Main cast: Lewis Tan (Cole Young), Jessica McNamee (Sonya Blade), Josh Lawson (Kano), Tadanobu Asano (Lord Raiden), Mehcad Brooks (Jax), Ludi Lin (Liu Kang), Chin Han (Shang Tsung), Joe Taslim (Sub-Zero), Hiroyuki Sanada (Scorpion), Max Huang (Kung Lao), Sisi Stringer (Mileena), Damon Herriman (Kabal), Angus Sampson (Goro), Nathan Jones (Reiko), and Mel Jarnson (Nitara)
Director: Simon McQuoid

I don’t know why so many movies based on video games can’t even for once stay somewhat faithful to the story lines in those games. This latest reboot of Mortal Kombat takes recognizable names and, in some cases, recognizable-looking characters and make them all play second fiddle to the chosen one, some bloke called Cole Young. He’s not in the game at all, so I don’t know why these people have to do this. While I do enjoy love-and-hate-watching the Resident Evil movies to varying degrees, those movies angered many fans because the director pushed an overpowered new character created just for his wife, and in the process downgraded all the main characters in those games into extras and sidekicks. And here we have another movie doing the same thing.

The weird thing here is that the three previous Mortal Kombat games established a pretty interesting, if often convoluted and self-contradictory, story that can easily be adapted into a movie that will also please fans of those games. But no, here, we need to have all of the champions of Earthrealms rally around Cole—who?—just because he happens to be that descendant of Hanzo Hashashi, or Scorpion when he’s masked and angry, and there is a prophecy stating that someone with the Hanzo Hashashi bloodline will save the universe or something.

Oh yes, Sub-Zero is now evil. He killed Hanzo’s family and now known as Sub-Zero, he uses his icy powers to ensure that Earthrealm will fall to the evil sorcerer Shang Tsung’s machinations. He speaks Chinese, Hanzo speaks Japanese, and they don’t understand one another, so I can easily imagine that their feud likely stemmed from a misunderstanding. Maybe Hanzo asked one day to pass the chicken and Sub-Zero assumed that he was calling Sub-Zero’s mother a prostitute, who knows.

So, the Thunder God Lord Raiden and everyone else here have to prop, save, support, and even sacrifice themselves so that Cole can fulfill his destiny.

Sigh. Why would the people behind this movie do this? Do they believe that fans of the game will go, “Yeah! This Cole is awesome, and he makes Liu Kang an extra in a movie based on a game in which Liu Kang is one of the main heroes, and I want more!”?

It’s not even an interesting story, although I suspect the whole dullness of the movie stems from the fact that Lewis Tan has all the charisma of a pet rock and he utters his line like he is reading them off a teleprompter for the first time. Seriously, if these people wanted a new Alice to run this reboot Mortal Kombat movie franchise, couldn’t they at least cast a more charismatic actor to play the part?

The rest of the cast ranges from okay to unexpectedly good. Chin Han surprises me by looking and playing the part of Shang Tsung pretty well, although the poor fellow would always be overshadowed by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, who essentially went all meta in the first Mortal Kombat movie (kind of ironically, directed by Paul WS Anderson) and consumed his iconic character’s soul and made that character his own. Joe Taslim is a bit too skinny to be Sub-Zero in my opinion, but he growls and stomps the part well… well, except for the fact that this character is now evil in a way that may make fans of that character see red. Hiroyuki Sanada looks and does a good job as Scorpion, but come on, that man is born to play characters with facial hair. Meanwhile, Raiden here is pretty okay, although the movie committed a hate crime on poor Tadanobu Asano by putting those hideously fake CGI eyes and lightning effects on him.

The story is predictably dumb like most movies based on video games tend to be, but this is not always a bad thing so long as there are other distractions to offer. Here, the fight scenes attempt to be a bit more down to earth in that there are more martial arts than laser beams and what not, but I am a bit iffy about many of them. It’s hard to be impressed when the good guys are beating down on opponents that are clearly trying to get hit, you know? Also, the movie lacks levity, perhaps in a misguided attempt to be all martial arts-y and legit, which only underscores the weaknesses that would otherwise be hand-waved away with the use of well-placed humor.

Now, I wonder if I am being hypocritical here in being harder on Mortal Kombat than I was in some of the many, many Resident Evil movies. Well, I have thought of that, and I say no. You see, the Resident Evil games have Milla Jovovich playing the lead, and no matter how I like Alice or not, she actually acquits herself very well in that role. Lewis Tan… well, this is King of Fighters Kyo Kusanagi-tier level of “What the hell are you people smoking?” nonsense. Ms Jovovich is married to the man that cast her in that role. I can only wonder about the story behind why these people need to create a brand new character to lead this movie when we already have a cast of lead characters from Liu Kang to Johnny Cage to Sonya Blade to the two ninjas.

Oh, and that’s right, no Johnny Cage in this one. I read somewhere that the people behind this movie believe that they can’t have lead white male characters for some reason, and yet, despite their fixation on identity politics, they went ahead and cast a Chinese actor for the role of a Japanese character. Also, Joe Taslim speaks Chinese in an accent that suggests strongly that Chinese may not be his first language, and yet he is cast as a Chinese ninja. Don’t ask me when Chinese ninjas came to be, by the way. See, that’s why I always roll up my eyes when white people proudly proclaim that their movie is diverse like it’s the sole reason people must watch this thing and give them money, as such false performative wokeness almost always expose their own bias and prejudices against the people they claim to champion. In this case, the people behind the movie really seem to believe that Asians are all one and the same, so any Wong Ching can play any Ching Chong role created to tick off items on a checklist.

Anyway, this Mortal Kombat may be good enough for non-fans of the game, who knows, but me, I find myself cringing through most of this snooze-fest.