Mortal Kombat

This is a movie.

I bet the ways from Midway (creators of the MK series of games) did buy a few tickets to go to the Street Fighter movie premiere to check their foes flick. Most certainly they must have taken a few notebooks with them to point the strengths and weaknesses of the film to avoid becoming a lame parody of themselves in their movie project as the guys of SF did.

Shang Tsung.

Now, Mortal Kombat as a videogame is a complete different universe in comparison with Street Fighter and the many knock-off fighting games that tried to be their own Street Fighter. Mortal Kombat in the very first place had a storyline that binded every character's own story to give them enough reasons to be a part of the Mortal Kombat tournament. So, for the film maker it was very easy deal with the storyline, also I give them credit for focusing on the first Mortal Kombat characters only, rather than choosing from the Mortal Kombat II extended list of characters that could have been a  certified mess for average movie goers and fans as well.

The Good Guys.

The movie is the mirror image of the original videogame in all its senses. First, the storyline is the same; some evil dude named Shang Tsung plans to conquer earth  through the MK tournament by using his current champion (Goro) to beat the crap out of every contestant. As Tsung represents the evil, Raiden, the elder god of thunder (played by Christopher Lambert) represents the good but, there's one rule that goes like no God shall interfere in the MK tournament, so Raiden travels to earth to seek for the strongest most capable human being fighters (Liu-Kang, Johnny Cage & Sonya Blade) of course there's the other side which has Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Reptile & Kano as the evil counterparts.  

My personal favorite, Scorpion.

Fap, Fap, Fap, Fap.

As in Street Fighter, everyone has random reasons to fight in the MK tournament, fortunately those reasons remain true to the original characters story, so Liu Kang is our martial hero champ (only here they add the fact that Shang Tsung killed his brother to add the revenge touch) Jhonny Cage is a martial arts actor tired of being considered a fake, so he enters the tournament to prove everyone wrong and yes, hot Sonya Blade is a special agent in search of Kano a smuggler of the worst kind. Another extra story element is the appearance of MK II's character Kitana, who happens to be the step daughter of the evil ruler of the outworld Shao-Khan. Her role here is to bridge the good guys from earth with her quest for getting rid of Shang Tsung, and turning back the outworld into the original peaceful world of Edenia.

Sub-Zero and his rogues.

Sub-Zero V/S Liu Kang.

The special effects are cool enough, Goro looks almost real, the super power attacks also look quite nice, the suits are all true to the MK game.The action is also pretty good, there's enough explanation and enough fighting to make it all like a real story. The soundtrack is probably the only let down of the film, I mean techno? c'mon guys!! the MK videogame soundtrack was awesome, it had all the Asian folk vibe that made you believe you were actually a part of some martial arts tournament not an Euro disco frenzy!!! Despite my comment on the soundtrack, the main theme of the film was quite a success, and has been used since by many as a training theme.

Liu Kang.

Overall this is one of the very few films based on videogames that did have their rightful success on the big screen, just make sure you don't watch the sequel Mortal Kombat Annihilation, and everything will be just fine.

A must watch for martial arts lovers of all kinds.

Here's the movie trailer: