So this premiered on HBO Max today. I went in expecting nothing and left having seen a movie that was between a 7.5 -7.75.
I won’t spoil much here but here are some comments.
Kano absolutely stole the show. By far the best written and acted character in the movie. The guy playing him just knocked it out of the lark.
The encounters between Sub Zero and Scorpion were extremely well done and did not disappoint. I couldn’t place the actor playing SZ until the end. He was one of the main cops in The Raid, which explains why he was such a badass.
Kung Lao and Kabal were both very well realized. I was happy with their “move set” and acting.
Sonja and Jax were as well acted as they could have been. Those characters have only ever been an inch deep so they didn’t have much to work with. As an aside the actress who played Sonja was beautiful though.
Mileena makeup was phenomenal. She looked brutal.
Lui Kang was a total bust though. It wasn’t the actors fault so much as the fact that he was perfectly cast in the 1990s MK movie. He was very cheesy in this one. Lui Kang wasn’t a big dude but this guy seemed way to smal.
All of the effects were good, especially SZ. Nothing seemed cheaped out on. Kabals mask MAYBE could have been a little more realistic but he was very recognizable and the voice acting was great.
The main fighter, forgettable MMA guy, was a solid actor and had the body and moves for this flick but he’s not a real MK room so it’s hard to be invested in him.
Did I mention Kano stole the show?
Anyone else watch this today? Spoilers after this post
Apparently most of his best lines were ad libbed. I hope they bring him back, since its MK it’s certainly doable. None of the fights really wowed me, they weren’t bad but they also didn’t really stand out, and for this franchise which is relying entirely on the fight scenes that is not a great sign. I’d probably watch the sequel they set up, not going through with the tournament or killing off the bad guy was a bold choice but it worked.
I thought the 1995 version was exactly the movie it needed to be. It was exactly the right level of goofy. I thought this one was…meh. It tried for a more grounded, gritty approach, which, ok, the original video games were brutal, that was the whole point, but I don’t think it really works for a live-action movie adaptation. The whole concept is just so goofy, but the 2021 version takes itself so seriously. Except when a character uses an iconic line, when they might was well turn to the camera and wink at the audience. It’s just jarring.
I agree about Kano. Easily the best, most interesting character in the movie. He’s very much living the trope but with an actor who’s having fun hamming it up, which was the most fun part of the movie. And then the movie subverts the trope, and the bad guy that joins the good guys turns out to just be the guy he first appeared to be and really is just a bad guy, which I thought was a good choice.
I’m listening to the 1995 theme right now, which was also exactly right for that movie. One of the YouTube comments (made shortly before the 2021 movie was released) was that it would be perfect for the climactic scene to have the good guys seemingly beaten, the bad guys about to win, and then the 1995 theme kicks in as the heroes rally and thrash the bad guys. Of course, that idea was far too beautiful for the real world.
Did you watch the movie all the way thru because that was almost exactly what happened in the climax of this movie. Sub Zero killing good guy and Scorpions spear flying in to catch his arm, several bars of the 1995 theme music then “GET OVER HERE!”
I did, in fact, watch the movie the whole way through. We got a few bars, not the theme. And then a long, brutal fight. It was a throwaway Easter Egg for folks who remembered the 1995 movie, not the rousing kick-ass heroes triumphant scene choreographed to that ultimate fight music that I would have loved to have seen. Which is what it is. The movie makers are of course under no obligation to make the movie I would have wanted to have seen.
Spoilers about that clip: This is all from seconds 28-57 of the clip posted above.
The editing is atrocious. Now maybe the youtuber edited this clip all out of order but no where is that mentioned by him or the commenters. And it is titled as the “Full Fight Scene”.
At second 35 Scorpion goes from kicking off of a pole to launch himself back at Sub-Zero mid-fight and passes past Sub-Zero maybe 2 feet away. The next instance they are 6 feet apart and rushing at each other.
