But about 10 years ago, I saw a new take on the property: Legacy. That I did not like. It was Mortal Kombat without the colour, the flavour. It was Mortal Kombat if Mortal Kombat was a generic TV show. I didn't even make it through the first season. And yet I am under the vague impression that it was somewhat popular. So when I heard they were making a new movie, I was afraid it would follow in Legacy's footsteps.
I couldn't really tell very much from the trailer. I didn't read or watch any reviews, but I caught a glimpse of a couple of review headlines and they seemed to be faintly (perhaps relucantly) positive. So I tried to keep an open mind going in, but... I can't deny that I wasn't expecting it to be any good. Still, I thought the film started off well enough and I was getting into it at first. Sadly though, by the end I was actually surprised by how much I disliked it.
Let's just get this out of the way: the film does a lot of stuff quite well. Acting, costumes, sets, fight scenes, special effects: they are all quite good. Sadly they are also all completely undermined by how bad the writing is. Good actors can't do much with a bad script. Good fights don't have much impact if I don't care about the outcome. It was all just... wasted.
I'm clearly no expert, but I feel compelled to try to explain what I think is so bad about the writing, and a good place to start is the protagonist. I don't remember his name and don't want to because I don't care about him, so I shall simply refer to him as Newbie. Because he's a new fighter to the MK canon.
Think about that for a second: the primary protagonist of the Mortal Kombat movie - an adaptation of a franchise with over EIGHTY characters listed on Wikipedia - is a new character. A character who was not in the very source material the movie purports to be based on. What the HELL is that? Did the Lord of the Rings movies introduce a new character to play the primary protagonist? Was the primary protagonist of the Harry Potter movies not a character in the books? When Marvel Studios decided to start making movies based on the Avengers comics, did they make a billion dollars per movie by writing scripts centered around characters who WEREN'T in the comics? No! Of course not!
So why on God's green Earth did the writer of this film decide that not one of the extremely varied stable of beloved fan-favourite Mortal Kombat characters would be suitable for the lead of the Mortal Kombat movie? Notice that Newbie isn't on the poster; why do you think that is? That's right, it's because it wouldn't have made sense to have a Mortal Kombat movie poster starring a character nobody knows or cares about. So instead we get two extremely popular characters on the poster even though they aren't actually the main protagonists or antagonists. If it's not even a good idea for the poster, why would anyone think it was a good idea for the whole movie? Sure, sometimes you need to change the source material when adapting a property to different media, especially videogames as their interactivity sets them apart from more traditional media, but centering the entire story about around a character who isn't in the original property is far too big a departure from the source material - especially considering that the Mortal Kombat games actually have pretty strong storytelling for the medium, with a great deal of established lore and well fleshed out characters.
As I understand it the stated purpose for creating a new character was to serve as an audience surrogate: a newcomer to an existing situation who's presence helps introduce the audience to the world and the story as they learn about them through watching the character learn about them. And that's a viable and common storywriting technique. But in this case it's completely unneccessary to create a new character for that purpose; the 1995 film did the exact same thing only using existing characters, which it was easily able to do because Mortal Kombat has several who are perfectly suited for this purpose. Even the way the new movie was written there were several main protagonists who didn't know what was happening and needed to have everything explained to them, so even in the movie as written a new character was unneccessary and redundant!
No, I'm convinced the real explanation for Newbie's existence is that he's actually the writer's self-insert character. This is not a completely unfounded theory: according to mortalkombat.fandom, the screenwriter stated that Newbie's storyline "came in part from his own life". Obviously it's normal to draw from your own experiences when writing, but in this case he was writing a script for an existing property full of existing characters, and he decided to write in his own new character that he relates to, to serve as the protagonist; that's at least part of the description of a self-insert fan-fiction story.
Typically a self-insert fan-fiction story involves the author's original character meeting the established characters of a property, working with or fighting alongside them and ultimately proving instrumental in saving the day. All this happens here. Funnily enough though I didn't actually get the impression that the writer was a particularly big fan; so much of this movie just does not feel like the world of Mortal Kombat to me.
I'll leave most of this discussion to the spoilers section, but as an example: Mortal Kombat has always been set in exotic locations. Ancient temples, futuristic labratories, gothic graveyards, gladatorial arenas; environments were varied and interesting. The old movies understood this, but the new one mostly just takes place in boring normal modern day locations. It's missing so much of the flavour of the games. Another thing: the Mortal Kombat games are of course almost exclusively one-on-one fighting games. That's... kind of just a big part of what the series is. Yet the vast majority of the protagonist's fights in this movie are not one-on-one. It just doesn't feel right, not for Mortal Kombat.
