Critics mostly think Mortal Kombat is the good kind of bad

Mortal Kombat comes out today in theaters and on HBO Max, and the reviews are…mixed. Some appreciate the video game adaptation as good dumb fun, others call it out for being nonsensical, and some think it’s an example of the problems with the movie industry today. But mostly, it sounds like if you know what you’re getting into, you’ll have a decent time.

The good Mortal Kombat reviews

The Mortal Kombat video game franchise has been running for decades, and has recently been having a comeback with a series of more story-heavy games. Video game movies traditionally have a bad reputation when it comes to cinematic adaptations, and as far as the medium has come in the past 30 years, I don’t think anyone will mistake the new Mortal Kombat movie for high art. This is a movie about people beating the tar out of each other in inventive, violent ways, and it sounds like it delivers. “We’re here for the martial arts carnage and a few middle-school-level wisecracks,” writes critic Nell Minow, “and that we get.”

Jordan Hoffman of TV Guide offers similar backhanded praise: “A successful movie if you measure success by how many gruesome ways one person can murder another in battle.” And I think a lot of people will. Meagan Navarro of Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgustingis a little more direct:

"While densely packed and less serious than it takes itself, Mortal Kombat succeeds in soaring spectacle and gory fun that fully whets your appetite for more."

Finally, Bob Strauss of the San Francisco Chronicle compares the new movie favorably to the 1995 adaptation, which still holds a place in the hearts of fans of a certain age as a dumb but fun ride: “Fights are imaginatively conceived and presented with gratifying punch, framed and edited in ways that showcase the athletic choreography. And there’s no obfuscating ’90s quick-cutting to ruin these sequences.”

The bad Mortal Kombat reviews

Decades on, we still have reviews making cracks about the source material of video game movies. “In spite of its occasionally engaging displays of gnarly brutality, the film too often feels like an adaptation of a player select screen,” writes Jake Cole of Slant Magazine. Meanwhile, David Ehrlich of IndieWire thinks the movie improves on the 1995 film, but that “it’s hard to shake the dull sensation that video game movies are now playing us.”

Critic Perri Nemiroff is more direct in her criticism, although she can still see the movie’s charm: “A big old choppy mess that’s far from the quality adaptation many hoped for, but has just enough bright spots to make it passable entertainment.”

Some critics go deeper, and see Mortal Kombat as emblematic of worrisome trends in the film industry. Ty Burr of the Boston Globe says that it’s “mostly an exercise in the care and feeding of intellectual property, which is the main order of studio business these days.” Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times has a similar take: “The wooden dialogue and indifferent performances aren’t bugs so much as features of a corporate mindset that sees IP fidelity and imaginative storytelling as mutually exclusive aims.”

The split Mortal Kombat reviews

As for the movie itself, though, most critics seem to agree that there’s something to enjoy here. “Mortal Kombat would have benefitted from a number of things – a sharper sense of humour, a more coherent script, some tighter editing, less techno music – but its sheer manic energy might just about be enough for some,” writes Benjamin Lee of The Guardian. And Alonso Duralde of TheWrap was “entertained by Mortal Kombat more often than I wasn’t, but I can’t guarantee that I had the kind of good time that the filmmakers intended to create.”

Basically, I go back to what I saw before: if you go in knowing you’re going to get a movie that wants to entertain you with gleefully fights, you’ll probably have a good time. And since it’s available to watch now, you can decide for yourself!

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels