Month: July 2021

Released: May 2005

Director: Jaumet Collet-Serra

Run Time: 113 Minutes

Rated R

Distributor: Warner Bros./Scream Factory

Genre: Horror

Cast:
Elisha Cuthbert: Carly
Chad Michael Murray: Nick
Brian Van Holt: Bo/Vincent
Paris Hilton: Paige
Robert Ri’chard: Blake
Jared Padalecki: Wade
Jon Abrahams: Dalton

In cinema, there is no genre that is more versatile than horror.  Regardless of how you may actually feel about horror, you can’t really deny that horror is one of the most wide-reaching genres.  Within the horror genre, there are MANY sub-genres covering all sorts of topics: Zombies, vampires, werewolves, the supernatural, ghosts, Bigfoot, serial killers, and slashers.  While there is a wealth of material to be found in the genre, it’s also one that you can combine with any other genre in film.  You can find horror comedies, science fiction/horror hybrids, horror thrillers, horror action, drama, and romance.  You can do so much with horror that the only limit is your imagination…and budget.  Obviously some forms of horror are more popular than others.  Slashers have been a staple of the genre for decades.  Same thing with monster movies.  Around 2003, we began to start seeing remakes of older franchises like Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  We would eventually get remakes of popular films like Friday The 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street to varying degrees of success.  The one remake that few people talk about anymore is the 2005 film House of Wax, which was a remake of the Vincent Price chiller from 1953, which itself was a remake of Warner Bros’ own Mystery of the Wax Museum from 1933.  The 2005 version of House of Wax holds a special place in my heart, but I’ll tell you why later.  Let’s uncover the mystery of House of Wax.

House of Wax follows a group of college kids as they head to the big city to catch a football game.  On the way, they run into a roadblock and are forced to find a different means of getting to their destination.  Considering that it’s getting dark, they decide to camp in a nearby field for the night.  In the morning, Wade finds that the fan belt in his car is broken.  Deciding to split up, Wade and his girlfriend Carly run into a truck driver and are escorted to a nearby town to find the part that wade needs, while the rest try to get tickets for the football game.  After exploring a wax museum in which the wax figures seem eerily realistic, they run into Bo, one of the town’s residents who owns a gas station.  While at Bo’s house, Wade gets knocked out by a mysterious figure wearing a mask, and Carly discovers that the truck she’s in is the same truck that accosted her friends the night before.  She realizes that the wax figures in the museum are real people that have been covered in wax.  While the setup with the wax museum is interesting, the actual story plays second fiddle to the action.  That’s to be expected in a slasher movie.  Ultimately, the story serves as a way to get from one set-piece to another, and not much else.

I mentioned in my intro that House of Wax holds a special place in my heart.  There’s a reason for that.  THIS was the movie that got me back into horror.  I hadn’t seen a horror movie for nearly a decade until House of Wax.  Is there really anything truly special about this film?  Not particularly.  I mean, it’s a slasher movie that sticks pretty close to the conventions and tropes of that kind of movie.  Boyfriend gets waxed(literally), then it’s the stoner, the promiscuous girl, and(I hate to say it)the token black guy.  It’s pretty much in that order too.  What stands out about this film is the casting.  The film stars a pre-Supernatural Jared Padalecki as Elisha Cuthbert’s boyfriend.  Chad Michael Murray plays her brother while Robert Ri’chard plays Blake.  The interesting choice here is Paris Hilton as Paige.  Now, everybody needs to realize that Paris is not an actress.  She wasn’t hired for her talents or her looks.  This was an interesting marketing ploy to get people into theaters.  No, they wanted to hire Paris Hilton so they could kill her in the movie.  Now, to Paris’ credit, she was all for it, which allowed the audience to show that she didn’t take herself too seriously.  Well, her death scene was pretty bad-ass.  I wouldn’t call it iconic, but it IS one of the most memorable kills in slasher movies.  Acting-wise, this is all standard stuff, with a couple of standouts.  I actually liked Elisha Cuthbert as Carly, as she was somewhat sympathetic.  Brian Van Holt is awesome as Bo and Vincent.  It’s not an easy thing to play two different characters in the same movie, but Brian is fantastic.  Unfortunately, that also brings me to one of the biggest issues with House of Wax: The writing.  Most of the characters aren’t very likable, so you’re not likely to give a damn when they bite the dust.  As I said with the story, it just goes through the motions of a slasher movie.

