Videogame Cinema: Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat has had a lot of ups and downs as a series. It’s always been around, I even wrote about how it has remained the only constant core pillar of the fighting game genre, but it has waxed and waned in terms of its popularity.

We’re in a bit of a lull in its popularity currently. The reasons of which are too numerous to cover in detail here but suffice to say it’s not as big as it was just a few years ago. I’m sure the series will bounce back as it has before, but when that will happen is anyone’s guess.

So, what’s a fan to do but reminisce about the good old days. I got into Mortal Kombat late. The first MK game I ever played was Armageddon, which was the last in the 3D era. Besides the misguided DC crossover that is.

My good old days are really the more modern titles. I never got to experience the series in its original heyday in the arcades. I couldn’t, I was literally being born when the first game came out. I was way too young to be playing it, hell I was too young to see it due to the amount of gore it had.

But looking back at it through the time machine that is the internet, Mortal Kombat was a huge deal. In the nineties it was everywhere. The mixture of an interesting dark fantasy world, captivating cast of character, fun gameplay and ultra violence made Mortal Kombat a smash hit in the arcades.

It was such a big hit the home console release was hyped beyond belief. Treat less like a game release and more like a frigging event. Just look at the commercial for it.

Mortal Kombat wasn’t just big, it was massive. Which, naturally, led to other parties trying to take a piece of the bloody pie. Including Hollywood.

In 1995, New Line Cinema would release a live action film based on the first game. The idea about making a movie came when film producer Lawrence Kasanoff visited Midway and played a Mortal Kombat arcade machine in their office.

Now, Kasanoff is an interesting producer to say the least. This is the same guy behind the Bobblehead Movie and Foodfight, one of the most infamously troubled productions ever made. Look into it sometime, it’s quite the story.

He isn’t exactly the most respected producer in Hollywood. However, this movie was made long before those disasters. Kasanoff was a new producer at the time just trying to make a name for himself.

Seeing potential in the IP, Kasanoff pitched the idea of doing a Mortal Kombat film to Midway. Though they were hesitant due to previous videogame movies being, well you can read some of my previous reviews to see how bad they got.

Midway eventually relented after months of negotiations and the film was given the green light to begin proper production. This all happened during the playtesting of Mortal Kombat 2 and prior to the home console ports of the first game. So, this was while the series was still in its initial growth in popularity.

For director, the studio went with Paul W.S. Anderson. The same W.S. Anderson who would go on to direct cult horror favourite Event Horizon and helm the Resident Evil film franchise. Suffice to say I’ll be talking about this guy a lot more when I eventually get to those.

Anderson, like Kasanoff, was a newcomer to the film industry. His only work prior to Mortal Kombat was a 1994 British crime drama called Shopping. He had no experience on effect heavy blockbusters, but he had an enthusiasm for the project. So much so that he read as many books as possible on visual effects to ensure that he did a good job at it.

Surprisingly, I couldn’t find a lot of behind-the-scenes drama. From what I can gather the actual making of the movie went smoothly. The only incidents I could find were some minor injuries caused during the action scenes, and that Sonya’s actress, Bridgette Wilson, had to train on set due to her being a last-minute replacement for Cameron Diaz. Yeah, Cameron Diaz was almost in Mortal Kombat. That’s a weird factoid.

Besides that, it seemed like a decent production with no major hiccups. That’s a nice change of pace considering the absolute shitshows I’ve covered so far.

Which probably explains why Mortal Kombat was received pretty well. Critics weren’t too fussed on it, but it reviewed better than most videogame movies did, and fans loved it. In fact, this is one of those rare early videogame adaptations that’s considered to be legitimately, unironically good.

It even had an impact on the games themselves. Many things introduced in the film would later be incorporated into the games because the creators loved them so much. Even the actors from the film came into the games to reprise their role in Mortal Kombat 11 as DLC skins.

The major sticking point people have is the film is PG-13. Meaning it’s lacking in a lot of the over-the-top violence the series became famous for.