Several seconds later Scorpion is on a bended knee blocking Sub-Zero’s ice sword with his sword, whose tip a couple of inches above the ground. Then next instance Scorpion is standing with his back to Sub-Zero and stabbing him in the side with his knife on a chain, “throwing scorpion tail stinger thingy”, and throwing Sub-Zero to the ground causing him to slide a couple of feet into Scorpion’s sword which is planted into the ground about 6 feet away from where he, seconds before, blocked Sub-Zero’s ice sword. Some how Scorpion’s knife on a chain had wrapped itself around his sword< planted into the ground, and he pulls on it to have his sword come flying back into his hand.
(Ok, I watched it several more times and Scorpion had planted his sword into the ground at the 28 second mark, but 3 seconds later his sword is in his hand and he is fighting Sub-Zero with it. And it’s not a second sword he got from somewhere as the sword that he had planted 3 seconds earlier is no where to be seen in the ground from seconds 31 to 43 when it magically appears back in the ground and not in his hand.)
At second 50 his sword is no longer in his hand, nor is it in his scabbard on his back, and he is being beaten by Sub-Zero. At the 57 second mark he is pulling his sword out from the scabbard on his back.
The editing continues to be terrible.
At 1:44 a third guy appears out of no where.
Sub-Zero’s mask magically disappears.
Anyways, despite all that I am still excited to watch it and I am looking forward to it.
That clip is a chopped up version of that scene. There are all sorts of cuts and jumps that don’t appear in the scene as it appears in the movie. It’s a good taste of the FX, stunt work, cinematography, etc. in the movie, but the editing in the movie is completely different.
I didn’t like the movie nearly as @Mahaloth did, but I will say that unlike some action movies, I never felt lost during any of the fight scenes. It seemed clear to me the whole way through where everyone was in the scene and in relation to each other. I wasn’t all that impressed by the fight choreography - it wasn’t bad, by any means, but it didn’t really stand out to me, either. But I didn’t notice the blocking and editing, which is how that’s supposed to work, so flawless victory for that element, I suppose.
Hmm. You seem to have been looking for an updated version of the 1995 MK movie vs an updated take on the MK game which is fair. The movie you wanted was made in 1995. I think playing any more of the 1995 theme music here would have changed the whole feel of the movie in a bad way. Don’t get me wrong, there was plenty of cheese in this movie, but any extended playing of that theme music would have made the movie feel like a cheerleading competition plucked out of 1997.
All of the Sub Zero ice effects were top notch in this one. Very realistic looking.
I don’t know that I would say I was looking for an updated version of the 1995 movie, but I think I probably would have preferred that. As I stated upthread, I thought the 1995 movie was pretty much exactly the movie it needed to be, and hit just about exactly the right level of goofiness. I agree an extended fight scene with the 1995 theme would have been an off-putting tonal shift from the rest of the movie, but I think they actually managed that pretty well themselves anyway with the way they jammed in the iconic lines.
Here’s a question: how much enjoyment depends on knowledge of the video game and characters? I didn’t have a video game system growing up in the 80s, so all I absorbed were some catchphrases and a few names/superpowers.
I would say if you have no familiarity with the MK universe going in it’s not going to be as entertaining for you. A lot of the enjoyment comes from seeing live realizations of iconic video game characters. If they made the same movie but with original creations it would have been a 3-4 at best.
I saw the movie in a theater today (hooray for being fully vaccinated!) and I thought that, in terms of big dumb action movies that aren’t meant to be taken seriously, it was pretty good. The only real gripe I had is that Cole is such a weenie for most of the movie. I know he’s supposed to be the Campbellian Hero who starts as an everyman and reluctantly undertakes a transformative adventure, but aside from his Big Damn Hero moment where he takes out Goro, his sole purpose seems to be getting beaten up until one of the video game characters saves him. He doesn’t even get to save his family from Sub-Zero and redeem his legacy - Scorpion steals his thunder at the end of the fight. I would’ve preferred to see Cole become Scorpion when he unlocked his powers and thus avenge Hanzo vicariously.
I saw one review that compared it to a Sam Raimi movie, and that feels apt - it’s not quite as bloody as Evil Dead 2, but the gore is certainly over-the-top enough to make it feel like a cousin of those movies.