Say what you will about House of Wax, the production values on this project are sky-high, despite the film’s low budget.  This is an incredibly well-made movie from a technical standpoint.  The set designs are amazing, especially the titular House of Wax.  Most slasher flicks are fairly gritty in their looks and feel.  House of Wax feels like a high-budget slasher flick despite a 40 million dollar budget.  It’s not just the sets, but some of the visual effects, the character designs and the wax figures themselves are suitably creepy, especially when you find how they get made.  Speaking of which, the reason why most of us go to movies like this is the method in which characters are killed off.  Now, I just mentioned that the wax figures are creepy.  Well, that’s because those wax figures are actually people covered in wax.  Now, you actually get to see the process take place and it is brutal.  Seeing someone get covered in molten wax alive is genuinely haunting.  The kills are fairly creative, especially Paris Hilton’s death scene.  I loved it, and it’s one of the most satisfying kills in the genre.  For a movie that plays it safe by following the slasher film formula from A-Z, it’s surprisingly intense and thrilling.  Again, the sets and location lend itself to a very creepy atmosphere.  I think that it’s because the movie looks so good that it has this truly sinister vibe.  I can’t forget composer John Ottman’s outstanding score for the film.  Utilizing mainly pipe organs and a very orchestral sound, House of Wax ends up with a very dark, Gothic, and oppressive feel that gets under your skin.  Should a movie of this sort sound this good?  Yeah, actually.  John Ottman is a fantastic composer as he did the soundtracks for X2: X-Men United and Superman Returns.

While I wouldn’t say that House of Wax is one of the strongest slasher movies ever made, it’s definitely far from the worst, and it makes the best use of its premise that it can.  Outside of some annoying characters, House of Wax is a perfectly serviceable slasher flick with production values that are quite frankly better than this movie deserves, but it also has a really solid musical score by John Ottman.  Although entirely predictable, it’s still a thrill ride from beginning to end with some shocking and memorable set-pieces.  As imperfect as it is, House of Wax basically reintroduced me to the horror genre, and I’ve been a huge fan of the genre ever since.  I will always be grateful to House of Wax for that.  For fans of the genre and slasher movies in general, I would recommend it.  For a film that’s almost 20 years old, it holds up surprisingly well.  So, yeah, I love this movie.  I just picked up the Collector’s Edition on Blu-Ray from Scream Factory.  It’s not the most extensive in terms of special features, as it rolls over features from the DVD as well as the previous Blu-Ray release, but it does offer new interviews with Paris Hilton, Robert Ri’chard, film composer John Ottman, and special effects supervisor Jason Baird.  The other features include a gag reel, theatrical trailer, an alternate opening and various behind-the-scene featurettes.  There’s a good deal of value to be had here, especially if you’re a fan of the film like me.  It’s definitely worth checking out.