Personally speaking, I’m not that bothered by this. PG-13 was seen as the gold standard at the time. Studios saw it as the only way a film could make money. It would be years before they realised you could make a film rated R that wasn’t a horror movie and people would still show up to see it.

So, I’m not bothered about the rating. What matters to me is if the film is any good. Well, yeah it is. At least if you are a fan of Mortal Kombat.

If I was judging this film based purely on its own merits, I’d say it was ok. The story is basic, and many lore elements are either glossed over or poorly explained. The pacing is weird, and the film relies a little too much on exposition.  The effects are also a mixed bag, but I’ll go more into that later.

The movie has a lot of problems. If I watched it without knowing the games, I wouldn’t think much of it. But when viewing this as a fan then it becomes a lot better. Because it has everything you would want out of a Mortal Kombat movie.

The story is an accurate retelling of the one from the first game. The evil sorcerer Shang Tsung is holding a fighting tournament on his island. This being the titular Mortal Kombat tournament, a contest fought between Earthrealm and another dimension called Outworld.

Should Outworld win ten tournaments in a row, then they’re allowed to invade Earthrealm and take it over. Fighting against Shang Tsung is our main trio of heroes. Special Forces agent Sonya Blade, Hollywood superstar Johnny Cage, and Liu Kang a member of an ancient order of warrior monks.

Each enter the tournament for their own reasons. Sonya wants to track down and kill a violent criminal named Kano who killed her partner, Johnny wants to prove to the press that he isn’t a fake, and Liu Kang wants revenge against Shang Tsung for murdering his brother Chen.

The trio are guided by the thunder god Rayden, who helps prepare them for whatever threats they face and teach them to be the heroes they need to be to save Earth. But they’ll have to contend with Shang Tsung’s forces and considering that consists of ninja warriors Scorpion and Sub Zero, and four-armed monster Goro, that’s going to be easier said than done.

This is pretty much the plot of the videogame. It’s got all the major plot and lore beats, what little there was in the original anyway, and the characters and their motivations are spot on. This is pretty accurate to the story from the game.

Well, sort of. The film isn’t a one-to-one take on the games story. There have been a few changes to it. With the most controversial being the changes to Scorpion and Sub Zero.

These two have become the faces of the franchise. They’re the most recognisable characters and the ones everyone remembers. Sub Zero’s spine rip fatality created the videogame rating system for god’s sake, they’re kind of a big deal.

Their rivalry is one of the best in gaming. To the point where the best story chapters in the story mode’s centre around it. Even if they had very little importance to the main plot, their storyline was a major highlight.

But in the film, they don’t really have a story. Simply being brainwashed minions of Shang Tsung for our heroes to defeat. Their rivalry isn’t touched on at all; for all intents and purposes they’re simply an obstacle for our heroes to overcome.

But here’s the thing, I actually don’t mind this. You have to keep in mind that this film was released in 1995, at a time where only the first two games existed. This was long before all the character development Scorpion and Sub Zero would get in the later games.

The only story the two had at the time was Sub-Zero murdering Scorpion and Scorpion wanting revenge. Not bad, but it has very little to do with the main plot. Trying to incorporate that into the main storyline would only serve to derail the main story.

I know this because that’s exactly what happened in the animated Scorpion’s Revenge movie. They focused so much on Scorpions storyline in that it made the actual main story feel like an afterthought.

You can have a focus on them in the games because those are longer experiences that give you more time to go over everything. A movie has a much more limited run time, they can’t have side excursions and still have time for the fight scenes and character development. They need to be more efficient in their screen time.

So, I don’t mind the two ninjas’ being relegated to henchmen. It gives them more time to focus on our heroes, which are the focal point of the movie. Plus, they keep their designs and powers from the games, which was always the thing that drew people to the characters anyway.

That’s the only change I can see sticking in people’s craw though. Every other change they made is either completely innocuous, made for the sake of simplifying the lore for average movie goers, or things that would be retroactively added to the lore of the games anyway.