So perhaps the reason why the writer chose to create a new character was because he wasn't interested in the established Mortal Kombat characters? This seems likely, and doesn't invalidate the theory that Newbie is the author's self-insert character. After all, he's written here as the Prophesized Saviour who is the Most Special Among Specials. Like, all the protagonists in the movie are technically "Chosen Ones", but Newbie is even more Chosen. It's actually quite cringe-worthy.
Unfortunately the writing suffers from more than just adaptation issues and author indulgences. Perhaps the biggest issue that the film has overall is that the characters are not very interesting. With few exceptions, most of them have very little personality. Newbie's only real personality trait is that he cares about his family. I really couldn't tell you much else about him. And if you asked me about Sonya or Jax or Liu Kang or most of the other characters I'd have even less to say. The only exceptions really are Kano and I suppose Kabal. Oh, and Raiden. He's a jerk.
They don't have much in way of story arcs either. Mild spoiler warning for this paragraph: Newbie's story arc is that he... umm... he doesn't have powers, and then he does? Sonya's arc is that she's obsessed with Mortal Kombat and feels left out that she wasn't chosen, and then she gets chosen (and gets powers). Jax loses his arms and gets sad, then he gets new ones (thanks to his new powers) and isn't sad anymore. Scorpion's arc is that he died, and then he came back with new powers. Basically pretty much every arc ends with "and then they got powers". Except Liu Kang; his arc is... um... he was... there, I think? And then he was... still there, if you looked hard enough? Or maybe he wasn't, he just kind of faded into the background to be honest.
I mean, they try to tie Newbie's arc in to his "loves his family" singular personality trait, and there's some sort of narrative hooks about him feeling like a failure and something about his defensive skills being poor or something, but they don't really matter at all. It really just felt like the writer had heard of character arcs, and that you were supposed to have them, but didn't actually understand how they work or how to write them. The result, for me at least, was that I really didn't care about any of the protagonists. Some of the villains were annoying enough for me to want them dead (some of the heroes were too... stupid Raiden), but it wasn't really enough for me to feel invested anymore. As a result I didn't care very much about anything that was happening and couldn't really enjoy anything, not even the fight scenes.
It's not like they didn't have time for more character development, or at least they would have if the movie was less bloated. I was a little surprised by how much of the movie felt unneccessary, and how many setups there were with no payoffs. Or if they did have something resembling a payoff, it often felt forced and even nonsensical; often the same result could have been achieved in more natural and streamlined way. It's like the writers never heard of Chekhov's Gun.
For example, several times in the film Newbie gets flashbacks to something that happened to his distant ancestor. That's already feels weird since he wasn't alive to witness it (normally this sort of flashback would reference forgotten memories or something like that), but the thing is that other than a brief twitch each time, he doesn't react at all to these bizarre flashbacks! He doesn't tell anyone about them, they don't influence any of his decisions; they are completely irrelevant. This is not an exaggeration: they honestly do not contribute to the plot at all in any way whatsoever. They don't affect the character, the story, or even the audience: they don't tell us anything we don't already know, they don't show us anything we haven't already seen. They are staggeringly pointless!
And even some of the elements that do theoretically serve a purpose are just not very well executed and end up feeling extraneous. Perhaps the most egregious example, there's this whole thing about a prophecy and Newbie's bloodline. Normally prophecies and legacies and that sort of thing can drive the whole plot of a movie, but in this one if you cut all that out all it would really change is a few lines of dialogue. A few lines of dialogue that aren't particularly good and don't particularly do very much. And to be honest I genuinely believe the movie would have been better without them.
Another issue I had, and I'll admit this one is arguably a lot more subjective, is that the movie took itself too seriously. Mortal Kombat is a world where angry undead ninjas clad in bright yellow fight against ancient soul-eating sorcerers, exotic kung-fu princesses, mechanically-enhanced modern-day soldiers, arrogant Hollywood action stars, fire-projecting Shaolin monks, bat-winged vampire queens, and scorpion-tailed centaurs. The characters and environments in the Mortal Kombat games have always been colourful and fantastical - even when they were dark in tone and style. Mortal Kombat has never really been gritty, realistic, or grounded; this is not a property that should be taken too seriously. The 1995 film understood that, generally maintaining a light-hearted tone. In fact the only character in this movie who is at all entertaining or engaging, the only who I've heard people say they liked, is Kano - who is also the only character who isn't taking things seriously most of the time. Coincidence?
