Oh man, this...this brought back some stuff. So how does one describe The Journey Begins? Shite. I mean that's the easy way at least, but you have this direct to video project that is this mighty bizzare mix of 3D and 2D animations, essentially being the cliffnotes version of Mortal Kombat to get you prepped for the big movie. Except for the fact the movie hit about 10 days before this. Friggin' whoops apparently! How do you mess that up? It even has some behind the scenes footage with cast interviews and stuff at the very end, so you would think this would come out like a solid 2 weeks before the film. I'm sorta dumbfounded at that. The story is this pseudo-prequel/parts of the original movie/ buncha' bullshit you never saw. It starts on the boat where Liu, Johnny, and Sonya are heading for the tournament as they come actoss these characters and learn the backstory of the actual Mortal Kombat tournament. And this is where the 3D animation comes in, and it's not good. I mean not. Good. But it is fascinating to see because they used motion capture for it, and such technology was in it's sheer infancy, I mean even in Two Towers it was still being perfected but they did such a good job with it. And boy howdy, you better f***ing believe I thought this was the most high tech, cool, state of the art shit you ever seen. I rented this tape a good fair amount of times in my youth, and the 3D CG fights were my favorite part. I'm so happy I waited until a more mature, seasoned, and intelligent me started writing reviews. In fact even the animation style is so unheard of, they used 3D backgrounds and environments that look much worse than a Nintendo 64 game but still animated the characters in the 2D style. So you have this hilariously jittery, poorly tracked, flat out garbage animation trying to interact with a 3D world. They had no budget for this, they blew it all on CG wonder, they barely had animation cells to film a scene. It's that special kind of cheap animation where they constantly reuse bits and pieces and the lip syncing makes Godzilla movies look masterful. I simply cannot wrap my brain around why this exists. I know I didn't exactly have a warm reception to the new Mortal Kombat trailer but I think it is extremely safe to say we are on an upward spiral. It's not getting worse than this. No way. Absolute tripe. Thank God you can watch it for free on the YouTubes, because I have wasted money on a bit in my life, but I'm not wasting it here. 1 star, 2/10, I somehow have nostalgic memories of this but it does not hold any sway this time. Watch if you are morbidly curious or are still part of the Kombat Klub. Movie coming up tomorrow on a very special day so stay tuned for more.
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