For example, that whole thing where Outworld needs ten wins to invade was something made up for the film. In the games Shang Tsung’s plan was to simply take over the tournament and cause enough chaos to unbalance the worlds enough so Outworld could conquer them.

It was the later games that would adopt the movie’s version. Probably because it’s less vague and easier to understand than whatever the fuck the “unbalance the furies” explanation from the game means.

The most famous example of this though is with Kano. He was originally a Japanese American, but in the film he’s Australian. The depiction of Kano in the film was liked by the dev team so much that they not only retconned him to being Australian but would even base his design and personality in later games on the one seen in the film.

There have been some instances where an adaptation has been referenced in the main work before, but this is one of those rare instances where an adaptation had a major effect on the main work.

Some other changes like this would be Kitana appearing in the first tournament. This would later be added in with Mortal Kombat 9’s story mode, since Kitana wasn’t properly introduced until the second game.

There are a few other references to Mortal Kombat 2 here as well. Johnny Cage’s Friendship is referenced, Sony gets kidnapped in the end like the plot of the second game, and Shao Kahn makes a brief cameo appearance in the ending.

These are just references though. For the most part this is a straightforward adaptation of the first game, for better and for worse. One of the issues with adapting a game with Mortal Kombat is the lack of narrative in the game itself.

Fighting games aren’t exactly known for their stories. Most of them don’t have much plot outside of character endings. Mortal Kombat did better than most by having introductions that explained what was going on, but the story was kept simple. Having the tournament set-up most fighting games had back then.

Because of that, the film doesn’t have much of a plot. It’s a standard martial arts story with some fantasy thrown in. By following the plot of the game so closely, it makes the film feel a bit, shallow in terms of its narrative.

They do try to expand on things from the game. Liu Kang having a brother and being a descended of the Great Kung Lao is a little different, even if the latter is taken from Kung Lao.

They also try to make him more of a reluctant hero. In the games he’s a total boy scout. Ready and willing to fight for justice and defeat evil wherever he finds it. In the film he feels weighed down by the expectations of being the chosen one and runs away to America to live his own life. Only returning to avenge his brother’s death.

It helps make him a bit more interesting, but that’s not really saying much. I like Liu Kang, but he isn’t the most exciting character. He’s better now being the god of the universe, but in the early games he was one of the least interesting characters in the roster.

That’s the big issue the film has. Every time they try to expand on the story from the game, it only further exemplifies how little story there was in the game. At least at the time.

They added a bunch of new fighters to the tournament because the game had 10 characters total, and that’s including the bosses and secret character. They needed to add more characters just so the heroes had someone to fight.

The problem is a lot of these other characters are very forgettable. If they had more characters to pull from in the games, something modern movies do due to how much the cast has expanded, then they wouldn’t need to make up new characters. But because of how limited they were they had to. Which only exemplifies how few characters were in the original game. See what I mean.

There just isn’t much of a story here. But let’s be honest with ourselves, nobody is going into a Mortal Kombat movie for a deep and engaging story. They want to see the characters and setting they know from the game brought to life, and awesome fight scenes. And in those regards this movie excels.

Mortal Kombat is the perfect definition of a popcorn flick. It’s just a fun movie you put on to enjoy yourself for an hour and a half without thinking about things too much. In short, it’s purely for fun and that’s what Mortal Kombat is.

Despite the simple story, the film does give you just enough information to make you care about what’s going on. The character’s motivations aren’t complex, but they’re easy enough to understand, and the characters are likable enough that you want to see them win.

The pacing of the movie is a little weird though. The opening is nothing but plot, with a lot of exposition about the world. As a fan this was easy to follow, but non-fans are going to be confused since it’s never fully explained in how everything works.

But then at about the halfway point, it ditches the story and goes all in on the fight scenes. It’s a little lopsided in how everything is paced, but I think works in the films favour. Because if you think about it, it’s structured almost exactly like the games.

