My Review of "Mortal Kombat (2021)"

Mortal Kombat (2021) is a recent remake and revision of the Mortal Kombat franchise. Those that are old enough will forever remember the 1995 movie. That old movie was somewhat accurate to the story of the arcade game that had come out around that time. It was definitely a cult classic because a lot of people still swear by that movie. This version is a way darker experience with some nods to old school Mortal Kombat fans.

The movie starts out with a scene in feudal Japan. A man by the name of Hanzo is living a quiet life in rural japan with his family. All seems fine until he leaves to fetch some water. In his home his family feels chills in the house and soon there is a mysterious warrior that comes busting in. He starts slaughtering all the help.

Hanzo is alerted by his screaming wife and runs back home to find everything decimated and everyone killed including his family. The mysterious warrior with freezing powers fights Hanzo to the death with with Hanzo's ultimate demise. He swears to have revenge as he slowly does and withers away.

There's then a flash forward with the main character named Cole. He's a struggling mixed martial arts fighter that's fighting in matches to make a living. This first match that he's in wasn't the best for him. He shows that he's just an amateur and unfortunately loses. Overseeing the match in the audience is a guy named Jax.

He's been scouting Cole from a distance because of a special marking that Cole has on his chest. Jax remarkably shares the same marking on his body. We soon find out from Jax that it's not just a marking. It's an invitation to an interdimensional martial arts tournament called Mortal Kombat.

There's a few jokes here and there showing that the movie is somewhat aware of itself. All of the characters in this movie are actual characters in the video game franchise. It's pretty fun to see a lot of the characters reimagined and with different storylines from what I remember. Then again I haven't really been following Mortal Kombat since the 3rd sequel. I was still able to keep up with who was who though.

In fact a lot of the fight scenes were kind of catered to fans of the original trilogy of games. We had the original fatalities in the movie and all in their gore-y glory. I didn't expect this movie to be so violent but that is kind of on brand with the original games. It was the game that brought in game ratings to prevent minors from purchasing inappropriate video games.

I liked the fact that a lot of the story although reimagined from what I remembered made sense. There was a lot of things that tie in closer to the end that were preplanned from the beginning that I thought was quite clever.

Even the fight scenes were actually really well done. There wasn't a lot of jump cuts where you can't really identify what was happening. The movie makers knew what they were doing. The set pieces were beautiful especially some of the ice and feudal Japan sequences.

The most important part though is how it melded all together and I would say that it was adequate. It's not going to be a masterpieces but it's not a terrible movie either. There are a few jokes that will make you groan out loud but placing jokes into a movie with such a serious and dark atmosphere is going to be a hit and miss.

Overall, I still had a lot of fun watching this movie. As a fan of the old trilogy I'm obviously going to remember the 90's better than they really were. I know the original wasn't a great movie but it's something that I grew up with. For me this movie hit the right notes with me. Is it something I'd watch over and over again? Probably not. I would however recommend it to fans of the old movies. That's why I have to give this movie a 6.5 out of 10. It's enjoyable enough to recommend to a select few.