"Taking itself seriously" might not sound like such a bad thing, but for me at least it really was. Take for example the ancient Chinese assassin, Bi-Han. We see this guy murdering people hundreds of years ago, speaking in Chinese. Then we see him in modern times, and when his boss says his name he responds that his name is now "Sub-Zero". And I could only roll my eyes. I have been a Mortal Kombat fan for around three decades, Sub-Zero is one of my very favourite characters, and yet suddenly for the first time ever I felt that his name is stupid. I mean, a Chinese assassin who has been killing people for hundreds of years suddenly decides to adopt a new name, in English, that is a vague temperature description? What, did he just now hit his teenage edgelord phase and thought it sounded cool?
And it's the same for Hanzo Hasashi: this rage-filled undead Japanese ninja suddenly announces, in Japanese, that his name is now "Scorpion" - in English! It's unbelievably stupid, and again is the very first time that I found myself thinking the name doesn't make any sense! Names like those are perfectly fine in a colourful over-the-top videogame, or a light-hearted martial-arts fantasy flick, but not in a film that wants to be taken seriously! Because Mortal Kombat shouldn't be taken too seriously. The original creators knew that, as evidenced by the fact that they added things like "babalities" to the games.
In fact this movie is taking itself so seriously that it even seems embarrassed of it's own name. Like in The Predator, the characters make fun of the actual name of the original property. I get that it's supposed to be just a little gag, a nod and a wink perhaps, but it feels more like an embarrased laugh. Like when people say your friend is weird and you're too embarassed to stand up for them, instead you just kind of force a laugh and make excuses for why you're friends with them. It just rubs me the wrong way. This property was successful and even beloved for decades before it was handed to you for the next chapter, you're being paid a lot of money and being entrusted with this thing that people care about, and you're just going to make fun of it? What gives you the right? The 1995 movie was not taking itself seriously and yet did not feel the need to make fun of the name itself. That movie embraced the source material; I wonder if this one thinks it's fixing it?
Finally, and it's a small thing but worth mentioning, the music is nowhere near as impactful as in the 90's films. It even felt a bit out of place to me once or twice.
I'm giving this movie a 5/10 - and that's me trying to at least be a little bit objective. I'm tempted to score it even lower just based on how much I disliked it. I really do hate so many of the writing decisions in this film. But hey, it has a couple of pretty gory fatalities, so at least the fans can enjoy that I guess. I've never cared that much myself to be honest.
OK, let's talk about the big prophecy. Where did it come from? To whom was it delivered? How did both Raiden and Shang Tsung know about it? It's implied that the Lin Kuei wiped out the Shirai Ryu because of the prophecy. But according to mortalkombat.fandom, that took place in the 17th century. The Mortal Kombat tournament takes place once every generation. A generation is, what, maybe 25 years? The 17th century was over 300 years ago; that got to be more than 10 tournaments ago, right? So longer than Earthrealm's 9-loss streak? Neither the vagueness of the prophecy's origin nor the age are that big a deal or anything, it just feels like not very much thought went into the whole thing; it's just not very fleshed out.
And it's really just not necessary. Shang Tsung didn't know that Newbie was Scorpion's descendent, he was trying to kill him for the same reason he was trying to kill ALL the Earthrealm kombatants. And Raiden shouldn't need a special excuse to want to try to help Newbie discover his strength, as he should be helping ALL the fighters with potential to be at their best to fight for Earthrealm - that's if we pretend that Raiden was trying to help Newbie all along, which is a bit of contrived explanation anyway. If Raiden didn't drop the whole "my plan worked" line then we would have just gone on believing that Raiden had thought Newbie was not good enough to help and would just be a liability, which would have been just fine story-wise.
And going back to the start, the Lin Kuei don't need a prophecy as an excuse to want to wipe out the Shirai Ryu; they are old enemies, that's really all you need to say. But if you really want more of an explanation, one that ties into the larger story, how about this: "The Shirai Ryu were Earthrealm's greatest warriors, responsible for many of Earthrealm's victories in Mortal Kombat. Jealous of their power and favour with Earthrealm's gods, the Lin Kuei fell victim to Shang Tsung's manipulation and conspired with him against the Shirai Ryu, betraying Earthrealm and joining Outworld's side in the eternal battle". To me at least, something like that would feel a bit better; it explains more about everyone's place in the world, their motivations for their actions. You know, if you feel the need for explanations at all.
Admittedly the "bloodline" bit was also used in a very vague hand-wavy way as a plot device for Scorpion's resurrection. I don't think it was a particularly good explanation anyway and I would have preferred if they had come up with something more interesting, but even as-is it didn't actually involve the prophecy itself, so you wouldn't actually need to change it if you removed the prophecy.
Overall the prophecy was completely unneccessary. In fact I would even argue that it was somewhat detrimental: if the audience believes that they know the outcome of a struggle, then they feel less tension and investment in watching it unfold. Writers often try to introduce uncertainty to countaract this, but here the writers did the exact opposite, introducing a prophecy that does nothing for the plot except tell the audience "don't worry, we already know the good guys will win in the end". I mean, of course we already knew that, but we tried to forget it so that we could enjoy the movie; and yet the writers insisted on reminding us for some reason.
By the way, on the topic of Scorpion's resurrection, why did his body disappear when he died? And why did he go to Hell anyway? Was he a bad person? All we really know about him is that he was a skilled warrior and a good family man; is that a sin? How did his resurrection work? I touched on this in the main body of the review, but Scorpion has very little screentime. And that's a problem. Not just because the poster sells this movie as being centered on the confrontation between Scorpion and Sub Zero, but also because the movie itself seems to think so as well even though it's not. See, we start off with Sub Zero killing Scorpion's clan, his family, and ultimately him. And the movie ends with Scorpion getting his revenge. That's all good stuff. But it doesn't work because those are the only two scenes with Scorpion in them! The entire rest of the movie has nothing to do with Scorpion, and gives us plenty of reasons to dislike Sub Zero other than that first scene. So when Scorpion shows up at the end the movie seems to think that it's a huge deal, like it's the payoff to a big setup. But that's not at all how it felt to me; instead when I saw Scorpion again I felt nothing. I didn't care about him, and I didn't feel invested in his conflict with Sub Zero because it happened so long ago and was so unrelated to the vast majority of the movie.
We hadn't spent any time with Scorpion; not really, not enough to care about him. Now in theory it was not only about Scorpion but also about Newbie; it was about their family fighting together. The problem is that Newbie was an orphan who didn't know anything about his past, his family, or Scorpion, and the movie never did anything to change that. Scorpion was a stranger to him. There was no connection, no sense of importance or meaning in them teaming up at the end. Newbie never even said anything to Scorpion, and I'm pretty sure that he didn't understand anything that Scorpion was saying to him as we were never given a reason to believe that Newbie spoke Japanese. Again, like so many other parts of this movie, the team-up at the end just felt like the writer was imitating things he had seen in other movies without understanding why they worked and thus failing to lay the essential groundwork.
Just for fun, let's try to re-write the movie a little so that Scorpion's involvment made more sense and had more weight. Building off my earlier suggestion of saying the Kirai Ryu's warriors had won multiple Mortal Kombat tournaments, let's say Hanzo Hasashi was the most recent winner and the current champion. Because of his strength the Lin Quei were unable to kill him; they managed instead to banish him to the Netherrealm. Raiden, having supported Hanzo during the tournament, felt guilty for not being able protect him. While Raiden has no power in the Netherrealm, he nevertheless hatched a plan to save Scorpion without any indirect involvement that would break "the rules". Perhaps by tricking Shang Tsung himself into summoning him? The movie then would be partially driven by the quest to bring Scorpion back; we could even get glimpses of him in the Netherrealm, fighting against demons and growing stronger and stuff. Hell, maybe there's something he needs to do in the Netherrealm in order to be able to make it back, like find his way to a temple with a portal in it or something. That way he would be an active participant in the movie, and could perhaps communicate with the other characters. And then when he actually comes back, it feels more like an actual payoff to a significant sub-plot. Also it all just ties Scorpion in more with the main "tournament" plot. Plus we would get to see fights in the hellish Netherrealm rather than, I dunno, a junkyard or a boxing gym.
I also like that these changes could allow us to eliminate the sub-plot about Newbie being Scorpion's descendent. That was another element that just didn't have enough positive effect on the story, mainly serving to just barely justify a few underdeveloped plot conveniences. I mean, nothing about Newbie himself was affected in any way by his connection to Scorpion; learning about his ancestry didn't fill a whole in his life or change how he viewed himself or anything. It just meant that he wasn't important for who he was, he was only important for who his ancestors were. Which is not a mentality that I am fond of.