Released: May 2021

Director: Darryn Lynn Bousman

Rated R

Run Time: 93 Minutes

Distributor: Lionsgate Studios

Genre: Horror/Thriller

Cast:
Chris Rock: Detective Zeke Banks
Samuel L. Jackson: Marcus Banks
Max Minghella: Detective William Shenk
Marisol Nichols: Captain Angie Garza
Richard Zeppieri: Detective Fitch
Patrick McManus: Peter Dunleavy

When it comes to horror movie franchises, the 80s was loaded to the hilt with them.  You had franchises like Friday The 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  These were crazy movies.  The original films in each franchise was a fairly serious and gritty affair.  The original villain in Friday The 13th wasn’t Jason Voorhees.  It was his mother.  Jason wouldn’t show up until part II.  At the same time, Nightmare on Elm Street would give us the infamous dream killer, Freddy Krueger, played to perfection by then-unknown Robert Englund.  Yet, as deadly serious as the original films were, the franchises would get more and more ridiculous as time went on, focusing more on the kills, rather than the atmosphere.  These movies would get the term “dead teenager movies” by the late Roger Ebert.  In the early 2000s, a new kind of horror thriller was unleashed on audiences: Saw.  This film saw two characters trapped in a dilapidated bathroom with a dead body while chained to the opposite ends of the room.  While most of the film took place in this one location, it was also a detective story that followed a police officer on the hunt for the notorious “Jigsaw” killer, who put his victims into traps, and gave them a choice to live or die by escaping those traps.  Those traps were inspired by a particular transgression that the victim had committed earlier in their life.  Saw was the franchise which saw the term “torture porn” unfortunately coined.  The original indie film was a rousing success, and inspired a new horror franchise that would see a new entry every October for 7 years.  The last film in the entry, Jigsaw was released back in 2017.  Now, we have a new film in the franchise: Spiral.

Spiral follows Detective Zeke Banks as he gets a new partner as a result of going rogue on an undercover operation.  He and his new partner, William Shenk, are sent to a crime scene in a subway where there is a victim of an apparent copy-cat Jigsaw killer.  The victim in this case happens to be a cop that worked in Zeke’s precinct.  While Zeke isn’t particularly liked in his precinct for turning in a dirty cop, he takes the lead in the investigation to find the killer before more people are killed.  It’s no lie to say that the Saw films got ridiculous after the third.  In fact, I would point to that particular entry when the franchise went off the rails.  The traps got far more elaborate and the deaths even more gruesome, but it was the connections to each previous film that really killed people’s suspension of disbelief.  Spiral tries to take the series back to its roots as more of a police procedural and murder mystery rather than a straight-up horror flick, and it mostly succeeds.  The traps are far more simplistic this time around, but that’s a good thing.  It lends a little more credibility to the goings-on.  I like the fact that the film focuses more on the investigation.  While the kills are gruesome, they are mostly after-the-fact.  The previous film, Jigsaw, ended up turning Jigsaw into a kind of a vigilante killer, instead of someone that punished people because he felt that they were unworthy of the lives they were given.  The motivations of the killer this time around are centered around punishing cops that bend or break the rules to clean the streets.  The closest movie that I could compare Spiral to is Se7en, even though it’s nowhere near as good, but the story is still interesting, even if it does follow similar beats from the previous films.

When I first heard that they were going to do a new film set in the Saw universe, I was skeptical.  I enjoyed Jigsaw, but I wasn’t particularly keen on the direction they were taking.  So, imagine my surprise when I heard that Chris Rock was going to produce and star in Spiral: From The Book Of Saw.  Yes, THAT Chris Rock.  I shouldn’t have been so surprised to see a stand-up comedian tackle a pretty serious movie.  Robin Williams and Jim Carrey did to varying degrees of success, but Chris Rock?  No way.  I’ve always enjoyed Chris Rock as a stand-up comedian.  The stuff that did in the 90s was hilarious.  Even his role in Lethal Weapon 4 was funny.  Yet, when it comes to serious roles, I think Chris has a future as a dramatic actor, not just a comic one.  He’s outstanding here.  He does have a couple of funny jokes, but this movie is not a comedy.  It’s a horror thriller in every sense of the term, and it makes sure you realize that.  Evidently, it was also Chris’ idea to bring Samuel L. Jackson on board.  Samuel L. “Motherfuckin'” Jackson.  Seeing these two act off each other is a sight to see, despite the short time that Mr. Jackson is in the film.  I will always watch anything with this guy.  He commands the screen.  While the other actors do a fine job, they don’t have the same presence as Rock or Jackson.