The way the original games were structured were you’d get an opening cutscene explaining the basic plot, as well as a character introduction giving you the run down on them, you fight a bunch, then you get an ending.

That’s basically how the movie is. It spends 15-20 minutes setting everything up, has a shit ton of fight scenes with brief scenes for character development, then it ends. It really does feel like watching the video game.

Which is more than you can say for other video game adaptations we’ve looked at. Most of them only had surface level references or were too far removed tonally or stylistically they didn’t resemble the original game at all. The you have Final Fantasy Spirits Within which didn’t even attempt to be like the games.

But Mortal Kombat, this feels like the game. Which in some ways isn’t a good thing. As I said, if you’re not a fan of the games there isn’t much here for you, but if you are you’re going to get a kick out of it.

Seeing everything from the games being brought to life in the movie was great as a fan. Everything from the first game from the characters, the set design and even the special moves resemble the things you saw in the game.

Even some of the weirder special moves were brought over, with some being reimagined in creative ways. Like Scorpion’s weird snake thing that comes out of hand. It’s not the rope dart from the games, but it is a unique take on it.

Even the voice clips from the games are brought in, sometimes literally. They use soundbites from the game as part of the soundtrack. It does everything it can to make it feel like the video game.

Which includes being a little goofy. Mortal Kombat, despite the darker tone and ultra violence, is a series that never takes itself too seriously. The film is the same way. Despite the dark atmosphere it creates with its elaborate set design, there is a level of silliness to everything.

There’s a lot of corny humour, weird moments, and some of the goofier elements of the games made it in. They put in Johnny Cage’s nut punch, as they should since it’s the greatest special move of all time, they clearly know the series sense of humour well.

They take themselves seriously just enough to make you care about what’s going on, but it’s under no pretence in the kind of film it is. This movie knows it doesn’t need to be anything more than a fun martial arts film and that’s all it tries to be.

I have respect for movies like this. Not every movie has to be high art, some just want to be dumb fun. Let me put it like this, some movies are Godzilla Minus One and some are Godzilla X Kong the New Empire. One deals with real human emotion, the other is a fun roller coaster ride where monsters beat the shit out of each other.

Both work for what they are, and they work because they know going in what they want to be. If Minus One had a big kaiju fight it would come across as excessive and break the dark tone the movie goes for. Conversely, if The New empire tried to have serious human drama it would just be out of place in all the action.

Mortal Kombat works because it knows exactly what kind of film it is. It’s not a serious drama, or an attempt at social commentary, it’s a video game movie made for fans of the video game.

It simply wants to be entertainment. With most of its entertainment value comes from its action, set design and the character interactions. Which is where the movie starts to shine.

I already said the characters were likable, and their interactions are enjoyable to watch. A lot of the dialogue was apparently adlibbed on request of Anderson, and while some of the lines are corny and a little cringe, some are genuinely well done and got a chuckle out of me.

I think it helps that the acting is decent. You can tell the actors are having fun while also doing all they can to give a good performance. The standout by far being Cary Tagawa as Shang Tsung. Once again, the villain winds up being the best part of the movie.

Tagawa is legitimately fantastic though. He has a great menacing screen presence and charisma throughout the whole movie. His facial expressions and the way he delivers certain lines are over the top but that only adds to how much fun this performance is.

Tagawa is so good that later performances of the character would be heavily based on his portrayal. They even brought him back for Mortal Kombat 11, which they did for the other cast members as skins, but Tagawa was the default. That’s how good he is.

The other cast members do a solid job also. I really liked Christopher Lambert as Rayden. He plays a mentor role here and doesn’t fight like in the games. The explanation being as the god of Earthrealm he’s too powerful to compete fairly. Which is another lore aspect the games would adopt. He’s a fun mentor though, being a bit more jokey and sarcastic but still having a wisdom about him that helps guide our character.