One important thing that Newbie's bloodline did for the plot though was to justify his Mark; he was born with it because of his bloodline, and it indicated that he was "chosen". Now let's talk about those Marks. Everyone else who had a Mark got it by killing someone else who had a Mark. But where did they come from to begin with? They are supposed to indicate that you are chosen to fight in Mortal Kombat, but that doesn't quite make sense because you don't get the Mark by being chosen, you get it by doing something yourself. And yeah, you can argue that's the criteria for chosing fighters: them being able to kill an existing "Marked". But there's problems with that too: killing an existing Marked doesn't mean you're a better fighter (you might have stabbed them in their sleep), and it doesn't mean you'll be willing to fight in Mortal Kombat. As evidenced by Kano. So yeah, it's kind of a dumb system that, like everything else in this movie, wasn't very well fleshed out or explained. For example, what happens if a fighter dies to natural causes, or suicide, or is killed by someone who already has a Mark? Hell, after a single lost tournament most of the Mark holders would probably have been killed anyway. Is the Mark just lost, and the total number of Marked fighters is continually on the decline, or are new Marks introduced somehow?
But unlike so many other things in this movie, the Marks actually genuinely mattered to the plot, influencing events, character actions, and motivations. And what's more they actually led to some interesting story beats, like Sonya being faced with the option of killing Kano to take his Mark. So while I'm not a fan of the concept, especially as it's a deviation from the existing Mortal Kombat lore, I will admit that they did use it effectively in this movie.
Which is one reson why I think the way Newbie was the only one born with the Mark was a mis-step. I mean, the movie already has a system for explaining Chosen One characters, why did they have to introduce an inconsistency to that system just to make Newbie "even more special"? When we first see Newbie he's in a slump: he's looking down, he's losing fights that's getting paid way too little money for; he looks damaged. But we never find out what damaged him. He's just like that, for no real reason. But what if the reason was guilt? What if he feels guilty because he killed someone once; perhaps he killed another fighter in the ring by accident? Of course he feels terrible about it. And now he has this tattoo that doesn't remember getting; did he get it after going on a bender to try to forget his pain? He would quit fighting if he could, but he just can't seem to make ends meet without it, so he has to relucantly fight to support his family. But he's always hesistating now, too scared that he might accidentally kill again, so he always loses and can only get these crappy fights.
Isn't that more interesting than just "he loses fight for no reason and also he was born with this Mark"? Now when he gains his powers it's not because he just "wanted to protect his family", it's because he overcame his trauma and learned to forgive himself in order to protect his family. Or something like that; you could probably spin it in different ways, but pretty much anything you do with that setup would be more interesting and engaging that the nothing that we got. With that you get rid of the bloodline bit and now he's not a Special, a Chosen One, he's a regular guy who got pulled into an extraordinary situation and rose to the occasion. And isn't that more compelling, more relatable?
And with very minor changes we could apply almost the same storyline to an existing character rather than creating a new one. Imagine Jax as a retired special forces veteran with mild PTSD who now participates in cage fights to provide for his family - in the games he has a daughter so that part of the story doesn't need to change. Meanwhile we see Sonya capture Kano. While interrogating him she notices he has the same dragon tattoo as Jax; Kano claims it appeared on his skin on it's own. This reminds Sonya that she first noticed Jax's tattoo immedately after the traumatic event that led him to retire. When she had mentioned it back then Jax didn't remember getting the tattoo, but neither of them thought too much of it since it didn't seem important at the time. Realizing now that there might be more to it, she contacts Jax about the tattoo. Outworld's forces attack, the rest of the movie can play out pretty much the same.
While we're making changes, let's just have Scorpion beat Sub-Zero himself in a one-on-one fight, now that he's grown stronger from battling in the Netherrealm. It's a more cathartic resolution that benefits from the "getting knocked down then coming back stronger" trope that works so well, especially in movies about fighting. We could have Newbie defeat Goro or Shang Tsung in the final fight or something if we really have to pretend that he's the main character (sending Goro after Newbie earlier on was a weird decision anyway). One-on-one fights are kind of Mortal Kombat's thing after all, and personally I would have just found the final battle far more satisfying if it was a fair fight - or even an unfair fight where the odds were stacked against the heroes and they triumphed in spite of it!
Now multiple protagonists working together to take down a single powerful antagonist can work very well, but in this case the whole movie was about a tournament, and part of the plot was that the villains were cheating to win. And yet the antagonists never actually teamed up against a single protagonist; even when they ambushed them in the temple and had a numerical advantage, they attacked the Earthrealm fighters in one-on-one combat. And yet our protagonists, our heroes, kept double-teaming the Outworld fighters! It just doesn't work thematically; villains are supposed to use underhanded methods to defeat the heroes so that we hate them and support the heroes. But Sub Zero fought Scorpion in a one-on-one battle at the start, he went after Newbie alone and fought Jax one-on-one, Kabal attacked Liu Kang alone, and Shang Tsung sat back and watched while Nitara fought Kung Lao.
