Mortal Kombat (Movie) - Review

Introduction

In 1995 they decide to make a movie based on the game Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat The Mvie, because of the big success of the game series in both arcades and consoles. The game was full of blood and violence, and the fans and the gamers had a good expectative about this movie. But we already know that the movie won’t be as bloody and violent as the game, but even so, MK The Movie was as good on the big screen as it was on the arcades?

Adaptation

The movie follows well the story of the first game, with minor differences, like Liu Kang have a brother, that dies in the beginning of the movie and also Liu Kang is Kung Lao’s descendent in the movie. As in the game, the fighters fight in a “mystical” tournament called Mortal Kombat, and that was a good point of the movie: the fights, there’re many of them. Some are very cool, like Liu Kang X Sub-Zero and Johnny Cage X Scorpion, but others, like Sonya X Kano, were too simple and bad made. The characters, in the movie, looks very similar to their looks in the game, for example, the ninjas Scorpion and Sub-Zero were very cool, using an almost identical costume as of they had in the game, and they use their special moves from the game in the movie. Also the environments  looks just like of the ones in the game, making a really Mortal Kombat felling for the fans. In the other hand, all the blood of the game was highly reduced, because, let’s face, the movie was made for kids and teens, but that was acceptable for me.

Screenplay

There’s a tournament to decide the fate of the Earth, them the Earth fighters has to defeat the Outworld fighters to end Outworld’s menace. The three main characters are Liu Kang, that enters the tournament for revenge, Johnny Cage, to help in his career as an actor of fighting movies and Sonya Blade, to kill her partner’s killer. And on their side is Raiden, God of Thunder, that gives them advice through the tournament. The story is simple, but effective for a movie based on a fighting game.

Actors

The actors that played Raiden, Christopher Lambert, and Shang Tsung, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa , did a great job, the other ones were okay. Most fights were well done, but Sonya, as showed in the movie, wasn’t  able to make good fight scene, so much that she has just one 1X1 fight. And the Johnny Cage’s jokes were very fun. And Liu Kang as the main character was acceptable, but sometimes don’t convince me, maybe because of the way the movie was directed or because of the screenplay.

Production

The movie has some CG effects, that today looks just terrible, but it was okay for the time. The environments looks good and remember the MK world.  And Goro could fight a little better, because he is too slow, but the other fights were well choreographed .As for the music, the MK movie has one of the most memorable fighting musics ever, the theme music that can’t get out of our heads, when we listen it, it’s simply amazing.

Good & Bad

The Good:Great theme music, follows well the story of the game, the characters looks like in the game and the special moves of the game are used in the movie.

The Bad: Liu Kang feels a little forced to be the main character, Goro is too slow and it has very few blood.

Conclusion

MK was very good on the big screen, but not as good as in the consoles and arcades. But, even without all the fans liking this movie, definitely it is a must seem movie, for everyone that likes fighting games, and it is one of the best adaptations, from game to movie, so far.