Mortal Kombat review: I don’t know what’s happening but Kano is funny

The new reboot of Mortal Kombat is a plodding, nonsensical disaster bereft of charisma that should have never been made. But Kano was pretty funny.

Back in 1992, I snuck over to a neighbor’s house to play the now legendary video game Mortal Kombat. Thanks to an aggressive campaign by the United States government to censor the blood and violence the game contained, it had a mythical quality to it among kids my age. The 1995 Mortal Kombat movie rode that mystique to cult status, but while the original game series would be improved upon over the next several decades, the 1995 film remains the pinnacle of Mortal Kombat cinema.

When I sat down on my couch to watch the latest iteration on HBO Max (thank Raiden I didn’t pay to see it in theaters), I wasn’t expecting anything great. I wasn’t expecting the second coming of John Wick 3 from directorial newcomer Simon McQuoid, but I was hoping for something at least as good as the 1995 original. And yet somehow the new film miss that mark by a wide range. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where the film goes wrong, but only because there is so little that works. From one-note heroes and villains to fight scenes that are mediocre at best, the film feels bereft of charisma. Even the soundtrack is lackluster, as opposed to the overtly in-your-face techno score of the original, which at least managed to get your heart beating.

But those are the broad strokes; let’s get down to the nitty gritty. Perhaps the film’s biggest sin is it’s decision to abandon the entire premise of Mortal Kombat: a tournament between realms determining which rules the other. Instead, bad guy Shang Tsung decides to simply kill all of Earth’s champions ahead of the formal fights, which is somehow not forbidden by tournament rules. What’s the point in even establishing the tournament if one side can simply massacre the other side’s champions as they eat dinner? Sure, Shang Tsung tried the same idea in the first film, but was checked by Raiden’s power. Here, Raiden throws up some sort of thunder shield around his temple and then apparently has more important things to do when Tsung manages to bring it down and ambush all his fighters later in the film.

I know, I shouldn’t expect coherence from a film about four-armed giants and bat women beating the pulp out of each other, but very little in the film made any sort of sense. I don’t mind that the film poured buckets of blood all over everything — that’s on par with the video games — but this is a movie, and some kind of coherent plot would have been appreciated.

Every character here felt like a cliche, and that’s when they were able to make you feel anything at all. Even Kano, easily the film’s most entertaining character, feels rote: he’s the comic relief guy. That Kano made me laugh out loud more than once was never enough to make the film overall  feel worth my time. Rarely did I understand why, or even what, many of the characters were doing. You’d be better off just re-watching the 1995 original.

To put it another way, let me steal a quote from the legendary film Billy Madison (which co-starred original Mortal Kombat star Bridgette Wilson): “What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

Grade: D-

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