So it just feels wrong when our "heroes" win in an unfair fight at the end. In fact, our main protagonist never actually wins a one-on-one fight in the entire movie! He loses his first fight to a low-level MMA fighter, he fights Reptile alongside Sonya and Kano (and it's Kano who actually finishes the fight), he only manages to defeat Goro because his wife stabbed Goro with a knife and drew him away for long enough for Newbie to recover, he only succeeds in holding off Mileena until Sonya shows up to finish her, and then only barely manages to defeat Sub Zero alongside Scorpion. It's really weird, and very unsatisfying. Why is this guy even the primary protagonist? Sonya defeats Kano on her own, Jax takes down Reiko one-on-one, Kung Lao defeats Nitara without any help and Liu Kang triumphs over Kabal alone, and Scorpion actually takes down a bunch of Lin Kuei on his own. Why is Newbie the "prophecied saviour" when he has the worst track record of any of the Earthrealm fighters, even at the end? I hate it so much.
By the way: in the last fight Scorpion has a sword (that he picked up in hell?) and his spear, while Sub Zero is unarmed. And he still needed help from Newbie. Apparently Scorpion is a wimp.
I didn't really like the fact that the protagonists lost most of the fights throughout the movie. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that; having the protagonists on the back foot through most of a movie can work very well. It's just that this is a martial arts movie: a lot of the fun comes from the individual fights. And as our protagonists were losing the fights through most of the run-time, it just wasn't as much fun.
In the movie the Earthrealm fighters all got their powers from the Mark. I didn't like this, I felt it shows a lack of familiarity with Mortal Kombat: in the games all the characters come from different backgrounds and have different fighting styles, weapons, and abilities - that come from different sources. By making all the powers come from the same source, it makes the world feel smaller, less diverse, less interesting. By the way, do the Outworld fighters get their powers from Marks? It's not mentioned in the movie. It doesn't really matter, but I'm just curious as it ties into the nature of power in this world, and could create a whole secondary power struggle as each side could try to aquire more Marks by killing the other side's Mark holders.
By the way, did Scorpion have a mark? There was a very strange part at the start of the movie where Scorpion's son gestures at Sub Zero's arm, and then Sub Zero looks down in surprise and there's some ice and what looked like a bit of blood on his arm. He looks back up and asks if the child's father had taught him that. I didn't understand what that meant, it seemed like the boy had frozen Sub Zero's arm a little? Which didn't make any sense? Whatever it was, something must have happened that wasn't just a gesture. But what? Was it some sort of power? It felt like it, but does that mean the boy had a Mark? Did Scorpion even have a Mark? We were never told, and he never manifested any special abilities in that scene (other than the ability to not hear the sounds of combat and death from what didn't seem like very far away). At the end Scorpion says he learned to harness the power of hell; since we were told that all powers come from the Marks, I assume that meant he had a Mark but hadn't learned to use the power until after death? I don't know.
How did Jax find Newbie? How did Sub Zero find Newbie? How did Reptile find Sonya? How did Goro find Newbie's family? How come Liu Kang was able to find the severely injured Jax before he died, yet he couldn't find any of the Marked at any other time? We are never told how anyone found anyone in this movie, which isn't a huge deal individually but it just happens so often and feels a bit strange when characters are specifically hiding and then someone else just shows up with no explanation. What's more, I understand that Jax and Sonya had only recently started searching for Mark holders and I assume stumbled onto a photo of Newbie with his mark visible or something, but I don't understand why Sub Zero showed up at exactly the same time and not earlier. After all, he'd been killing Earthrealm champions for hundreds of years. If he tracked them down with magical means then why didn't he track down Newbie years ago? And if he used mundane means, why did he find Newbie at the exact same time that Jax did? Now a better writer would have given us an inciting incident; something like a televised match where Newbie's Mark was visible so both sides learned about it at the same time. But in this movie? Just happens, no reason why.
Just want to point out: Newbie's story arc isn't that he quit and then came back; he was up for the fight from the start, but Raiden told him to get lost. He didn't quit, he was fired.
If the Shirai Ryu were such an awesome warrior clan as was implied, then how were they taken down so easily by the Lin Kuei? And did the Lin Kuei not see Scorpion walking off to get some water? Like, had they not surrounded the village, or at least spent a few minutes watching before they charged in? I dunno. BTW, when Scorpion told his wife he loved her, she had such a weird expression. It was like she was confused and didn't know how to react. They had two children at this point, it's not like this relationship stuff was new to them!