Spiral being a Saw movie, there is a level of violence to be expected in a movie like this, and it really doesn’t disappoint.  The traps are simplistic and not the elaborate artistic traps of the previous films.  Again, this is back-to-basics.  The opening trap has a guy hanging from a ceiling of a subway tunnel with a device while standing on a stool while.  He only has a certain amount of time before the train comes and runs him over.  Another trap has a person strapped to a table with hot wax ready to pour all over them.  These are very simple gags, but they tend to be a bit more horrific because they’re not as outlandish as some of the previous movies.  This might disappoint some viewers, but make no mistake, it’s brutal.  I love the simplicity of the brutality here.  It’s visceral, as it should be, and that alone makes the film a decent entry in the franchise.  The music by franchise regular Charlie Clouser is still outstanding.  The main theme isn’t used as much, but it’s still there.  The film looks fantastic.  The cinematography is some of the best in the franchise.

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows in the land of Saw, however.  First of all, Samuel L. Jackson is only in the film for maybe 10 minutes at most.  It’s little more than a glorified cameo.  It’s awesome, but his presence is missed throughout the majority of the movie.  Early on, you can also figure out who the killer actually is.  I won’t spoil it, but for those who’ve seen the previous movies, it’s almost a dead give-away.  The franchise kind of relied on keeping people on their toes when it comes to the villains, but the past few films have had the bad habit of telegraphing the villain and the twist a mile away.  Also, as kind of a franchise standard, the majority of characters in the film aren’t particularly likable.  Chris Rock plays the only character that has any sort of decency.  The other cops are crooked and backstabbing, and Zeke’s own father is corrupt to a certain degree.  It’s not new territory for Saw, so you kind of have to expect it.  That said, I found Spiral: From The Book Of Saw to be a refreshing back-to-basics entry in a franchise that had really gone off the rails.  I hope this movie puts the series back on track and takes it in a new direction.  Bring Chris Rock on board was a stroke of genius.  I had no idea the guy was a fun of the series and horror movies.  It shouldn’t surprise me, as the line between horror and comedy is incredibly thin.  So, seeing a comedian tackling a serious role isn’t that farfetched.  I just wasn’t expecting it from Chris Rock.  If he chooses to do another film in the series, I won’t say no.  I think he did a fantastic job and I can’t wait to see more dramatic stuff from this guy.  Overall, I had a fantastic time with Spiral.  Is it the best in the franchise?  No, but it’s definitely far from the worst.  If you’re a fan of Saw, you need to see this.  If you’re a fan of Chris Rock, you MAY want to see this.  If you’re not a fan of Saw, this isn’t going to change your mid.

Summary: Spiral: From The Book Of Saw is a surprisingly good entry that takes the series back-to-basics in terms of the traps and police procedurals.  Chris Rock’s performance is outstanding and is absolutely worth the price of admission.  It’s definitely worth checking out.

When I was reviewing 2021’s Mortal Kombat reboot last night, it hit me as I was finishing up the review that what I’ve been doing here up until this point has been not as satisfying.  Don’t mistake my intent, I’m going to continue to talk about and review movies, as I really enjoy doing it.  There’s something incredibly rewarding about talking about a movie that I really enjoyed.  There’s an energy that surrounds you when you talk about something.  When you have something positive to say, that energy lifts you up and makes you want to do more.  On the other hand, when you have something negative to say, that same energy can really drag you down.  That energy is one of the things that I’m going to deal with as I make changes going forward.  There are definitely going to be some changes around here.  First thing that’s going to go is my grading system.  For years, I’ve used a 1-10 system with 1 being the worst and 10 being a masterpiece.  I’ve had some time to think about it, and who does that actually serve?  Personally, I justified the use of the number system to try and keep things straight in my head.  After some time of thinking about it, I’m going to stop using it because it doesn’t accurately describe how I feel about a movie.  That’s what the actual body of the review is for.  Putting a number on it does absolutely nothing, except getting people to skip reading the review and just go to the number.  I want people to understand how I feel about a movie, so the number system from here on out is gone.  Mortal Kombat is the last movie I reviewed that uses it.