Linden Ashby as Johnny Cage serves as good comic relief. While not all his jokes land his sarcastic delivery does help elevate a lot of it. I also like that they don’t make him a complete joke. A lot of modern Mortal Kombat media, even the games, tend to lean more into his comedic side and I think it has a negative impact on the character.

Don’t get me wrong, Johnny Cage has always been a more comedic character. His signature move is a punch to the nuts, he’s not meant to be taken too seriously. But that also leans into his story.

The reason Johnny Cage enters the first tournament was because he was seen as a joke. Everyone called him a fake despite his being a competent martial artist. He wanted to show people he wasn’t a joke.

I’m glad the movie kept this. It helps make him a much more fleshed out character. Still a comedic relief character, but one that has a bit more depth to him than a wise cracking egotist than he’s usually depicted as.

Robin Shou is also a decent Liu Kang. Mainly in the action sequences, which Robin also helped to choreograph. The man was a Wuxia champion, and you can tell since the stunt work and martial arts display is pretty good here.

Same goes for the ninja actors. They don’t have any lines, so they rely most on their physical acting. They do that part well, and if you’ve played with the Zub-Zero movie skin in Mortal Kombat 11, you’ll know them not talking may have been a blessing.

 Truly hideous. But I guess this leads me into the negative parts of the acting. While I think the majority of the cast do a good job, there are some that are really phoning it in. Mostly with the side characters that only show up briefly. The guy that played Jax was especially bad.

I also didn’t think Bridgette Wilson was a good fit for Sonya Blade. She’s not awful, she handles herself well in the fight scenes well enough, but she has a severe case of arresting bitch face that never goes away. I know that Sonya is supposed to be a bit stand offish and abrasive, but Wilson comes across more as a pouty bitch than a stoic military general.

But at least she’s better than Talisa Soto. Talk about a charisma vacuum. I mean she’s pretty, but I think her looks were the only reason she was hired, and she knows it. She does not give a single fuck with this performance.

Although, in her defence, she wasn’t given much to work with. Kitana, who she plays, doesn’t really do a whole lot. Originally, she had a much larger role, even having a romantic sub-plot with Liu Kang that got cut since it didn’t really fit the movie.

So, I can’t be too harsh on her performance. Especially since I haven’t seen her in much else, so I don’t know how good of an actress she can be.

But I’d say the acting overall is good. At least for the kind of movie this is. You can tell the cast are having fun with their roles, and as I’ve said before, they perform the physically demanding action scenes well.

Speaking of which, the fights in this movie are a ton of fun. There’s a lot of impressive stunt work, creative set pieces, and they even manage to integrate the special moves from the games in a way that doesn’t look too silly. Well mostly, Liu Kang’s Bicycle Kick is ridiculous and doesn’t look right in live action, but that’s the only one I’d say didn’t work.

It’s a good thing the action is enjoyable since there’s a lot of it. As I went over earlier, the entire second and third acts are almost nothing but action and fight scenes. It never lets up. This could become tiring, and I guess if you aren’t a fan of the games or martial arts films it would be, but I think it avoids this for two reasons.

One is that there’s enough variety to keep things interesting. From the different powers each character possesses to the varying set-pieces they do a good job of making each fight unique, so it never gets too repetitive.

Second is that each fight isn’t too long. They’re short and snappy and don’t overstay their welcome. Some fights are longer than others, but those fights tend to either be the more important or more visually striking ones in the film.

It also helps that they do intersperse some character moments in between the fighting. It’s not just all action and no story, there are reprieves that let you catch your breath and give some character development.

Another thing that helps is the soundtrack. It uses a lot of heavy techno which adds a lot of energy to the action. It’s a very 90’s soundtrack, but a pretty damn awesome one. The main theme of the movie, Techno Syndrome, is the most famous track.

It became synonymous with the franchise and sort of became the unofficial theme of the series. They even used it in a trailer for Mortal Kombat 11, surprised it hasn’t appeared in any of the games yet.

If you’re watching this movie for the action, which to be fair you probably are, then at least you’ll be in for a good time. my only complaint with the fighting is the slow motion. They use it a lot to the point where it gets a little annoying.

