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Mortal Kombat (2021) Movie Discussion Thread

Art Lean

Noob
TBH, I actually liked Sonya being slightly on the verge of being a prepper.

She's never been an exciting character since 1992, but I felt this film gave her a slightly unhinged feeling yet one that also emphasised better her doubt in herself because she doesn't even have the mark.

Yes the mark maybe an MK Annihilation lifted plot device, but I liked it in the film (hell I didn't mind it in MKA, that film had many other faults a million times worse) and felt it gave some arc to Sonya that she's never had before. She went from being pyscho prepper to being a chosen one of earth. No complaints here.
 

Dankster Morgan

It is better this way
I think it has the skeleton of a potentially very good movie. Great casting choices for Sub and Scorpion. The guy who plays Liu Kang looks exactly how I'd picture him looking irl, not super jacked like in the game but he is shredded and looks like he is as hyper mobile and fast as he would be.

Movie would have been better served to not have so much shit going on. The opening scene was great. It should've been a slight redo of MK1, all the characters would be there with their own factions, Liu Kang would have been a good main character. MK is a simple concept. We don't need a character like Cole to introduce us to the world, its not that complicated.
A plot would be the tournament from Liu's point of view
B plot would be the rivalry between Bi Han and Hanzo and would actually give side characters like them who aren't part of Liu Kang's group motivations for why they are at the tournament
C plot would be cyber Lin Kuei takeover with Smoke and Kuai Liang escaping.

Not an unreasonable amount of shit to cover in an under two hour runtime and sets up sequels. In this movie there should have been an actual tournament and it should have started within the first half hour of the movie, they would be on Shang's island.

Also side note, I thought Bi Han was half cryomancer half human, how has he not visibly aged since he killed Hanzo centuries ago? Magic?
 
I see a lot of general audience complaints of "why no tournament?" Meanwhile as I fan I think the tournament is dead weight since the results get invalidated almost immediately. The sooner we can move away from tournaments and into power struggles and interrealm conflict, the better. Personally I would have reduced the tournament role even more but maybe that would be too radical.
 

Art Lean

Noob
I see a lot of general audience complaints of "why no tournament?" Meanwhile as I fan I think the tournament is dead weight since the results get invalidated almost immediately. The sooner we can move away from tournaments and into power struggles and interrealm conflict, the better. Personally I would have reduced the tournament role even more but maybe that would be too radical.
Agreed.

MK95 told the story of the tenth tournament. The Journey Begins and Scorpion's Revenge did too.

This felt like a movie of Legacy, establishing the world on the brink of a new tournament in a way that felt fresh and exciting.

I'm actually really glad we didn't get MK1 for the fourth time in televised media.
 

Dankster Morgan

It is better this way
That, and I'm also pretty tired of invisible assassins actually getting the surprise on their target only to punch them in the back or something, and then die for it.


Sub sparing Cole's family also made Zero sense.
Exactly. Like when Sub was fighting Jax, he was absolutely defenseless and SZ didn't finish him off for some reason. And when he grabs Liu or Cole he doesnt just freeze them and rip them in half like he did Jax for whatever reason.
 
Its a shame they didn't have Sonya kill Kano by breaking his neck like in the OG.
Because then they can't bring him back in the sequel with an actual laser eye. I'm thinking he gets resurrected somehow and because Sonya poked his eye out, and he thought it was awesome, he gets someone to give him an actual laser eye patch thing.

At least that's what keeps popping up in my head.
 
Exactly. Like when Sub was fighting Jax, he was absolutely defenseless and SZ didn't finish him off for some reason. And when he grabs Liu or Cole he doesnt just freeze them and rip them in half like he did Jax for whatever reason.
I'll actually give them the Jax one because I really got the impression Sub-Zero was just enjoying himself there, and felt satisfied after destroying his arms and leaving him for dead. He definitely had a sadistic vibe to him and looked very pleased with himself, so I can understand him wanting to just torture a victim like that.

Plus, the way he hit that ledge on the way down... I would have assumed he was done too.
Like I actually flinched a bit and went "ooooh" at that part.
 

Kiss the Missile

Red Messiah
I thought it was funny how impressed Kano was at Sonya's offer of 2 million. Considering he's an international weapon and drugs dealer you'd think he'd have dump trucks of money
 

Dankster Morgan

It is better this way
I'll actually give them the Jax one because I really got the impression Sub-Zero was just enjoying himself there, and felt satisfied after destroying his arms and leaving him for dead. He definitely had a sadistic vibe to him and looked very pleased with himself, so I can understand him wanting to just torture a victim like that.

Plus, the way he hit that ledge on the way down... I would have assumed he was done too.
Like I actually flinched a bit and went "ooooh" at that part.
Fair, SZ definitely was a sadist in this movie and liked toying with people. Luring Jax in the building and maming him, choosing to freeze Cole's gym and lure him there to fight.