Going back to the energy that you get when you talk about something you really like, I’m going to focus my reviews on stuff that I enjoy.  The movie can be bad, but if I enjoyed it, I want people to know why.  If I enjoy a movie that is grim-dark, people need to know what makes it worth watching.  The energy that it takes to tear a movie down because I hated it can be damaging.  Not necessarily to the film being reviewed or the film-makers behind, but to me as a reviewer and a blogger.  Whenever I hate something, I have a tendency to hold on to that feeling for longer than I really should, and while some consider it to be therapeutic to put all that negative energy into words, I find it counterproductive to what I’m trying to do here.  I love talking about movies, and there’s going to some bad stuff going on periodically.  I’ll deal with that when it comes, but I would rather not focus my energy on movies that I hate.  At the very least, I may give them a mention, but for the most part, I won’t give those kinds of movies the time of day.  I want to focus positive energy on movies that I enjoyed, so that I can share that with the world.  I want people to be aware of the movies that I enjoyed.  They don’t have to be good movies, but they can be enjoyable on certain levels.  That’s why I could never actually hate Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.  I love watching that movie.  It’s a glorious train-wreck.  To hate a movie is to find NOTHING enjoyable about it.  Thankfully, I can count on maybe TWO hands how many movies that I legitimately hate.

So, when I encounter a bad movie, what I intend to do going forward is to poke fun at it.  It’s my way of turning a negative into a positive.  Sarcasm may be what some consider to be the lowest form of wit, but it’s incredibly hilarious when people don’t realize you’re being sarcastic.  It’s hard to convey sarcasm on the Internet, especially in written form, so there has to some kind of wordplay that I need to use to convey how goofy these bad movies can be.  Another thing that I’m going to do over the next week or so is clean up the tabs on the top of the page.  Some of them I either don’t use anymore or haven’t bothered with for a long time.  Do they really need to be there?  No.  Change is healthy, so you’ll be seeing some of that pretty soon.  I’ll still be doing some of my favorite things like The Best/Worst and basic news commentary as well as reviews.  But outside of that, I’m going to simplify Major Tom’s Movies quite a bit.  It needs it, I need it, and so does my audience.  There’s nothing worse than complicating something that needs to be simple in the first place.

Released: April 2021

Director: Simon McQuoid

Run Time: 110 Minutes

Rated R

Distributor: Warner Bros./New Line Cinema

Genre: Action

Cast:
Lewis Tan: Cole Young
Joe Taslim: Bi-Han/Sub-Zero
Jessica McNamee: Sonya Blade
Josh Lawson: Kano
Mehcad Brooks: Jax
Hiroyuki Sanada: Hanzo Hasashi/Scorpion
Tadanubo Asano: Lord Raiden
Chin Han: Shang Tsung
Ludi Lin: Liu Kang
Max Huang: Kung Lao

When Midway’s Mortal Kombat hit the arcades back in 1992, it took the world by storm.  Not only was it ground-breaking visually, but also in its use of violence.  This game caused a massive uproar with parents and politicians.  So much, in fact, that this was the game that led to the creation of the ESRB, or Entertainment Software Ratings Board.  Yet, the controversy over the game’s violence only led to it becoming more and more popular.  In fact, it would rival Capcom’s flagship fighter, Street Fighter II.  Personally, I drifted more towards Mortal Kombat than Street Fighter, even though I enjoyed that one as well.  The franchise has had its ups and downs over the years.  The original game, while groundbreaking, doesn’t quite hold up as well, mechanically and visually.  In fact, most people would point to Mortal Kombat II as being the best in the series, and they’re not wrong.  It had more characters, more violence, but it also expanded the franchise’s lore exponentially.  While the franchise would hit bumps like Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero, Mortal Kombat 4, and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces, the good games far outweighed the bad.  But the franchise would get rebooted in 2009 with the simple title of Mortal Kombat.  This would add a story mode that was surprisingly good and would span the original three games.  It was followed up by the stellar Mortal Kombat X and Mortal Kombat 11.  The story in those games were absolutely incredible, but the gameplay remained unchanged with the use of combos and fatalities that made the game incredibly popular in the first place.

