Mortal Kombat

Shit that still held up.

For a movie I haven't seen in about 15 years, I still liked it! And from my limited knowledge on Mortal Kombat it did pretty good, which is strange because Mortal Kombat in some form or another has been a part of my childhood. I played Mortal Kombat 2 lots on the Super Nintendo, played the arcade cabinets, and watched the movie despite me being roughly 10 years old. Hell I even remember how I saw this movie for the first time, I got my Nan to buy the VHS at a Sam's Club of all places and I think she knew about the game cause she asked what the rating was but I got it and I quite liked. But now I have a lot more appreciation for it, it genuinely truthfully is a pretty decent movie! It takes the basic plot, Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, and Sonya Blade through various means are brought to the tournament of Mortal Kombat spearheaded by Shang Tsung and must fight for the sake of the world. Fairly accurate to the games. The first thing I gotta say is the production of this movie is excellent, even though the CGI is not quite good it's used when needed. The sets are outstandingly crafted, the cast does pretty good with lots of love going to Robin Shou and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa being the highlights of the cast, this soundtrack man, ho my gawd is the bomb dot com, no horeshit Jack. Just the amount of practical effects used must truly be applauded cause you would think oh it's CGI bullshit, it's so dense every single image has so much going on, they use it for anything and everything but that is far from true. This has honest to God effort in sets, choreography, acting, they wanted to do it as best as they could. Ooh but it doesn't have the blood and gore, oh it doesn't have an R rating, jabber jabber jabber, accept it for what it is. The filmmakers knew damn well the demographic was teens so they made a movie for teens to be able to go see, and shock twist everybody it made over $120 million dollars with an $18 million dollar budget so it did great in theaters and no doubt became a mainstay for video rental stores. And trust in me when I say, you get your money's worth of fights, in Street Fighter there was hardly any but here my God, after 40 minutes in it's practically non-stop fighting, it gives some preamble and explanation to this world then is all out martial arts. I have to praise the actors cause they just flat out did it all, they were trained for extensive fighting and they do pay it off. Now obviously some are more seasoned fighters than others but that doesn't take away from the effort of these actors. I mean I couldn't do 1/10th of the moves they pull, it's mighty good stuff! I was just so pleasantly surprised with the quality, and urge people to watch it again if you haven't already. 3 stars, 7/10! I wish...God how I wish I could say with all of my might the next one is just as good. I'm getting depressed just thinking about it. Tomorrow, I will face annihilation.