Way I see it, the sequel to this can't be any worse. If a new MK cinematic universe has to start off small to test the waters before it gets big with the tournament and everything, is what it is I guess.
Looking forward to an animated sequel/Scorpion's Revenge followup more now though, but at least MK media will be prominent again, for better or worse.
I re-watched Paul Anderson MK and...
It may be the nostalgia talking, but I actually still find the assortment of character actors and cheesy premise really entertaining, even though most of the digital effects are horribly dated. It has fun set pieces and Goro still holds up pretty well because he's practical.
I'm halfway or so through MK 2021 now, and it's pretty generic so far. Kano fortunately appeared and added some actual character to the assortment of bland filler. Some of the updated effects are nice, but most of the characters are just dull and uninteresting. I hope it gets better... I haven't even gotten to Scorpion or Goro yet..
Finished it.
Yeah, Goro was way better in the original. He was a lame Hulk wannabe in this.
Generic villains and bland main character. I'm definitely not anticipating any sequels.
And what was with the weird Tron-esque soundtrack? I mean, the original techno themes may seem a little cheesy now, but at least they dared to be memorable, and they remain iconic to this day, so that they payed homage to it for the credits. (A dubstep version, of course.) None of the music was memorable.
Originally posted by Ridley_Prime
This film did him the worst by far though. No buildup, attacked a car, had but one halfbaked fight scene, and then was done away with once the WB studio mandated character discovered his power.At least in the other films Goro got to kill or show off his strength for awhile first.
Yeah, the Goro scene was pretty bad, though I was amused by the fact that Cole grew literal plot armour to deal with him.
Originally posted by Nemesis Xuncock your hand
Goro was reduced down to a gamma dog from Ang Lee's Hulk in that scene. The disrespect is real.
Alright got done with my second viewing of this movie.
For a general movie score I would give it 6/10
For my personal enjoyment of it I'll give it 8-9/10.
I think one of things that needs to be accounted for here is that the budget for this movie was below average at around 50 million. This is especially low for a blockbuster movie. Even 2014's Godzilla had a budget a much higher budget.
Even if you want to stick to the R movie category Deadpool in 2016 still had a slightly higher budget than this movie. When adjusted for inflation it probably had a 10-20 million dollar advantage over this movie. Plus Deadpool had a notable actor in Ryan Reynolds using all of his connections to make that movie.
That's not to make excuses for this movie but when I looked at the budget it does explain some of this movies issues.
Those issues being:
- pacing issues with the plot
- some poor effects here and there
- No top tier actors (Some of the acting was definitely lacking)
- Scenes that definitely needed more takes
That being said it's not too long and the cringe worthy scenes go by fast enough and this movie had some good elements to it.
I liked the update to the Mortal Kombat lore with the dragon markings and Arcana(Although I wish they came up with a better name for it)
Kano was a surprise blast. He definitely helped carry some scenes to make them more enjoyable.
Kung Lao and Lui King while maybe not acting forces in this movie definitely made their combat scenes entertaining.
Them plus Kano made a great scene at the dinner table.
Jax's actor is always solid and he did good here. The actor specializes in playing cool and cavalier characters which is exactly what Jax is.
Sonya's actor was hit or miss.
Cole's actor I think did good with the material he was given but the character as a whole was underwhelmingly but that's because we didn't really get much time to explore his motivations other than his one cage match.
I think Shang Tsung and Raiden were fine as characters and in the acting department.
The real MVPs of this movie though are any scenes featuring Sub-Zero or Scorpion. They both did amazing and you can tell this is the storyline was where the crew put their most effort in. The actors were awesome. Want to make a special call out to Sub-Zero's actor whose eye movements and articulation added so much his scenes. Especially since all you could see were his eyes for most of his scenes. And the fights they were in were awesome.
The opening scene was awesome. Just flat out awesome and the final fight didn't disappoint either.
I think if this series gets an extra 10-15 million per movie you'll notice many of the problems of this one fall off a little bit.