Movies Mortal Kombat Movie April 2021

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
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Sotnik

Apparently it will be released in theaters and on HBO Max as per Warner Bros. earlier announcement they had throwing theaters under the bus with their plan for simultaneous releases on their streaming platform and theaters. The film was originally planned on being released last summer, then in January of 2021 and now has a more finalized date of April. Oddly however, there is still no trailer yet.

Joe Taslim (one of the main police officer characters in the Indonesian action movie The Raid) will be portraying Bi Han/Sub Zero. Ludi Lin (from the Power Rangers reboot) as Liu Kang and Hiroyuki Sanada (whose been a badass Samurai in The Last Samurai, 47 Ronin and The Wolverine) as Scorpion. Other MK characters in the main cast include Raiden, Sonya Blade, Jackson Briggs, Kano, Shang Tsung, Mileena and Kung Lao. One major selling point is that they state they will show some of the games trademark fatalities onscreen and it will in fact be rated R.
 

GoldRanger

May the power protect you
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Interesting. I know fatalities are a trademark of the games (and I like them, in the games), but personally I could do without them on the big screen.
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
Trailer dropped about a week ago.



Sadly I don't see any Christopher Lambert, you'll just have to console yourself with him voicing his character again in the latest Mortal Kombat DLC.
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
MEET THE KAST!



"I've always talked about respecting the material and respecting the fans. They all deserve to see their beloved characters elevated to this cinematic height." - Director Simon McQuoid.

Nice sentiments for sure. Hopefully it follows through and results in a decent film. Though the first Mortal Kombat back in 1995 was a great popcorn flick, there was always room for the cinematic experience to be 'heightened' for sure.
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
This thread somehow has 2K views despite only having four replies (well five now with this one) which is interesting in itself.

But what I wanted to bring up is how leery I am of this film with the idea that Johnny Cage isn't even in this movie but instead some horribly named American MMA fighter named 'Cole Young' which is quite possibly one of the most generic names one could ever have. And apparently he's having Hellish dreams and has a Dragon tattoo or birthmark or something... *stares off into the distance* but whatever.

The critical reviews for this film are at 57% on the ol' Tomatometer and some reviewers have indicated that it's faithful to the video games (whatever that means from a film critic) but regardless, a movie based on a video game getting semi-decent reviews would hopefully indicate that the film at least is competently made and hopefully more coherent then most of the bloviated Hollywood blockbuster drivel out there.

Anyways, the film is coming out this Friday, on April 23rd in theaters (and HBO Max for a month).
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
On the advice of my friends and other loved ones, whose opinions I value greatly, I have decided not to watch this film, at least to any extent in which I would actually have to transfer money to the producers of such an apparently disappointing Mortal Kombat film. Even for someone like me who loves crappy action movies, there comes a time when you have to draw a redline and not provide financial incentive or monetary reward for poor filmmaking. 😛

I hear it's barely serviceable as an action movie... and just terrible as a Mortal Kombat film. I was willing to deal with no Johnny Cage and some boring UFC/MMA dude as the protaganist... but apparently the problems of the film and its crapping on the very basic theme and easy to adapt lore of Mortal Kombat was far more endemic then even I could've thought plausible, much less possible. 🤷‍♀️

Also still no Chun Li AFAIK either.

Without either Johnny Cage or Chun Li, can it really be considered a faithful adaption of the video game?
 

prinCZess

Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
As a movie it's fine. I even rather liked it. It's a lot of action sequences and fight scenes that seem pretty well-done in the choreography department on casual watch and has serviceable CGI inserted for the extreme shit (of which there's plenty).

As a Mortal Kombat movie? I'm not in the place to talk since I've only passing knowledge or experience with it, but I've heard it's not very faithful in the slightest and doesn't do good adapting any of the lore or anything else. The dragon-tattoo and way they handle 'superpowers' in particular being...even to me...a weirdass handwave that doesn't really jive or make sense.

Worth seeing, I thought. The main character was kind of dull and whatever, and not having Christopher Lambert as Raidan gave me a big sadness (and the replacement just...isn't great)...The story is quite obviously an excuse...it does annoying sequel-bait bullshit at the end...But Kano. Kano is all kinds of fun in the movie and got the lion's share of all personality and writing in the whole screenplay (and/or the actor who played him was obviously having lots and lots of fun with the role).

It probably just means that the film has a lot of gore.
This is basically it.
The movie has fanservice-y, 'just like the games!', gore-porn fatalities that are...kind of telegraphed usually in the same way the game does with that half-moment of inaction before going into a 'cinematic sequence' of horrible, gruesome killing.
But faithful to the games? Not really...There's the same characters, but there's some pretty wildly different interpretation of things (the dragon-tattoos and 'superpowers' notable).
 

nemo1986

Well-known member
On the advice of my friends and other loved ones, whose opinions I value greatly, I have decided not to watch this film, at least to any extent in which I would actually have to transfer money to the producers of such an apparently disappointing Mortal Kombat film. Even for someone like me who loves crappy action movies, there comes a time when you have to draw a redline and not provide financial incentive or monetary reward for poor filmmaking. 😛

I hear it's barely serviceable as an action movie... and just terrible as a Mortal Kombat film. I was willing to deal with no Johnny Cage and some boring UFC/MMA dude as the protaganist... but apparently the problems of the film and its crapping on the very basic theme and easy to adapt lore of Mortal Kombat was far more endemic then even I could've thought plausible, much less possible. 🤷‍♀️

Also still no Chun Li AFAIK either.

Without either Johnny Cage or Chun Li, can it really be considered a faithful adaption of the video game?
Chun Li is in Street Fight not Mortal Combat.
 

Terthna

Professional Lurker
Chun Li is in Street Fight not Mortal Combat.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
The comments on that are hilarious with people vying to see who can be the most inaccurate.

"I’m glad you updated. Chun Li is from Tekken 3 for those wondering."

"I think you might be confusing Chun-Li with King from Tekken. Chun-Li was in Soul Calibur."
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
Forgot I made this thread. I'll repost my thoughts of finally seeing this movie here.

I saw two excellent movies the previous two nights...

Mortal Kombat (2021) and Pixels.

These are both films when I first heard about them, I was somewhat intrigued in checking out, but after hearing the terrible reviews and audience response, declined to go see but figured if I could ever see it for free, I'd check it out. Just so happens both were streaming on Tubi so I watched Mortal Kombat one evening, and Pixels the next.

I can happily say, both were just as disappointing as advertised! Shockingly, I think Pixels might actually be a better movie.

So Mortal Kombat. Where do I start? The opening prologue revealing Sub-Zero and Scorpions origins was okay but I realized something amusing. Having just seen John Wick 4 (which starred Scorpion actor Hiroyuki Sanada as well) I just realized all of the fight choreography in Mortal Kombat, I was measuring against that which I had just seen in John Wick and the former did NOT measure up to the latter. And I think it legitimately impacted my impression of this films quality. Another funny thing, Cole Young (the original protagonist of this movie) had an introductory MMA fight to display his fight qualities or whatever. That fight... I thought it was better then the entire opening sequence which had ninjas and samurai and kusarigamas and ice magic.

The acting was subpar. I don't think it was the actors per se who were bad, but it felt like all of the dialogue was done on a first take. The delivery of lines and conversations was so flat and generic. I wanted to like the characters and they had nuggets of being interesting, but the only character who stood out was Kano.

The way they changed the plot somehow was stupider and more convoluted than the video game. Somehow the 1995 Mortal Kombat movie made infinitely more sense then this films wacky story which involved unlocking something called Arcana which only people who have a special Mortal Kombat birthmark have and thus can participate in this tournament. Speaking of which, the tournament doesn't even happen in this movie because Shang Tsung is trying to assassinate all of Earthrealms champions before the tournament starts and it is that which this movie is all about.

As I explain this, there are literally mountains of plotholes that are flooding my poor little brain that I want to ask. Like if Raiden can teleport anyone anywhere, why can't he teleport the fighters to their safespace temple? It's awfully convenient that Cole Young was the direct descendant of Scorpion and turned out to be an MMA fighter. If he was an accountant they'd really be in trouble. How does Cole Young understand Japanese? Why did the monks attach little baby robot arms to Jax after he lost his arms if they didn't know what his Arcana superpowers would be? How did Kano know where the secret Temple to Raiden was? He didn't even know about the significance of his dragon birthmark. Is Arcana updated with technological or did Earthrealm have champions whose Arcana was EMP blasts and rocket flight back in 30BC or whatever? Why is Raiden a fucking bitch through the entire movie?

I could go on... Was there anything I liked about this movie? I guess it was "entertaining." Like a B-movie and you can push out the fact you are witnessing them rape into oblivion a franchise you like for one liners, set design and costume ideas.

Oh the gore was alright, but it was such obvious CGI splatter it made me sad.

Also... in spite of it all, they are apparently making a sequel.



Spoilers: Kano, Kung Lao, Mileena, Nitara and that Reiko guy are already dead. And Bi-Han Sub-Zero. Oh and Prince Goro.

I guess the movie must've made money or something if they're going to make a sequel. Will it cover the actual tournament? I guess.

More arcana nonsense as well I suppose.
 

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