User Reviews

I've seen the older movies of Mortal Kombat, and as cheesy and bad CGI as it was, the fights/tournaments, music, and plots were great. I was excited to see this new movie, and it wasn't that bad, but was still left unsatisfied. I was surprised that I fell in love with Kano; he was charming, hilarious, and prob the best character. Following him, I enjoyed SubZero and his fight scenes. Sonya Blade wasn't too bad too. One character that i had no interest in was the main guy, Cole. He was just boring and unnecessary. Even his "power" was....blah. I wish they had Liu Kang as the main guy, his story is more interesting. Another disappointment in this was the lack of tournaments in this movie, that was supposed to be the main plot of the whole movie. In addition, they did Goro dirty in this. His fight scene was short and missed the mark, and even though he was the big villain in the first movie, they showed him for less than 5 minutes in this one. Hopefully they bring him back somehow for a better fight in the 2nd movie. If they do, I'm excited to see my boy Johnny Cage!

I believe that I'm speaking for most fans when I say that I was expecting this to be loyal to the original storyline - a thought that the movie trailer ended right away. Instead we were presented with lots of deviations, and a sort of "prequel" that states a hope to build a cinematic universe around Mortal Kombat for the coming years, which don't get me wrong, is a very good thing. What I do think it's bad is the general acting - regarding some exceptions - along with character build up. Outworld characters appear to fall from the sky with little to no storyline attached to who they are and where they came from, when there was a lot to tell, especially about Shang Tsung, Mileena and Kabal. Actors playing Liu Kang, Kung Lao and particularly Raiden were close to average, along with their argument which was little to none. Kabal's voice was also not adequate to its figure. The guy's breathing through a metal mask and is stuck in an "iron lung" and sounds like a young wannabe highschool bully.

Now the big elephant in the room, Cole Young. Adding a new character isn't that bad, but a new protagonist... that's an entire different thing. It's a very risky move, mostly because not only shatters the whole storyline, but also because a main character needs to be likeable to the general audience in order to stand. Personally, I found him closer to indifferent than good or bad, just kind of there. Fortunatly we can see that at the end, there's an intention to bring Johny Cage, who should already be present nonetheless along with Kitana (how can we have Mileena without Kitana?).

Also there were some unecessary scenes, like Nitara (totally random choice by the way) literally appearing on screen just to die in the following second, following the footsteps of Rain in MK Anihalation. One way to get around that and other unsuited scene changes would be to increase the movie's lenght or simply not screening the character at all.

On the upside, Kano's role is incredibly well performed and gives the movie its whole humour, bringing balance and a reality feeling to it. The fighting sequences are good, well shooted from a nice different set of angles, with a lot of movement variety. It's also noticeable they gave enourmous attention to Sub-Zero's special effects, which I think is one the best things in the movie along with some easter eggs like Shinnok's Amulet or Kitana's Fan. Goro's animation is also on a good note.

Last but not least, the final standoff between Scorpion and Sub-Zero didn't let down. Very well shooted with an original choreography, and still managing to be loyal to some of the most iconic original moves from the game characters.

To summarize, it's a generally well done remake. Although needing a lot of work, mostly on actor's performance and argument, has potential to set the foundations for an upcoming cinematic universe to be explored, which after all these years, MK absolutely deserves.

I enjoyed MK overall, it was funny, action packed and generally quite faithful as an adaptation. The acting was also really good, with Joe Taslim as Subzero being the highlight for me. I was very disappointed however with the lack of an actual tournament, the fights were either ambush's or quick come and go brawls, there was no structure or rules, which I expected for the first mortal Kombat movie.

I also didn't gravitate towards the newcomer Cole, I felt like he was unnecessary, I understand wanting to do your own thing sometimes but this was not one of those times. He also beats an iconic MK character which rubbed me the wrong way, but hopefully we'll see them again. The opening is brilliant and the second act is solid, but it's final act is very rushed and leaves you with little time to take it all in. Pretty good but not what I was hoping for.

16 years after the last Hollywood version we get another MORTAL KOMBAT video game adaptation and funnily enough it's about the same quality as the last one. Grittier to begin with and Hiroyuki Sanada is one of those guys who automatically lifts the quality of the thing by his presence alone, but then it ends up turning into the usual CGI dominated cheese fest by the climax. They try to make sense of some kind of plot here which is quite excruciating but by the end it's just the usual intercutting of heavily stylised fights between the player characters. Kudos for the copious gore FX and the CGI isn't as bad as it could have been, but I was hoping for more.

Even by the standards of films based on video games this is not good. I've played the games since MK2 so I know the franchise has a stupid story but since the film seems happy taking some big liberties with it it should have been made better, not worse (who TF is the main character anyway and why is his super power having an armoured shirt- there are 80 character on the MK roster there was no need to create Cole blandy Mcbland face).

The historical intro of the film is actually not bad but after that the film's watchability dives off a cliff. I've already mentioned that the story is dumb so it's a cardinal sin that large parts of the movie are also boring. The acting (Apart from Scorpion/Sub Zero/Shang Tsung) is awful, nothing really connects, there is no reason to care about Cole or his boring family, everything is all of a sudden far too easy in the end and all that went before is pretty pointless. Even the fight scenes are not particularly good. I really did not like this.