Also SZ freezing Jax's buckshot mid air was badasss.
 

Revy

★ 19 Years of Jade ★
Not counting Cole. Jessica McNamee as Sonya was by far the worst character for me. She was annoying as fuck, boring & didn't have the badass feel that Bridgette Wilson had in MK95 or Jeri Ryan had in Rebirth & Legacy, I think Sandra Hess might have been better in Annihilation.

I would have loved Charlotte McKinney, Brooklyn Decker, Katee Sackhoff or Yvonne Strahovski as Sonya.
 
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Dankster Morgan

It is better this way
Not counting Cole. Jessica McNamee as Sonya was by far the worst character for me. She was annoying as fuck, boring & didn't have the badass feel that Bridgette Wilson had in MK95 or Jeri Ryan had in Rebirth & Legacy, I think Sandra Hess might have been better in Annihilation.

I would have loved Charlotte McKinney, Brooklyn Decker, Katee Sackhoff or Yvonne Strahovski as Sonya.
She didn't have Sonya vibes. MKX Sonya was the best version of her imo. She was a bitch but not like irredeemably so, and regardless it was obvious how much she cared about Johnny and Cassie. Works best as a supporting character because Sonya doesn't have a lot of depth, she doesn't really DO anything in any game, she is mostly defined by how she interacts with other more interesting characters, specifically Johnny and Kano.
 

Immortal

Blind justice....
You're fucking tripping. This Sonya had 1000x more charisma than that blockhead Bridgette. I actually looked forward to any scene with her in it.
This.

Jessica is like 10x times the Sonya that Bridgette ever was, even back in 95 i thought Bridgette was totaly miscast as Sonya.

The problem with Sonya in this MK movie is the awful script and dialogues she has + nobody to actualy interact with her in a funny way. She works best when she can "feed" her lines of someone else... like Cage or Kano. The first one was missing here and second one was well... one man show. She works as a counter-balance character to Cage silliness and Kano being a total dick with no values whatsoever. As solo character she's pretty generic / bland.

That being said it has nothing to do with Jessica being casted as Sonya (which imo was a prefectly fine choice) and everything to do with Sonya game backstory which is not much to go on to begin with and the movie script being awful by not even managing to deliver that mediocre game backstory on the screen.
 
Agreed.

MK95 told the story of the tenth tournament. The Journey Begins and Scorpion's Revenge did too.

This felt like a movie of Legacy, establishing the world on the brink of a new tournament in a way that felt fresh and exciting.

I'm actually really glad we didn't get MK1 for the fourth time in televised media.
correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this movie supposed to be like a prequel to the tournament??? Like the next movie will be the actual tournament, this one was just outworld playing dirty and trying to assassinate possible champions with sub and co....??

In that sense I think it’s kinda cool and makes the movie better, BUUUUUUT at the same time they’ve kinda wrote themselves into a corner with stuff like Prince motherfuckin Goro, the outworld heavy weight champion, getting killed by some guy named cole in his fucking driveway lol.
 

Brack1sh

Chimpanzee that!
I mean, it was a movie...? lol really bad as far as film standards go but the bar is so low for video game films that it was fine. Some cool moments and choreography and tons of easter eggs but overall pretty booty I'd say lmao

But I'll still watch them if they keep making more though haha
 

Swindle

Philanthropist & Asshole
I'm not convinced movie Sonya is actually special forces. Based on the movie, I believe she's a maniac who attacks anyone who wanders onto her property.

She has Kano shackled, but what for? She seems totally fine with him leaving, and is even ok with him tagging along. So, either he didn't do anything too bad and she shackled him anyway, or he did some heinous act that warranted the shackling, and she was just like "fuck it". I imagine he got drunk and wandered onto her property and like all those other drifters, she assaulted him and locked him up in her torture barn.
Kinky.
Kinky Sonya is a whole lot cooler than the Sonya we’ve gotten in...well, ANY of the games..
 

Law Hero

There is a head on a pole behind you
Just finished watching it, so my thoughts haven't had much time to settle, but overall it was pretty bad. I thought I would have a hard time judging the movie on its own and as an MK fan, but it turned out to be rather easy since the movie is bad on its own and is also bad at being anything other than a service-level "adaptation" of the story in the Mortal Kombat games. For the purposes of this post, I will try to judge the movie on its own, then give my overall thoughts as an MK fan at the end.

To me, the story is the most important part followed by the action scenes. As far as the action scenes go, I felt they were sub-par at best with so many quick cuts and bland locations. I felt my eyes glazing over towards the end when they tried to cram like 4 fights into one scene. The old rule of trailers definitely applies to this movie where what you see in the trailer is usually the best the movie has to offer. If you're watching a trailer for a comedy and the trailer is cringy and doesn't make you laugh, then don't expect to laugh in the movie. The action in the trailer for this movie was pretty good, and the action in the film also peaked at about "pretty good."