On the film side of things, New Line Cinema released the original live-action Mortal Kombat to theaters in 1995 to mostly mixed but positive reviews, despite having a PG-13 rating.  Unfortunately, THAT movie was followed up by a more expensive yet even worse film in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.  I’ve reviewed the film, and let’s just say that it’s so bad, it’s good.  It’s entertaining in all the WRONG ways.  We would also get a live-action series that only lasted one season, but was supposed to last for two, an animated series, and a web series that ran for two seasons.  The less said about the shitty Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins animated film, the better.   There was a recent animated film called Scorion’s Revenge which focused on one of the series’ most famous characters, Scorpion.  It wasn’t that bad actually, and contained all the blood and guts that the series was known for.  Mortal Kombat, as a franchise, is still going strong, and I would not be surprised to hear that Mortal Kombat 12 will be announced in the next two years.  It’s a prediction, so don’t take my word for it.  Like the games, the film side of Mortal Kombat would also see a reboot, and that is what I’m reviewing today.

Mortal Kombat opens in 17th century Japan, as famed Shirai Ryu ninja Hanzo Hasashi and his family is attacked by the ruthless Chinese warrior Bi-Han.  Ultimately dying at the hands of Bi-Han(Sub-Zero), the surviving infant child of Hanzo is rescued by the thunder god, Raiden.  Centuries later, MMA fighter Cole Young gets beaten to a pulp in the ring when he meets Jax, a special forces agent sent to find him because of a mysterious dragon marking that Cole has.  As it turns out, the marking is an invitation to a mystical fighting tournament called Mortal Kombat, and Cole has been chosen to fight for Earth against the evil forces of Outworld, a ruthless world hell-bent on universal domination.  After being attacked by Sub-Zero, Cole finds Sonya Blade and learns about Mortal Kombat, but also discovers that there are other champions of Earthrealm, with Jax being one of them.  Unfortunately, Outworld, led by the evil sorcerer Shang Tsung, has been quietly assassinating the champions of Earthrealm to gain an advantage in the next tournament, so Cole and company have to find Raiden and train to be the last line of defense for Earth.  Honestly, the story is needlessly complex.  A lot of it just seems unnecessary and the cheating from Outworld?  We already saw that with Mortal Kombat: Annihilation and that didn’t the movie any favors.  What’s the point of all the rules, if your opponent is going to cheat anyway?  The real story of the film should’ve been the rivalry between Scorpion and Sub-Zero, since that story actually bookends the movie.  Scorpion’s quest for revenge against Sub-Zero has been a part of Mortal Kombat’s mythology since the original game, and is the most compelling part of the new movie.  Honestly, if you look at this film’s posters and images from over the years, you would see that Scorpion and Sub-Zero are the literal face of Mortal Kombat.  They have been since the original game.  Truthfully, if they were to make a movie specifically about Scorpion and Sub-Zero, I would jump on that in a heart-beat.  But as I said, Scorpion and Sub-Zero’s story bookends the film, with everything in between just being filler, and not always good filler.

