Mortal Kombat 2021 Film Review

Mortal Kombat films don't typically have a good record when it comes to there sequels as even tho there has only been one sequel thus far it is wildly regarded as one of the worst films ever made. Yet we ae just a few short days away from the release of another one and well it only made sense that the tie in for review for that film be the film that came before it as that is the film that proved that this franchise could be like the gory game its spawned from and still be a hit film and so then join me as I review the film that despite having the name of the tournament in it's title doesn't actually feature Mortal Kombat at all with the film in question being called simply just "Mortal Kombat" enjoy.

The plot of this film is a young underground fighter named Cole finds himself dragged into a fight between earth and the underworld with the very fate of earth itself the prize. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually feature / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad. The films plot for being the plot for a video game movie isn't that bad to be fair as it does give you alot of the things that you'd expect from a Mortal Kombat movie and yet it also doesn't give you everything that you would to see either. With this films plot feeling more like the plot to part one of a two part movie which is something that would e fine if that was always the plan for these films yet it wasn't and therefor not having alot of the things that people would want to see in a Mortal Kombat plot not appear in this film doesn't make much sense as you always want to start with your best foot forward and part of that does include giving the fans what they want to see and not what you want them to see. However to be fair this films plot does do a good enough job of setting up the stage for what's to come that you do kind of forgive it for not giving you everything and heck one could even argue that this fil is taking the same approach that the live action Sonic films have taken where they slowly drip feed in elements from the games which is a solid approach to take the films plot does allow them to take that approach but that the same time tho this films plot does oddly feel empty with there being no stakes because of the things that were taken out of it with the plot of this film also being really rather entertaining and as well as being really rather engaging as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Starring in this film is Lewis Tan as Cole Young , Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade and Josh Lawson as Kano. Also starring in this film is Mehcad Brooks as Jax , Ludi Lin as Liu Kang , Max Huang as Kung Lao , Tadanobu Asano as Raiden , Hiroyuki Sanada as Hanzo Hasashi / Scorpion , Matilda Kimber as Emily Young , Laura Brent as Allison Young , Sisi Stringer as Mileena , Mel Jarnson as Nitara , Daniel Nelson as Kabal , Damon Herriman as the voice of Kabal , Joe Taslim as Bi-Han / Sub-Zero , Angus Sampson as the voice of Goro , Chin Han as Shang Tsung and former WWE Pro Wrestler Nathan Jones as Reiko.

Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually feature / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad. The fact that we managed to get OK acting in this film is still something that should be applauded as by all rights this films acting should have been really bad due to the fact that the acting in all the Mortal Kombat films has never been that good with the same thing even being true for this film and yet you can still tell that the makers of this film are at least trying to correct the sins of the past and part of that is by giving us some decent acting. With the best actor in this film being Lewis Tan as Cole Young as while he's not playing an actual character from the games this is something that does work to his advantage as it does mean that Lewis now has to fully create the character of Cole Young and part of that does include how the character would react in different situations with this being something that does help improve what could have ben seen as being a very wooden performance which is somethin that it very easily could have been if he was playing a character from the games and while his performance in the film isn't as good as as it could have been it's easily alot more better then quite literally any of the acting in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation with the acting that's in this very film not really being helped by the fact that this films script is just so bad as it gives none of this films actors alot to work with interms of what it is that there actual characters personalities are even meant to be in the first place which is something that really does help to hurt the overall quality of the acting that's in this very film.

Doing the CGI for this film is Rising Sun Pictures , Method Studios , Mr. X , SlateVFX , Kojo , Resin , Artisan Post Group Pty and Fin Design & Effects. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual CGI that's actually feature / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty pretty good. To be frank nobody was expecting this film to have good looking CGI just due to the fact that the previous film had dreadful CGI in it and yet thus films effects were actually good as while yes this film does have the advantage of being made at a much more later then the previous Mortal Kombat film and therefor of course the effects are going to be better as there would be more technology there for give the film these more good looking effects. However it's much more then that as there is more thought and effort put into this films effects with the film only using CGI in places where they have to do and not where they want to as alot of this films characters are characters that you can only do in CGI and to be fair those characters do look really good where the film does loose some points however is the overreliance on CGI blood as it is everywhere in this film and it never looks good whereas if they went the practical approach then the blood would look alot more better. Thus is something that the previous film actually got right as they didn't have any bloody in there film and they had to do alot of stuff for real like for example Jax's metal arms whilst yes they look cheesy in both this film and in that film in the previous film tho they built those arms for real and because of that they are going to age alot more slowly then the effects used to create them in this film this is despite the fact that his arms in this film look ten times better.

While both the first film and Mortal Kombat Annihilation do rightfully get alot of hate for being bad films the first film actually had something that this film didn't have. That being the actual Mortal Kombat tournament itself with this film instead choosing to focus more on the characters training for the fight then actually having the fight itself and while that is great as it could potentially give us more of a chance to get to know these characters alot more when you come into a Mortal Kombat movie one of the few things that you expect to see in the film is the actual tournament as that is what gives the film it's stakes. Yet due to the fact that according to producer Todd Garner this is because of the fact that the studio didn't really know what they had with the first film which to me just seems like there making an excuse as they would have known full well just what type of film that that they were making and while yes they might have wanted to play it safe due to how badly that Mortal Kombat Annihilation did at the box office they would have seen how well that the Mortal Kombat Legacy web series did and they would know full well just how good that the games are selling to have enough faith in this film to go all in and go balls to the wall insane with it. However to be fair just because the games are still selling well doesn't mean that the film will be able to sell any tickets and given the fact that the previous film didn't do all that well at the box office it is understandable that they would want to play things safe with this film and keep the action mainly to this one fighting pit which is something that does make sense but if your going to take the actual tournament out of the film and not replace it with anything that keeps the stakes as high as they are when they are in the tournament then they might as well have called this film something else entirely.

