Viking Night: Mortal Kombat
By Bruce Hall
February 17, 2015
BoxOfficeProphets.com
By the time the movie starts - especially if you were ever a fan of Mortal Kombat - you will be pumped up to see all manner of garishly outfitted weirdos punching off heads and ripping out spines. I know I was. And 20 years later, I'm still waiting.
It's not like the movie didn't have a chance. Paul W. S. Anderson would become primarily known for filming either video game adaptations (the Resident Evil series), or films so vapid (The Three Musketeers) they might as well be video game adaptations. And the film was indeed loosely based on the wildly successful game of the same name. The game was full of colorful characters and lots of stylized ultra-violence. It was wise to strike while the iron was hot - and on the surface, they got at least that much right. The film version is also an interdimensional Kung Fu battle for control of the earth. All manner of garishly outfitted weirdos do indeed fight for supremacy, and of course, they've all got a backstory.
Liu Kang (Robin Shou) is a former Chinese monk out to avenge the death of his brother at the hands of the tournament honcho, Shang Tsung (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa). Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson) is the world's most unconvincing Special Forces operative, who is on the hunt for Kano (Trevor Goddard), a boorish assassin who killed her partner and looks like he once tried to make out with a speeding train. Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby) is a Van Damme inspired character who is more reminiscent of a drunken Bob Saget. He seeks to eradicate rumors that he's not as tough as he appears on screen - which is funny because he really doesn't look very tough on screen.
All are recruited by Raiden (Christopher Lambert), the Chinese thunder god who is for some reason white, and also considerably less impressive than Thor. Still, Lambert is weird and mysterious enough to pull it off and is a regular Daniel-Day Lewis compared to most of the people around him. But bad acting in a movie like this isn't necessarily a crime. Nobody's watching Mortal Kombat for its penetrating insight into the human condition. They’re watching for the fights - which are supposed to include penetrating insight into the human chest cavity.
But alas, they do not.
More so than the murky plot and horrible acting, the fights are the actually weakest part of the movie. They're poorly choreographed and are executed very, VERY slowly, like day one of a Krav Maga class for double amputees. And very few of them actually advance the story, making them feel all the more clumsy. But wait - there’s more! Very few of the actors in this movie even look like they can fight. Ashby hides his scrawny physique by dressing as an insurance salesman the whole film. Wilson looks like a doe eyed high school kid, and every time she kicks someone she loses her balance and nearly lands on her ass. Shou seems to have some ability, but the ugly way the combat is filmed and designed do little to make him look good. After the first major battle, Raiden’s ironic slow clap actually feels pretty appropriate.
In all of Hollywood, there weren’t at least two people who could already fight well enough to look good on screen, and act well enough to appear in this movie? Mortal Kombat has a distinct half-assness in too many critical areas for it to really hold up as a whole. I realize I'm not meant to take this film entirely seriously; at one point Kano actually delivers a monologue at a banquet table holding a turkey leg. And he's got Nicolas Cage's chest hair from Valley Girl.
I suppose I can find some measure of grotesque humor in that. There are even a few funny moments of friction between Sonya and Cage, but the actors are so unappealing that no part of me wants to see them hook up.
Do you realize how important that is? When a movie pushes a romance on you, and every ounce of you says "no thanks, I’d find Hentai less appalling" - someone has failed, and they have failed miserably.
Here’s another example. There's a moment of intended drama near the end where Raiden advises our heroes to face down their fears in order to prevail. Then, he tells them all exactly what those fears are. This patently robs the story of real drama, which would be watching someone come to their own moment of self realization. Like I said - in all the areas that matter the most, Mortal Kombat takes shortcuts for shortcuts, and it shows. When a movie about fighting is full of bad fights, when the actors are largely irritating and the story feels flat and uninspired, what the hell have you got left?
Well, there are a few things. The production design and visual effects are still largely impressive; the world of Mortal Kombat looks like such a cool place, I’m ready to hit up Stubhub for tickets to the next tournament. Goro, the reigning tournament champion, is a surprisingly realistic 11-foot-tall animatronic freak with four arms and a Steven Seagal ponytail. The limits of technology obviously made it hard for him to move convincingly, so a lot of camera trickery was used - mostly successfully. But most of all, the rivalry between Tagawa and Lambert might be the best thing about the film. Lambert is never asked to fight, but his creepy stare and raspy voice are perfect - and I’m pretty sure Tagawa thinks he really IS Shang Tsung.
When all is said and done, though, I can’t help but think that the best Mortal Kombat experience you’re likely to have is to pop in one of the more recent incarnations of the game, fire up the soundtrack, and imagine yourself in a smoke filled room, surrounded by leather bound Dutch people with glow sticks. The characters will be more appealing, the acting will be better, and the Kombat will be far more Mortal. All the things that make the game enjoyable are specifically missing from the movie, so why bother? Sometimes, you just can’t beat the real thing.