As a fan of Mortal Kombat, I would like to go over what works and doesn’t work here.  I’m going to start with the positive, as there is quite a bit of good things this movie does provide.  Let’s get the obvious out of the way:  This is a very violent movie.  This new movie was intended to be R-rated featuring the gory fatalities from the games, and it delivers on that front.  It’s gory.  It’s highly stylized, but funnily enough, it really works here, like it does in the game.  People get eviscerated and sliced in half in all their bloody glory.  The first 13 minutes of this movie are some of the best opening scenes I’ve ever witnessed in a movie.  It shows Scorpion before he becomes the demon ninja as he takes on his rival Sub-Zero.  It’s brilliantly choreographed, and I really loved the use of the rope spear that Scorpion fashions.  When Sub-Zero uses his powers, it’s unlike anything I’ve seen before.  It looks frigid, but organic the way he uses ice.  Speaking of Sub-Zero:  They made this guy MEAN.  He’s scary.  He’s powerful, ancient, and incredibly fast.  Joe Taslim from The Raid and The Swordsman was perfect casting here.  His Sub-Zero is definitely a monster.  Like-wise, Hiroyuki Sanada’s Scorpion is a very tragic character, witnessing the murder of his family and dying at the hands of Sub-Zero.  His fight with Sub-Zero at the beginning and end of the film are the best fight scenes in the movie.  You can definitely feel Scorpion’s rage as he takes on Sub-Zero.  Josh Lawson almost steals the show as the mercenary Kano.  He’s definitely the comic relief of the bunch and he is funny.  The character’s a dirt-bag, but Lawson makes you like him anyway, especially when he gets his laser-eye.

Now, let’s talk about the bad, and there’s quite a bit of THAT as well.  Outside of Scorpion, Sub-Zero, and Kano, everyone else is just…there.  I’m not really going to bad-mouth the character of Cole Young, as he’s supposed the audience’s surrogate into the bonkers world that is Mortal Kombat.  I think Lewis Tan did pretty well for a character that wasn’t particularly well-written, but he’s not even close to being the worst part of the movie.  Let’s meet the villains first.  The leader of the Outworld assassins is a soul-devouring sorcerer named Shang Tsung.  The character is supposed to be this shape-shifting villain that needed to be intimidating, but this film’s version of Shang is incredibly weak.  I’m not blaming Chin Han for his performance, as he does what he can with what he’s given, but what he’s given is pretty awful.  The character is all talk and doesn’t really do anything.  At least Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa’s version DID stuff, like steal souls and…fight.  He was also far more charismatic.  You’ve also got second-tier villains like Kabal, Nitara, Reiko, and Mileena.  Mileena didn’t need to be in this movie.  They should’ve kept her for the next one.  Reiko is just a typical over-sized henchman, while Kabal is a foul-mouthed faceless villain with hook-swords.  Again, these characters are from the game, but they aren’t given much to do.  On the hero side of things, it doesn’t get much better.  Sonya and Jax do more than anyone else, and they’re fine, but they aren’t that compelling.  Liu Kang and Kung Lao are I really have problems.  I have nothing against the actors, but the way they are written is atrocious.  Liu Kang and Kung Lao are some of the most wooden characters you will ever find in a video game movie.  Say what you will about the original game, but Robin Shou’s Liu Kang was charismatic, intelligent, and skeptical, which made him a memorable character in the original film.  Also, Raiden’s an asshole.  Just sayin’.

The dragon markings.  Let’s talk about what they’re supposed to do.  According to THIS film’s mythology-building, these markings show up on people that are mysteriously chosen to fight in a mystical tournament that’s supposed to determine the fate of the earth.  But wait: There’s more.  Apparently these markings are also supposed to grant their wearer special powers.  I’ve got some problems with this concept.  First of all, anybody who isn’t from Outworld that kills someone with this marking will receive it, making them a “chosen one.”  It doesn’t make sense.  Secondly, the power that the marking is supposed to unlock is called an “arcana.”  Why wouldn’t you just call it “chi,” since it apparently amounts to be the same thing?  But each person’s arcana grants each person different abilities. Liu Kang’s is the fireball, Jax gets super-strength with his mechanical arms, Kano can fire a laser from his eye and Kung Lao can teleport and toss a hat.  Apparently, if you don’t unlock your arcana, you can’t beat Outworlders at all.  Um…bullshit?  I guess somebody that this was a good idea, so they can ramp up the tension.  It doesn’t, actually.  It’s just the writers screwing with established mythology.  I mean, Cole Young gets body armor and a pair of tonfas.  BODY. ARMOR.  That’s the best they can come up with?  Don’t get me started on the film’s dialogue.  It’s atrocious.  It’s almost Mortal Kombat: Annihilation levels of bad.