Sadly, the writing and the story were absolute trash which removed any tension from the pretty-good-at-best fight scenes. From the time they were mentioned in the trailer, I disliked the tattoo thing. I still don't fully understand how they work. I thought they were supposed to appear on champions of Earthrealm, but Kano gets one and that obviously didn't work out. So I guess they appear on people who have potential to be champions, but since they only have a finite amount of space on the roster, the tattoos only go to the top best fighters on Earth, then if one of them dies, the mark appears on the person who is next in line power level-wise? If that's the case, then is the movie saying Johnny is weaker than Sonya, Cole, and Kano, or does he already have a mark and Liu Kang just hasn't recruited him yet for some unspecified reason? Also, does this mean Cole was born with so much potential that he got a mark as an infant? Or is the source of the marks aware of the prophecy (whose origin and purpose are never stated as far as I recall) and has chosen him because it somehow knows that he will be a special top tier good guy fighter?

Speaking of Cole, he was as bland as expected. I also don't know why they cast a half-Chinese guy to play a Japanese character, especially in a movie/world where there are rival clans based in China and Japan, but whatever. I almost gave the movie props for killing his family in order to parallel him with his ancestor, but I suppose Sub-Zero decided he didn't REALLY need to kill the Hasashi bloodline, and chose to just put them on display somewhere for whatever reason. Anyway, I guess Cole's story is that he's just a reckless fighter with poor defensive skills who always gets beat up, so his arcana power is body armor that covers his weakness as well as some bladed tonfa for some odd reason. This kind of suggests that the arcana are somehow related to the user's personality or physicality, but Kano gets laser eye and Sonya gets laser fist, so I dunno, I guess it's random.

Scorpion didn't have much to do other than fight Sub-Zero, but I don't recall them ever saying how exactly he came back other than Cole brought him back somehow. It seems like he was watching him the whole time, but could not do anything until the end where he was somehow summoned. I'm still confused as to how that all worked in the end.

I just realized this is going to be take 30 pages and as many hours if I keep this up, so I'll speedrun the rest of my main thoughts. I hate this Raiden. He seems like an incompetent asshole. He says he can't interfere with invaders from Outworld (which looks awful by the way) even though they are invading Earthrealm and killing his champions in order to cheat in the upcoming tournament. Then he helps them by teleporting them around and when someone says, "Wait, I thought you couldn't interfere?", he smiles as if saying that he actually can. So he CAN help people as Outworld forces run amok killing innocent people and his champions, but he just chooses not to until the very end. Although Sonya may have surprisingly been my favorite character in the movie, she does not seem like Special Forces at all. If anything, she seems like EX Special Forces who got fired or something because she's living in a trailer and never calls for backup, uses any advanced military gear, or even reports to anyone about anything that's going on including letting Kano go free. I got a lot more thoughts in the "weird things that bothered me or didn't make sense" category, but I'll just cut it short here.

So as a fan of MK lore, I knew from the beginning I would have to toss all of my hopes and expectations out the window. The characters are almost completely unrelated to their game counterparts except in the most superficial aspects like appearance or powers. I mean, Kano never gets a cybernetic eye, Bi-Han is somehow 300 years old and ACTUALLY killed Hanzo's family instead of Quan-Chi, Mileena and Reiko are just random jobbers, etc etc. Anyone saying the film respected the source material's story/lore is high as a kite because this thing is its own movie with Mortal Kombat paint.

tl;dr
The movie was bad both on its own and as a Mortal Kombat movie. It's not the worst thing I've ever seen, and the only reason I saw it in the first place (like most probably) was because it was titled Mortal Kombat. Even though I had my gripes with the MK animated movie, that one is far superior to this one. If you're the type who gets an extreme dopamine rush every time you go, "Oh, I understood that reference!" then you'll probably love it.
 

Onilordasmodeus

My GT: UncappedWheel82
Just finished watching it, so my thoughts haven't had much time to settle, but overall it was pretty bad. I thought I would have a hard time judging the movie on its own and as an MK fan, but it turned out to be rather easy since the movie is bad on its own and is also bad at being anything other than a service-level "adaptation" of the story in the Mortal Kombat games. For the purposes of this post, I will try to judge the movie on its own, then give my overall thoughts as an MK fan at the end.

To me, the story is the most important part followed by the action scenes. As far as the action scenes go, I felt they were sub-par at best with so many quick cuts and bland locations. I felt my eyes glazing over towards the end when they tried to cram like 4 fights into one scene. The old rule of trailers definitely applies to this movie where what you see in the trailer is usually the best the movie has to offer. If you're watching a trailer for a comedy and the trailer is cringy and doesn't make you laugh, then don't expect to laugh in the movie. The action in the trailer for this movie was pretty good, and the action in the film also peaked at about "pretty good."

