Mortal Kombat (1995)

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Interestingly enough, despite it not being the best movie out there for a general movie-going audience, it seems fairly unanimous that as far as best life-action video game adaptations go, 1995's 'Mortal Kombat' is likely the best candidate. What more can be said than this was a movie that looked at the game it was based on and said "okay, let's just do that". One must also bear in mind that this was 1995, and the 'Mortal Kombat' franchise was only up to 'Mortal Kombat 3', which had just been released, so most of this was drawn from the first two games.

Let's also take a moment to talk about these games. Back the early 90s when these games were first released, it was all subject to controversy; being a little too realistic with its violence. When I was a kid, I remember wanting to rent it so badly, but it was probably the only game my mother ever didn't want me playing. Possibly because she knew how much of a gaming temper I had, and 'Mortal Kombat' wouldn't have set the right example. Anyway, when you think about those games now, it's just a bit of rough pixelation to look at anymore, and no big deal compared to a ton of games around these days. But at the time, it was a huge deal because "yay, there's blood and gore and crazy brutal finishing moves!" (before you could look them up on the internet).

When 1995 rolled around and that first trailer for the 'Mortal Kombat' movie aired, everyone was pretty damn psyched. Finally, unlike out last three video game-based movies, we had something that honest to God looked right. There was fighting, all of our favourite characters (of the time) were in some way involved, and I honestly remember being somewhat blown away at the time when I first saw it. Now that we've spanned another 25-plus years since, there's a lot about the film's aesthetic that looks just plain awful. A lot of the acting and bad dialogue is also present. But so help me, even watching this nowadays in comparison to the 2021 remake, I have to say I still prefer this. But where this lacks, the other possesses. If you could take the best of both, you'd have something just right (although a lot of the acting still needs a boost).

Once a generation, there's a tournament consisting of the best fighters from Earth and a realm called Outworld called 'Mortal Kombat'. Outworld poses a lingering threat to Earth, as if they achieve ten consecutive victtories, the invasion on Eath will commence, and the Emperor will send his armies in to take Earth over and basically make it another Outworld. The tenth win teeters, balanced by Outworld's champions; among others, host Shang Tsung (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), the undefeated General Goro (Kevin Michael Richardson/Tom Woodruff Jr.) and fighters under Tsung's control, Scorpion (Chris Casamassa), Sub-Zero (François Petit) and Reptile (Keith Cooke).

Meanwhile, God of Thunder, and Protector of Earth Realm, Raiden (Christopher Lambert) hand-picks Shaolin monk, Liu Kang (Robin Shu), Hollywood action star, Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby) and special forces officer, Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson-Sampras) to fight against Outworld in the tournament, representing Earth's finest warriors (so to speak). Each have personal motivation - Liu is out for revenge, as Tsung killed his brother, Sonya is lured into the tournament by Kano (Trevor Goddard) who once killed her partner, and Cage is out to debunk claims that his fighting skills are fake and hopefully save his career. As the film unfolds, it's just about exactly what one would expect a 'Mortal Kombat' movie to be. It's a whole lot of fighting between some of our favourite game characters, ultimately leading to a final battle with Shang-Tsung.

Despite how incredibly cheesy this has become, I would probably still consider this a personal favourite for video game movies. It's hard to believe that this was directed by the same guy who gave us our 'Resident Evil' movies that end up being pretty damn far-separated from the games. Nowadays, this is one title that provides an interesting time capsule that a LOT of video game directors, producers, writers etc. need to take another look at. If you can get past the bad quality early CG, and some of the corny dialogue, it's a good example of fans being delivered pretty much what they ask for. The game is simple enough, and therefore the movie is simple enough - really, it's just a whole bunch of one-on-one fighting. To the average Joe, that sounds like such a bad thing. But it's 'Mortal Kombat', and it's hard to really want much more than that.

3/5

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