One of the things that this film does get right is the fact that it focuses alot of attention on the backstory of Bi-Han / Sub-Zero and Hanzo Hasashi / Scorpion. With there rivalry being what starts the film and to be fair focusing on there feud is something that des make sense as its a feud that does quite literally last centuries and it is a good way to connect what's happening with them in the present to what happend with them in the past and while it could be argued that alot of what we see early on with them isn't needed for the film to work it could also be argued that without seeing there feud play out we loose a key bit on plot information that being the fact that everyone chosen to fight for earth ha the same tattoo as Hanzo Hasashi. However tho the thing that really does let there very long prologue down is the fact that it lasts quite a long time as it goes on for about ten minuets which is something that wouldn't be an issue if this film was long her however it's not and because of that it does mean that this opening prologue should have been alot more shorter as they could have cut out so much of that prologue as alot of it doesn't add anything to the plot of the film in the first place and it would made that opening flow alot more better then what it does do. Yet un spite of this there prologue scene is the closest that this film gets to actually feeling like a video game movie as there are dumb moments in there just like there are these really cool moments in there as well and both of those are things that you want to see in a video game movie and while the rest of the film does have alot of really cool moments in it as well none of them make the film feel like a video game movie much like the opening prologue does.

It really is hard to get Shang Tsung as all you need to do is have him barking orders for his people to kill the defenders of earth and that's pretty much it. With this being something that does help to set this films version of the character apart from all of the others as we do get to see him scheming and planning things with him even being the one to turn Kano evil and turn against the people who have been helping him train for the fight which is a good idea however outside of that one aspect to his character the film doesn't really do all that much with him with him instead feeling alot more like a side characters that only occasionally appears just t remind you that he's there when it would have made the character be all the more better if we got to see him try and turn all of the other heroes as well as just Kano. As that would say that not only is he a desperate character despite the fact that he is one win away from being able to take over earth but it would also show us that he is a smart villain who uses his head as much as he uses his muscles to get the job done this is something that could have made him be a more interesting character and would have made him stand out a bit more from all of the other video game movie villains out there as it would have allowed us the audience to have more of a reason to to not only hate this character also fear him as well as we would have been given the chance to see that he can get inside our heroes heads at will. Yet the makers of this film instead chose not to do that which OK fair enough it doesn't hurt the character all that much but it also doesn't give us a chance to see just how evil that this character as we don't get the chance to see just how desperate that he can be due to the fact that he is firmly in control of everything in this film.

Now then this film has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly one hour and fifty minuets and three seconds. Which to be fair to this film is pretty much the exact grad total running time that you would expect a film like this one to have and given the fact that Warner Bros apparently had no clue just how big the film would become it does make sense that they would have the film come in at well under two hours as then they could squeeze more showings out of the film and therefor possibly make more money out of the film with the film even having more then enough there interms of plot to really cover that amount of running time in the first place. While the film doesn't really use its running time all that wisely as it doesn't take the time to fully develop its plot this is because of the fact that the film spends alot of the time on the prologue with Sub-Zero and Scorpion which yes does have scenes that are key to the plot but it also has alot more stuff that isn't important to the plot like we don't need to see alot of the scenes with Hanzo Hasashi just talking to his son or him getting water as those elements aren't important to the film as you've already gotten across that he's family man just by showing him walking with his son in the first place and you don't need to show him getting the water as that's just padding you can just show him walking off and the point will still be there. Sadly tho this is also something that does effect the films character development as due to the films prologue scene being as long as it is it does mean that scenes have to be cut that could have given the characters some much needed character development and while of course they very well could get there character development in the next film and here's hoping that they do, there still should have been some groundwork layed for that development in this film as that would show us that the makers of this film d care about making a good film but as there more focused on the Sub-Zero and Scorpion plot none of the characters can get character development with the only two that maybe gets characters development in this film is Cole and and maybe Scorpion and that's it but I really will admit that this film really does have some really good pacing to it tho.

So now then as this is an action film that really does mean that I gave  actually talk about the actual action that's actually feature / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good. It's perfectly clear that the reason why this film action is as good as it is is because of the fact that's where alot of the focus went in this film as nothing else in the film is all that good and yet when we get to an action scene it feels like that the makers of the film are making up for the rest of the film by giving us these really cool looking actions scenes where the characters get the chance to do these really fun , cool and gory movies. With the best action scene in the whole entire film being the fight in the training pit where we get to see several characters just going at it with each other in a true fight to the death with all of the main characters be they hero or villain getting a chance to show us just what it is that they can do and why we should love them but it doesn't end at the the pit as technically the fight gets brought to the outside world as well as Goro and Cole have a fight where Cole is trying to protect his family and even then technically the fight doesn't stop as Cole and Sub-Zero get into a fight with Cole only just winning with the help of Scorpion and yet even there fight as all that gory as Kung Lao uses the brim of his hate to saw Nitara in half which was just so cool to see with the only thing that does let this films action down being the fact that this is where we ger to see them use alot of CGI blood with the rest of the films action being just as good in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Overall while we only have to wait a couple of more days to see if Mortal Kombat II is as good as this film is what can be said for sure is that this film whilst it does have it's flaws as alot of films do it is still a really fun film to watch and one that is bound to hopefully appease fans of the games as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very film in this very review and as such that really does mean that this very film really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 7 out of 10 from me.

Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally sued in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from IMP Awards . Com and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get images really from this very film being the really great Google Images this is really because of the fact that really all of the images that I really indeed got and really used from Google Images are all really high quality really with all of the images that really are all and of course really currently up and on the really great and the really solid Google Images really are all being really fairly high in quality and as well as them all really being fairly high in definition.