I was worried the first scene would be the pinnacle of the movie, and while it was.... Hanzo Hasashi made my movie year with three words and his reappearance. He's always phenomenal. The rest of the movie was lots of fun with minor disappointments. I hope they make the follow up.

Cole's plot armor was cheesier than the entire original 1995 movie.

Why did Sub-Zero and Scorpion's outfits make them look so fat with all of the padding?

Goro looked like he belonged in World Warcraft and was completely wasted.

Kano was funny. Sub-Zero was basically Michael Myers .. so that was neat. Fatalities looked great.

Liu Kang and Shang Tsung are forgettable compared to the OG film. Couldn't hear a thing Raiden said.

Good fx, choreography was fine, and nice of them to show some lesser known characters. Kabal & Kung Lao were top notch.

Cole is completely unnecessary with the huge amount of MK characters that there already are. He cheapened the final fight.

Akana is also random and a new element that I can live with.. but why?

The 1995 film did way better capturing the essence of what Mortal Kombat was, came out at the right time, and had a way bigger impact. Mortal Kombat 2021 was just ok.. and that's sadly it.

With that being said.. I hope they improve upon what they have in the sequel. Looking forward to seeing it and please kill Cole's character within the first scene or forget about him.

Big expectations, but althought it could be better, at least is watchable. Not too much fighting, less than 50% of the game. Spoiler alert!! Theres also second part upcoming.

I like the brutal fight scenes and the actors chosen for the characters. Unfortunately, the battles were often very short and characters killed quickly, some of which should never have been in a pre-tournament movie. This movie felt pointless and the addition of Cole is not necessary. Just make Cole die next movie and bring Scorpion back. That's the only way this trilogy works. The new character Cole is so annoying and not even a real MK fighter so what's the point.

If the aim was to take a dump on the IP and alienate the existing fanbase, good job. If it was to turn people who never engaged with the franchise in any way before, probably even better.

Shame on whoever wrote this lazily put together nonsense that has nothing to do with any established storylines, nor manages to tell a sane, internally coherent story if we discount the first, and frankly main issue. I'd say this cliché riddled, phoned in pile of **** manages to find the perfect balance between facepalm and cringe, but no, somehow it breaks both of those scales at the same time.

The story starts at roughly the right place, though watching the Shirai Ryu get exterminated by the Lin Kuei feels sort of like Batman's or Spiderman's origin story: overtold. Then the unnecessary "main character" is shoehorned in, and you know what, I'd be borderline willing to step past that if he was not a character with no traits. I don't mean he's boring, or vanilla, I literally think that when the character was "developed" the writer(s) forgot to come up with a personality.

And let's not forget about this ridiculous "arcana" concept, that allows iconic characters to do what they do without their established gear or cybernetic implants, or in the most extreme case allow them to magically manifest high-tech cybernetic prostetics. The sheer level of laziness in the writing here is detestable.

Shame on the director too, who deserves the same kind of props, I never realized you could get performances out of otherwise talented actors that are stiff, over the top and boring at the same time. "Give me your best crotchity grandpa with kids on his lawn and dial it up to 12" must have been a sentence heard daily on set. And when the cast and crew were finally free of this "genius" and post production finally started, the sound team suddenly had to start putting up with the daily instruction: "Now put a sci-fi noise in for that magic event", while the editors had to work with this: "Okay, so we dirped hard on the fight coreography, so just chip-chop this scene into sub-second pieces so nobody notices that."

The dumb, campy 90'-ies Mortal Kombat was 12 times better than this lazily slapped together. The one good thing about this being so bad, is that the next reboot (however many decades we might need to wait for it) will have to be a home run. It's a simple recipe: get an iconic cast of characters together, get them to Shang Tsung's island by minute 20 and then do the tournament. Nail the fights, the characters, put in some appropriate character devlopment, a dash of humor and crank the epic to 11 at the end. A blind hamster could do it ;)

11 Years - that's how long ago it was announced that a new MK movie will be made. 11 years I've waited to see a movie written in a day.

So, the characters fight - no bonds between them, dumb jokes, no emotion at all, it was like a normal day for all. Obviously audience is for kids. Favorite parts were those moments when the characters were giving themselves nicknames - who TF does that?

Main character was even more pointless than the movie itself. They can gather together with Vin Diesel to talk how important family is and gain more and more superpowers throughout the conversation because of it.

Good job with ruining the movie.

Why? Why did they make this? As an avid Mortal Kombat fan since day 1 I can say that this movie was trashy baggins. Cole Young? Who? This guys special power is to magically grow a long sleeve shirt. Notice he isn't on the theatrical one sheet... BECAUSE NO ONE KNOWS WHO THIS GUY IS. Don't make up stuff.

I'll give praise to the special effects but, overall, this movie felt like a pilot for a CW tv show. Liu Kang has a slight british accent. Why? Shirt McGirt can defeat the 9 times running MK champ after getting his hiney wiped at the beginning of the movie by a nobody. Why? So much no. Just so much no.