Barrett Brief Movie Review – Mortal Kombat: Sequel Bait 

Barrett Brief Movie Review – Mortal Kombat: Sequel Bait

Summary: MMA fighter Cole Young seeks out Earth’s greatest champions in order to stand against the enemies of Outworld in a high stakes battle for the universe.

Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy

Oh Warner Bros. and your desperate attempts to get those lucrative franchises going. One quick look at their catalog and you will see that outside of Godzilla, IT & The Conjuring, there are not many lucrative IP’s at their disposal. So it isn’t a surprise that Mortal Kombat is nothing more than another attempt at jumpstarting another franchise. People will immediately compare this to the 1995 version (which, full disclosure, I am a fan of), and despite greater visual effects, better fight choreography & an R rating to up the gore factor, this version fails to A) rise above the visual noise it presents and B) deliver one single character anyone should actually care about. All in all, Mortal Kombat is a letdown in the main event.

A Lack Of Focus

One of the problems many video game adaptations face is that they never commit to a plot. Mortal Kombat has a sting of very well executed combat scenes, but the film really doesn’t know what to do in between them. The film really doesn’t care about these characters unless they are engaged in punchy mode. As a result, we have a laughable excuse for a plot that takes it’s time in the first half of the film, then goes into turbo mode as it tries to wrap up all the “plot” points by the end. The only thing this film does is reinforce why very few video game films ever rise about their source material. They advertise “LOOK AT THESE FIGHTS!” and yes they are good, but without any kind of character development, I got bored towards the end.

 The Cast

If they set out to find the most wooden actors to play these parts, then the director knocked it out of the park! I honestly mean no offense, and the script does them no favors with its outline style plot, but I felt no connection to any of them. Our “main” character, Cole Young (Lewis Tan) is serviceable, but he doesn’t react to any of the events that are happening around him. For pete’s sake, there is a dude throwing icicles at him and he remains expressionless. Sonia (Jessica McNamee) is the worst offender. Her mono-tone tough chick approach to everything had me rolling my eyes by the end of the film. The only standout was Kano (Josh Lawson) only because he had some sort of personality. I actually chuckled at a few of his one-liners. Outside of him, I felt nothing for the rest.

Plot & Pacing

Terrible. I have already told you how I feel about the plot. The pacing is atrocious. Anytime there wasn’t fighting, the film slows to a crawl. I lay that at the feet of Simon McQuoid, this is his first big budget movie and it shows. I don’t know how he landed the job, but he wasn’t ready. *SPOILERS* Did I mention we don’t even get to see the tournament? Nope, this entire film is on earth, pre-tournament. The end of the film sees our fighter looking for other champions to train for the upcoming tournament. So what did I just waste my time watching? I’ll tell you what it was, an fancy, expensive, rated R prequel, which is not what was advertised. This should have been a 4 episode show on HBO MAX in anticipation of an actually Mortal Kombat film

Technical notes

The big draw into this film is the R rating. Who cares, you get more blood, that’s it. Trust me, it does very little to cover up the films problems. I will give a hat tip to the fight choreography, it was the only redeeming part of the film.

Overall

Mortal Kombat is 110 minutes of sequel bait designed to jumpstart another dormant IP for Warner Bros. A R rating and well choreographed fight scenes cannot cover a barely-there plot.

Score: 1 1/2 Briefcases

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