The premise of this movie is simple. It exists in a world filled with multiple realms, and there's one in particular, called Outworld, that wants to invade earth. However, they can't just bring their army and attack the way you see in most movies. No, there are rules for this sort of thing, so to invade another realm, Outworld has to win ten straight Mortal Kombat tournaments. Each tournament pits the best fighters of both realms against each other, and Outworld is currently on a nine-tournament win streak against earth. If they win the next one, they can finally take it as their prize.
The situation is pretty dire, so humanity's champions have to do their best to defeat their enemies and stop Outworld from taking over their world. Interestingly, though, this film isn't actually about the tournament. Instead, it's kind of like a prequel. Outworld is sending assassins to kill off all of earth's best fighters, so the good guys have to band together and make sure they survive until the tournament can actually start. It's an interesting concept, and I think it works. It sets the film apart from the first Mortal Kombat movie from 1995, and it gives the franchise some room to breathe and to build up the story more than they could in just a single film (assuming that this one gets some sequels).
So what did I think of the movie? Like I said before, it's super fun, and that's hands down its biggest strength. It has some really great fights, and just about all of them feature the violence and blood the video games are known for. If you're a fan of gory martial arts action with a few superpowers thrown in, then you're going to enjoy the fights in this movie.
On top of those awesome fights, the film also does a great job of bringing to life some of the most iconic characters from the video games. They look and feel just like the characters I remember playing as and against about twenty-five years ago, so if you're a Mortal Kombat fan, you're going to get a huge kick out of seeing beloved favorites like Liu Kang, Raiden, Goro, and Sub-Zero do their thing.
If you're not already a fan of the franchise, it's tough for me to say how I think you'll react to the characters, but I can say one thing. Since I only played the first three games, and since I played them so long ago, I don't remember all the little details about the mythology, so there were a bunch of things in this movie that were new to me. But I still really enjoyed all the lore in it even when I didn't remember it from my gaming days, so I suspect that there might be enough here for non-fans to enjoy as well.
All that being said, I have to admit that as much fun as I had with this movie, it's far from perfect. In fact, I'd probably even go so far as to say that it's more of a fun movie than a good movie. It's very, very flawed. Most notably for me, a bunch of the dialogue was pretty cringe-worthy. The film tried to incorporate some of the most famous phrases from the video games, like "flawless victory" and "finish him," but they often come out feeling very cheesy and out of place. To take just one example, there's a shot in the trailer where the character Kano wins a fight and then says "Kano wins," and in the trailer it's really cool. But when you see it in the movie, it doesn't make much sense. The filmmakers tried a bit too hard on that front, and the end result probably would've been better if they had just left those lines out of the script.
On a more "big picture" note, even though I really enjoyed seeing some of my favorite Mortal Kombat characters brought to life, they're not exactly great examples of narrative complexity and nuance. The vast majority of them, especially the Outworld forces, are pretty one-dimensional, and the same is true of the story as a whole. There's simply not much substance behind it. It basically just serves as an excuse to showcase the cool fights, so in that sense, it's kind of like the plot of the recent Godzilla vs Kong. If you're looking for deep metaphorical meanings or a shining example of the fine art of cinema, you're not going to find it here. This movie is all about having fun, so if you go into it wanting anything more than that, you're going to be disappointed.
But if you're OK with that, you're going to have a really good time with this film. It has awesome action, really cool characters, and all the blood and gore that I remember from when I used to put in the "blood code" in the very first Mortal Kombat game on Sega Genesis. It hit all the right nostalgia buttons for me, so while I wish the story were a bit deeper, I'm not disappointed at all. On the contrary, I just got done watching it on HBO Max, and I can't wait to go to the theater in a few days and see it again.
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