Full of spoilers. This was a fun-ish movie. Let me just get that out of the way first. The biggest problem I have with it is this weird thing that is going on in a lot of movies where the main character has no personality. They are just a tool to keep the movie going. Also, the fact that I would have 100% rather have seen the story that began this movie instead of anything after. It begins in Japan hundreds of years ago with Hanzo (aka Scorpion) living a nice ass life with his wife and children. He goes to get some water when Bi-Han (Sub-Zero) assassinates them. Hanzo comes home and starts slicing ninjas to death in a very cool scene. He sees his family frozen in ice and has a cool fight with Sub-Zero who ends up slicing him up and leaves. Hanzo crawls towards his house hearing his baby crying (mama hid her under the house) before dying. Raiden shows up and takes the child away.
Now. This could have been the entire movie to me. Just seeing Scorpion in hell coming back as Sub-Zero's trash ass stayed on Earth and with Shang Tsung. But no. We go to this MMA fighter that gets his ass kicked named Cole Young. He has a wife and daughter. He love them. Its boring. He heads out to dinner when it starts snowing. Its all cute until these ice chunks start flying. Its Sub-Zero! Cole has a Mortal Kombat symbol on his skin and Shang Tsung is trying to cheat the system and kill anyone with it before the next tournament.
Jax who he met earlier helps them escape before getting his arms frozen off by Sub-Zero. Cole hides his family and goes to find Sonya Blade who has captured Kano. Kano has the MK symbol which transferred after killing someone else. By the way, Kano is one of the best parts of this movie. He acts the most natural in a situation where you find out there are folks running around with superpowers fighting in a tournament to save humanity. He starts off bad, joins the good fighters, but decides to join the bad guys. I won't spend much time talking about the other fighters because honestly I'm not all that interested. Sonya is okay. Liu Kang is okay. Kung Lao is okay. Jax is okay. The bad guys are not impressive.
Later in the movie when Scorpion arrives again is when I was excited. Like, this is not a bad movie. The characters just aren't all that interesting. This also isn't as gory as everyone was making it out to be. This had the potential to be a really cool movie but the story was weak and the editing was choppy as hell during the fight scenes. I kept thinking “Just let the camera not cut for five seconds, please?” I loved the first film back in the 90's and still watch it every two years. It was fun. The fights were cheesy but cool. The practical effects on Goro still looked good over 20 years later. But with this one I don't need to watch it ever again. Check it out if you want on HBO Max.
Lewis Tan as Cole Young
Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade
Josh Lawson as Kano
Tadanobu Asano as Lord Raiden
Mehcad Brooks as Jax
Ludi Lin as Liu Kang
Chin Han as Shang Tsung
Joe Taslim as Bi-Han/Sub-Zero
Hiroyuki Sanada as Hanzo Hasashi/Scorpion
Max Huang as Kung Lao
Sisi Stringer as Mileena
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