Why did they write Kung Lao's death? Like, what was the story/narrative reason/payoff? It feels like it's supposed to make the situation more desperate than ever, but it happens at the same time that Newbie and Jax find their powers, so right afterward his death the heroes are actually in a BETTER place than just before! We didn't care about him so it didn't really affect us as a death for it's own sake. It seems like it's supposed to motivate Liu Kang, but he's such a minor part of the movie and his part is actually even smaller afterwards, so it's meaningless for that. There was just no reason, no payoff. Hell, the character didn't even add anything before he died, and nobody really mentioned him after he died, so both his life and death were just meaningless. Pretty sure he's only in the movie for that one single fatality.
I also want to say that it looked really avoidable. Blame it on the editing, but it is what it is: it took forever, he didn't even try to fight back, Newbie was very close by but didn't do anything (he could have at least thrown his tonfa or something?), Liu Kang just stood there shouting "No" and reaching pointlessly with his arm for like half an hour but didn't try to like throw a fireball to interrupt or anything, Raiden didn't think to poke his head back and see why his Kung Lao hadn't teleported. It didn't help that I know enough about the Mortal Kombat to know that Shang Tsung is a regular human sorcerer and can't just pull out anyone's soul any time; he can only really do it to a fighter if they are too weak to fight back (i.e. after they are defeated), and Kung Lao was untounched. Again, it felt too different from the source material. It could have worked, but the way it turned out it just didn't; I just found it annoying.
It's a very minor thing, but there were a couple of slightly weird edits in the fights, where things didn't transition very smoothly. It's a very very minor thing, it just threw me off a tiny bit during a couple of fights so I wanted to mention it for my own satisfaction.
What was that bit with Kano drawing a comic for? Was that supposed to go anywhere, or tell us anything? It was just weird.
It feels like they were trying to set up a subplot about Newbie having poor defense when fighting? Which doesn't really makes sense to me, but it felt like, you know, there was going to be and arc where he learns how to defend himself properly and that would let him win or something? But that didn't happen. There wasn't really a payoff? I mean you can argue that his power was a suit of armour, and somehow that's payoff to that setup, but it's weird. Especially since his power wasn't just armour, but also a pair of weapons. Weapons with good defensive properties perhaps, but still weapons; his power was both defensive AND offensive, meaning it didn't really feel like a payoff? There was also something with his daughter telling him to uppercut or something, I dunno, that didn't feel important either.
So there's talk of rules; the whole point of all this is a tournament that allows one side to invade the other. So really it's all happening because there's a governing body that controls stuff. But the Outworld is quite openly cheating consistently without any apparant fear of consquences - Shang Tsung doesn't seem bothered that Raiden knows what's happening, and Raiden has known for a while (he knows what happened to the Shirai Ryu). So there's no-one enforcing the rules? At all? Honestly, what is even the point of the whole thing if the rules don't matter at all? Is there even a tournament? Newbie and Scorpion (who may not even be Marked) defeated Sub Zero in a two-on-one fight with civilians involved in a random location chosen by Sub Zero, and when it was over everybody just acted like that was it, Earthrealm had won. Why? Did that battle actually count as the tournament? Why was that completely unfair battle "the tournament" when it and everything that led to it was under-the-table cheating? What is even happening? Does anything even matter? Not in this movie it seems.
Hell, if no-one is enforcing the rules, why doesn't Raiden do anything when the Outworlders are openly cheating right in front of him? He said he's not allowed to interfere, and yet he does, just in the least effective way possible. I mean, he shot Kano, his own fighter, with a lightning bolt just for being a little bit annoying. Yet he can't spare one for the cheating outworlders who are trying to kill his fighters? After it's all over, after Newbie told him what to do, Newbie asks Raiden "I thought you weren't allowed to interfere?". If you didn't think he was allowed to interfere, and you thought what he did was interfering, why did you casually ask him to do it? There's just no logic.
Scorpion's legendary harpoon/spear, one of the most iconic elements in the series, is actually a gardening implement. Think about that for a moment. It's not a specialised ninja weapon forged by a skilled blacksmith from hardened steel, but just a cheap little gardening utensil. It's almost certainly not made of steel, it's probably just bronze. I dont' think it's even sharp - why would it be? I understand that the goal was to imbue it with emotional significance as it's a reminder of his wife, but actually you've just made it a whole lot less cool. It's not like the spear needed an explanation; it's a ninja weapon. He was carrying his sword around, no particular reason he wouldn't be carrying his rope-spear as well.
