![]() Yes, the dialogue is borderline ridiculous - “We didn’t win nine straight tournaments by playing by the rules,” says a chief bad guy - but thankfully we don’t have to wade through much of it between bouts overstuffed with limb-ripping, lasers, fire and ice. No matter how you spell it, the combat comes fast, and while perhaps not quite furious, it is at least reliable. ![]() (In the 90’s, I was strictly a Jax man, the ex-Special Forces Goliath with bionic arms, here played by Mehcad Brooks, James Olsen on The CW’s Supergirl.) This makes the chief new addition to the series - a past-his-prime MMA fighter named Cole Young (Chinese-British actor Lewis Tan) who engages with his destiny as Earth’s savior with all the urgency of a man doing his laundry on a Sunday - a uniquely ineffective choice for a lead character.īut what Mortal Kombat lacks in urgency, it makes up for in fights. ![]() Instead, for audience connection, the film relies entirely on the fact that one of them was your favorite to play at some point in your life. In keeping with their video game origins, the characters haven’t much by way of an emotional life, or personalities for that matter. Starring: Lewis Tan, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Mehcad Brooks, Tadanobu Asano, Max Huang, Hiroyuki Sanada and Joe Taslim Written by: Greg Russo and Dave Callaham (screenplay) Oren Uziel and Greg Russo (story) Within the movie itself, it feels like there is comparably little at stake. And now they have to side-eye HBO Max, whose customers for a limited time get access to the movie at the same moment that they do, and at no additional cost.īut that I spent so much of the movie concerned about the fate of theater distribution points to a fundamental issue with first-time director Simon McQuoid’s film, the first entrant in the series based on the beloved video game franchise in some 24 years. Unable to safely compete in over a year, their current record against the Outworld of streaming services is arguably much worse. It is difficult to consider this predicament and not think of movie theater exhibitors, whose business has long relied on the gore-hungry sentimentalists who are driven towards this sort of bloody spectacle, as long as it’s sanitized in a recognizable IP.
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