Movie Review: Mortal Kombat (2021)

Mortal Kombat (2021) comes out several decades after the atrocious Mortal Kombat: Annihilation movie from 1997. However, does this movie prove to be better than the 1995 original?

Mortal Kombat (1995) is a favorite of mine as it's campy and funny in its own way.

It also had some decent martial arts style of action throughout the entire film. Mortal Kombat (2021) has better CGI and special effects, although it's still not the best video game movie I have ever seen.

Arguably, the best part of the movie is the first 7 minutes as we see Sub-Zero killing Scorpion's family and his brethren.

It's a sad and serious moment of the film that you wish that this was the main focus of the movie. Scorpion also does some cool action when he kills the other Lin Kuei members.

Sadly though, Mortal Kombat (2021) falters in its first half because the movie's main character is the very uninteresting Cole Young character. This character was specifically for the movie and he takes away valuable screentime from many fan favorites.

Cole Young isn't the most charismatic character as you wish the likes of Johnny Cage or Liu Kang were the main character. Criminally enough, Johnny Cage isn't in this movie at all so that's a big minus.

The first half of the movie is also boring because there's a lack of action and martial art fights.

The first half of the movie just sees Cole Young, Kano and Sonya Blade traveling to Raiden's temple to train their fighting skills.

The only thing I liked about the first half of the movie was Kano because he adds some much added comic relief. Due to no Johnny Cage, Kano was the alternative character to make me laugh.

Thankfully, the second half of the movie is where things get much better. The modern CGI looks very cool as it's better looking than the visuals effects from the '90s.

Another cool thing about the latter half of the movie is the many Fatalities and Easter Eggs that fans will recognize. The Fatalities are brutal and they're sure to make video game fans very happy.

The only other thing that might anger some fans though is the lack of screentime for fan favorites. Scorpion should have been the main character, but he only appears in the beginning as well as the very end fight.

Fans of the villain characters might also be disappointed. Some of them have very little screentime and then they just get killed off meaning they might not even be the planned sequel movies!

Overall, Mortal Kombat (2021) isn't the worst video game movie of all time, but it's not the best one either. If you can overlook its flaws, this movie is still fun to watch for the action sequences alone.

Verdict: 3/5 stars

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