Speaking of the spear, in the end Sub Zero is defeated when Newbie redirects the spear mid-flight. Where did he learn to do something like that? He's a cage fighter, why would he know anything about exotic roped weapons? Sure, it's just a movie, but it still felt weird that he was able to pull off this difficult martial arts move that was just completely out of his wheelhouse. It just came out of nowhere. It's like if there was a movie about a cowboy, and the whole movie he's winning gunfights, and then his last opponent is a samurai who deflects the cowboy's bullets with his sword, so the cowboy picks up a sword himself and beats the Samurai in a swordfight. That wouldn't make any sense right? Not if the movie didn't establish at some point that the cowboy was also an amazing swordfighter for some reason.
Now of course that's a severely exaggerated example, but it does serve to illustrate the idea: protagonists suddenly displaying rare skills they have no reason to possess usually requires an explanation. The same is true of Newbie's new tonfa of course, but I feel like unarmed combat skills carry over to the use of tonfa to some extent, plus they are part of his "powers", so I personally didn't find it too strange for him to be able to fight with them effectively. But that rope trick did feel "wrong" and take me out of the fight (even more than I already was), which is a problem when it was practically the final blow of the movie.
Sub-Zero killed Scorpion by stabbing him in the shoulder, which in context feels surprisingly... non-lethal. Which it is, because after Sub Zero walks off casually assuming Scorpion is dead, Scorpion turns out to still be alive. For a couple of minutes, a couple of minutes in which he... just crawls a few feet, achieving nothing. And then his body dissappeared for some reason? What was the point of all that? Again, it just didn't serve any purpose!
The final battle takes place in a beat-up old boxing gym. Yeah, it's been covered in ice, but it's still a very boring and mundane location, arguably the least interesting in the whole film. The final battle is supposed to happen in the MOST impressive location, not the LEAST! It was very underwhelming.
Anyway, Scorpion and Newbie are facing off against Sub Zero together. They gain a momentary advantage, at which point... Newbie randomly just turns his back on the fight for no reason. Yeah, you can explain it as "he was worried about his family", but a moment ago he turned to face Sub Zero, and then suddenly he just turns away. It just felt so random and stupid. Anyway, Scorpion then just stands there watching for far too long while Sub Zero recovers, regains his weapon, removes his armour, and with a big flourish sends a line of ice along the ground at Scorpion, who doesn't even try to dodge. It was all pretty stupid and forced.
Sub Zero fights real well with his sword after getting skewered through his sword-arm (Scorpion probably should have aimed for the heart, but whatever), and even keeps fighting for a bit after getting stabbed right through the chest. That at least was true to the games I guess? But then Scorpion vomits hellfire all over him for an extended period of time, hellfire hot enough to even burn Scorpion's face off, after which Sub Zero is... very very lightly singed? I mean it's barely noticeable. That part was a lot less true to the games, and just generally very unsatisfying; I think we were all expecting to see a blackened skeleton at that point. I mean, a few minutes ago we saw a woman get cut in half - and we saw what was inside those halves - and now, in the final battle, they're not going to give us a proper fatality? What's up with that? What was the point of all the hellfire then?
I guess Newbie's magic armour absorbed energy when hit and then let it back out offensively or something? You know, the Black Panther thing. But only for one fight? And it wasn't even the last fight; his armour was apparently neutralised by Sub Zero's cold somehow. So... what was actually the point of that ability?
They actually included Nitara, a character who is barely seen outside of one single game in the series, but didn't include Kitana or Cage or Stryker or Nightwolf or Jade or any number of other fan-favourite characters. And of course the movie version was completely different in every way from the game version. And despite having a reasonable amount of screen-time, her inclusion was actually still completely pointless and added nothing to the movie. Except for some gore I suppose.
The first time they meet Liu Kang walks purposefully towards Sonya, Newbie and Kano. Kano holds up his hand and tells him to stop, a fair thing to ask. To which Liu Kang responds by attacking his fellow fighters with a fireball... after which he immediately follows up by saying he's not their enemy. Yer actions don't match yet words mate! I mean it was funny, but really didn't make any sense. Neither did the fact that he told them to follow him, then started walking back the way they came from! I mean, it's not like it can't be explained, but it was just really weird and a little distracting. Why would he not lead them back the way he came from?
He leads them to the temple where they're supposed to train. But how were they supposed to know about it? Why didn't he contact them before? Sonya was actively looking for the temple and any information about Mortal Kombat, if he couldn't find her when she was basically looking for him how was he supposed to find anyone? Why was it even his job, shouldn't it have been Raiden's or something? It's no wonder Earthrealm was losing every battle, they were completely disorganised!
Liu Kang's fire didn't actually do anything by the way. To Kano or anyone else. It was just a joke really. It was kind of painful to see how the movie portrayed him.
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