more sense when you consider that they want to make 4 more movies

[Stardog Champion]

Just finished this and it is not good. At all.

Yet, I ended up enjoying myself because the bad acting and terrible dialogue were so much fun. Spent half the movie texting terrible lines back and forth with a friend.

[Rangi Guy]

I've only watched about the first half hour of this. My wife leaned over and said the acting/dialog was porn quality. She's also told me that she's never watched porn before - something doesn't add up

[i got bugs]

I liked it.. I mean it was exactly what I expected.. I can't imagine anyone going in with the expectations of some Oscar level acting or detailed plot

Kinda bummed about mileena but pretty pumped for noob saibot in the next one

Kano was so ridiculous but he made me laugh a bunch.. put a fuckin shirt on, magic mike

[Ms Harmless]

copied from my Facebook:

granted I didn't have a huge amount invested in it (I own MK11 and probably played MK1 in the 90's like twice), but... (spoilers maybe?)

Mortal Kombat 2021: a relative narrative mess, with beautiful art direction and cinematography, score and sound design

so exactly what Mortal Kombat is, then!

it felt like watching a bunch of in-game cutscenes brought to life, with the same pacing and the same amount of "exposition < fight, move along, exposition < fight, move along" as in the games

I've read a bunch of fan critiques since it was released elsewhere, and I agree with some (for the amount of time spent talking about The Mark, they could have given us some characters' real-life motivations for fighting in MK -- we only really know Scorpion's) but disagree with plenty of others

I like Cole Young, literally fight me

I like that it draws from the "don't show your whole hand" and (particularly in low budget horror, which this partially is!) "don't show the whole monster until the end (Sub-Zero), leave them wanting more" school of film-making

this was very obviously just a beginning, a prequel to a tournament -- and honestly? I feel like they went that route because they didn't want to waste all the visual candy and theatre of the tournament on a small budget, and they didn't know they would get to make more films

so this is like a "in the MK universe" movie rather than the main event; foreplay, if you will

so yes there was fan service they left out, and there are settings, fatalities, characters and story elements that I think they're waiting to show us -- and I hope they get a whole bunch of movies to do it -- but this was a more than adequate beginning, and I think if they'd thrown everything everyone wanted in, people would have complained it was too overstuffed and busy (I sure didn't need this to be American Horror Story; it has far more artful restraint)

for what it's worth (to compare this to another mighty 90's franchise), I had FAR more invested in the first Jurassic World movie, and enjoyed Mortal Kombat 2021 quite a lot more

[Ms Harmless]

I wonder if Mileena will come back with a new look, more purple and pink? I like that "death is just a portal" and any of the ones that died could come back, either as themselves or an evolved version

I want to see more of Nitara, personally