I WANTED THIS MOVIE TO BE RAD!
I really did! I saw the red trailers, and thought to myself, “Holy smokes, finally, the Mortal Kombat Movie I’ve been waiting for my entire life.” I even watched the cartoon Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion, and screamed, “If the cartoon is this good – the movie is gonna be awesome!”
And for the first ten or so minutes, I thought I was in for a ride – a good one, because Scorpion’s origin scene was very satifying. But then, it was all downhill from there. And once this story started to crumble, everything collapsed like an avalanche.
What went wrong, exactly?
Well, I would like to start off with the Producer/Director, Simon McQuoid, whose only credits include a film short called “The Night-Time Economy,” in which that film only includes two credited actors. Now, with that being said, you really can’t tell how well anyone is from their listed credits. I know a lot of talented writers who aren’t credited with the books they author. But this movie was directed in a very sloppy fashion, and we can only point the finger at the man calling the shots. The casting was horrible, the characters were flat, the acting was flat-out cheesy, there were enough plotholes wide enough to drive a bus through.
I had a lot of questions:
Why did Raiden wait until the last minute to assemble “Earth’s Greatest Champions,” who strangely, were not that great fighters?
Why did Shang Tsung feel he had to cheat to win the tournament, when “Earth’s Greatest Champions” didn’t fight like a team, and could easily be defeated in a legit contest. It’s really not like he had to hedge his bets. This is equivalent of Mike Tyson hunting me down, so I would complete in a boxing tournament against him…the motivation doesn’t fit.
Who the hell was Cole Young, and why was is it necessary to have him in the script? He wasn’t in any Mortal Kombat game. And what in the world were his powers. What was the suit?
Why were Liu Kang’s clothes way too big for him? Why were his eyebrows so bushy? I’m 100% Chinese, we don’t have those bushy eyebrows. Okay, now I’m just nitpicking.
The script obviously had a handful of major problems in it. I’m not surprised, though. This is Greg Russo’s first screenplay, it could be his first credited screenplay (most likely not, judging from the quality of it). Not to worry, Dave Callahman, the writer for Wonder Woman 84, and Jean-Claude Van Johnson, was there to co-write (I’m being sarcastic) WW84 has to be one of the worst movies out there.
So what happens when there’s a first-time producer/director, working with a first-time screenwriter who is backed up by an overrated professional?
You get this grade,
GRADE: F
Steve Young