It’s not quite Zack Snyder levels of overuse, but it’s used more than it should be. Although this is just the movie showing its age more than anything. Slow motion was the new cool thing in the 90’s. Everyone was using it back then.

While we’re on the subject, the visual effects are a mixed bag. The practical effects are incredible. The set design is great with some creatively designed and creepy looking sets that look like something you’d see in the games. They don’t use any locations from the games, but what we get aren’t too far off from what we saw in them.

Shang Tsung’s island has some cool looking locales, but the major highlights to me were Outworld and Scorpion’s lair. The latter of which I think served as inspiration for the Netherrealm, the hell dimension of Mortal Kombat one of the more visually interesting locations in the games.

The most impressive practical effect is with Goro. It’s a large animatronic puppet and it looks awesome. It was operated by Todd Woodruff Jr who has done special effects for a ton of movies, including Alien 3 which he won an academy award for.

Strangely, the use of a practical puppet mirrors the games Goro. That version was done with a stop motion puppet, so him being an animatronic is strangely fitting. Plus, a practical effect is always going to look more visually impressive than CGI.

And that’s especially the case with Mortal Kombat. Because Hoo boy, is the CG a complete dumpster fire. Alright, not all of it is that bad. There is some CG that look passable for the time.

Some of the visual effects like Sub Zero’s ice powers or Rayden’s electricity look fine, but when they need to render a location or character is when the quality takes a nose-dive. I know CG was still a new thing and this movie didn’t have a huge budget, but even by the standards of the time it looks awful.

Reptile got the worst of it. It’s a good thing he gets his human ninja form, because his reptilian form is horrendous. Not only does it look weak and pathetic, but the CG quality makes Beast Wars look like a Pixar movie. It’s a good thing there isn’t that much of it.

Speaking of Reptile though, him appearing in his ninja form was something I didn’t expect. I thought they would just have him stay looking like a rejected Reboot character, but then you get to the third act and, bam, he turns into his ninja form. It was a fun surprise, just like his secret fight in the videogame.

This is what I was talking about earlier. Even in little details this movie attempts to emulate the videogame. Unlike a lot of other 90’s video game adaptations which felt like they were made by people who never played the games, this movie feels like it was made by people who played the game and understood its appeal.

The only thing it lacks is the ultra-violence due to the PG-13 rating, and even then there’s still some brutal deaths here. There’s no spinal rips or hearts getting ripped out, but you see people getting frozen and shattering into pieces, there’s at least two impalements, and Scorpion get cut up and blown to pieces in pretty brutal fashion.

Even with the rating restrictions they still were able to have deaths like the ones in the game. Just not as bloody. This really does feel like a true adaptation of the games.

So, yeah, I actually enjoyed this one. Unironically, I had a fun time watching it. As a critic I could point out a lot of its narrative and pacing issues, but when judged as a fan of the game this was a blast. it has everything you could want out of a film adaptation of Mortal Kombat.

The story is accurate, the characters are on point, the action is a lot of fun, it has a lot of classic moves from the game, and even the deaths, while toned down, are like what you saw in the videogame. This is the first video game adaptation where I can confidently say that they understood the assignment.

This movie feels like it was made specifically for fans of the game. And in an age where fans are seemingly constantly attacked for not liking the utter drek that gets released, that’s very refreshing. This movie knew is target audience and how to please them, and it deserves praise for that.

I don’t know if I can recommend it for people who don’t know the game, but its short length makes this is a fun and breezy watch. So, even if you aren’t a fan, you could still get some enjoyment out of the fun fight scenes and creative set-designs.

That was very refreshing. I finally got to talk about a good videogame adaptation. No behind the scenes drama, or weird adaptational changes, just a nice fun movie that pays proper reverence to the source material.

It’s even the first of these movies to do well at the box office. To the point where it even got a sequel, which proceeded to fuck everything up. But that’s a story for next time, and oh what a story it is.