There’s other stuff that’s kind of mixed.  The fight choreography is outstanding…when you can see it.  The fight at the beginning and the end of Mortal Kombat are the best fights in the film, bar none.  Not only can you see what’s going on, but it’s clearly Hiroyuki Sanada and Joe Taslim doing the bulk of the action.  Lewis Tan gets some moments to shine, and he’s a respectable martial artist like his father, but the problem with the majority of the fights in the film, is that they are hampered by some really bad editing.  There’s not a ton of shaky-cam, thank the gods, but the quick-editing really gets old fast.  The visual effects and the CGI are actually pretty top-notch, especially with the four-armed beast-man, Goro.  He’s a fully CGI-character, and while you can see that, it allows the character to move in a way that you really couldn’t with a practical puppet.  The blood is certainly CGI, but as I mentioned earlier, it’s stylized and it makes for the kind of film that we have here.  There’s also some solid practical effects and moments throughout the film that are much appreciated.  The cinematography is a bit of a toss-up, I’m afraid.  While certain shots look really good, there are moments in the film that are painfully obvious that they are done on a soundstage in front of a green-screen.  Also, while the film’s soundtrack DOES include the famous “MORTAL KOMBAT!!!(Techno Syndrome)” theme song by the Immortals, it’s remixed in a way that I really don’t like.  For a movie that takes itself so seriously, would it have hurt to include the original version of the theme song?

While it seems like I’m really coming down hard on 2021’s Mortal Kombat, I have to be truthful here:  I actually enjoyed it quite a bit.  It took me a couple of viewings, but I’ve found that the movie is growing on me.  For all the problems that the movie has, there’s a lot to like here, especially for fans.  There’s a lot of fan service here, and if you look carefully, there are plenty of Easter-eggs to be found.  The film is also paced pretty well.  I was never actually bored.  For a first-time director in Simon McQuoid and writer Greg Russo, Mortal Kombat is far from the worst thing I’ve ever seen.  All you have to do is look at the previous live-action Mortal Kombat film.  I think the problem that a lot of people have had, and rightfully so, is that this film is actually a prelude to the actual tournament, which is what everybody wanted to see.  From what I understand, Mortal Kombat did well enough on HBO Max and in theaters to warrant getting at least one sequel, even though Warner is planning for three more.  That will depend on how well the sequel does.  I, for one, am looking forward to seeing it, because it could very well be a proper Mortal Kombat film.  I know that Joe Taslim signed a contract for a few more as Sub-Zero, but as with anything in Hollywood, those contracts won’t mean a thing if the films don’t get off the ground.  There’s real potential here for an epic tournament-style film, and I think it could happen.  But they need a new director and screen-writer to get it done properly.

In spite of Mortal Kombat’s issues, I absolutely would recommend it to fans of the game, but ONLY to the fans of the game.  Despite the fact that the lead character, Cole Young, is supposed to be the audience’s entry into the world of Mortal Kombat, there are things in this movie that only fans are going to appreciate.  From the character designs to the fatalities and violence, this most likely won’t appeal to a lot of people outside of the main fanbase.  But to be fair, that fanbase is huge.  The franchise would not be where it is right now without them, that much I know for sure.

My Final Recommendation: GET OVER HERE!…to see this movie.  7/10