Sadly, the writing and the story were absolute trash which removed any tension from the pretty-good-at-best fight scenes. From the time they were mentioned in the trailer, I disliked the tattoo thing. I still don't fully understand how they work. I thought they were supposed to appear on champions of Earthrealm, but Kano gets one and that obviously didn't work out. So I guess they appear on people who have potential to be champions, but since they only have a finite amount of space on the roster, the tattoos only go to the top best fighters on Earth, then if one of them dies, the mark appears on the person who is next in line power level-wise? If that's the case, then is the movie saying Johnny is weaker than Sonya, Cole, and Kano, or does he already have a mark and Liu Kang just hasn't recruited him yet for some unspecified reason? Also, does this mean Cole was born with so much potential that he got a mark as an infant? Or is the source of the marks aware of the prophecy (whose origin and purpose are never stated as far as I recall) and has chosen him because it somehow knows that he will be a special top tier good guy fighter?

Speaking of Cole, he was as bland as expected. I also don't know why they cast a half-Chinese guy to play a Japanese character, especially in a movie/world where there are rival clans based in China and Japan, but whatever. I almost gave the movie props for killing his family in order to parallel him with his ancestor, but I suppose Sub-Zero decided he didn't REALLY need to kill the Hasashi bloodline, and chose to just put them on display somewhere for whatever reason. Anyway, I guess Cole's story is that he's just a reckless fighter with poor defensive skills who always gets beat up, so his arcana power is body armor that covers his weakness as well as some bladed tonfa for some odd reason. This kind of suggests that the arcana are somehow related to the user's personality or physicality, but Kano gets laser eye and Sonya gets laser fist, so I dunno, I guess it's random.

Scorpion didn't have much to do other than fight Sub-Zero, but I don't recall them ever saying how exactly he came back other than Cole brought him back somehow. It seems like he was watching him the whole time, but could not do anything until the end where he was somehow summoned. I'm still confused as to how that all worked in the end.

I just realized this is going to be take 30 pages and as many hours if I keep this up, so I'll speedrun the rest of my main thoughts. I hate this Raiden. He seems like an incompetent asshole. He says he can't interfere with invaders from Outworld (which looks awful by the way) even though they are invading Earthrealm and killing his champions in order to cheat in the upcoming tournament. Then he helps them by teleporting them around and when someone says, "Wait, I thought you couldn't interfere?", he smiles as if saying that he actually can. So he CAN help people as Outworld forces run amok killing innocent people and his champions, but he just chooses not to until the very end. Although Sonya may have surprisingly been my favorite character in the movie, she does not seem like Special Forces at all. If anything, she seems like EX Special Forces who got fired or something because she's living in a trailer and never calls for backup, uses any advanced military gear, or even reports to anyone about anything that's going on including letting Kano go free. I got a lot more thoughts in the "weird things that bothered me or didn't make sense" category, but I'll just cut it short here.

So as a fan of MK lore, I knew from the beginning I would have to toss all of my hopes and expectations out the window. The characters are almost completely unrelated to their game counterparts except in the most superficial aspects like appearance or powers. I mean, Kano never gets a cybernetic eye, Bi-Han is somehow 300 years old and ACTUALLY killed Hanzo's family instead of Quan-Chi, Mileena and Reiko are just random jobbers, etc etc. Anyone saying the film respected the source material's story/lore is high as a kite because this thing is its own movie with Mortal Kombat paint.

tl;dr
The movie was bad both on its own and as a Mortal Kombat movie. It's not the worst thing I've ever seen, and the only reason I saw it in the first place (like most probably) was because it was titled Mortal Kombat. Even though I had my gripes with the MK animated movie, that one is far superior to this one. If you're the type who gets an extreme dopamine rush every time you go, "Oh, I understood that reference!" then you'll probably love it.
Thank you for this. This movie was bad, and awful as an MK movie. Pretending otherwise is just lying to yourself, as well as everyone else.

I went into this movie with a 6 or 7 expectation, but got a 2. It was shit. The acting was shit. The kombat was shit. The editing was shit. The story was shit. The only reason it gets any points is...I guess it's a movie. I mean sub and scorp were cool to see, and Kano made me laugh. But I mean...

Anyway, super disappointing. I tolerated scorpion:'s revenge...I really feel like they tried to do to much, but that direct to dvd movie was better than this. Smh.
 

Marinjuana

Up rock incoming, ETA 5 minutes
Nah son give me some tournament action there's literally been like 5 tournaments in the entire extended franchise and they never stfu about it
 

Xelz

Go over there!
People with scars get magical powers and recruited to a school for the gifted and talented.

So when is Harry Potter joining the tournament?