Michael's Movie Grade: C+
A fun but not exceptional action film based off the popular video game series.
We all not what every who sees this movie comes in for and that is the action scenes. And yes they are pretty darn cool. They feel like the video game come to life in good way. The choreography and the filming are excellent, making these scenes feel larger than life. These action scenes are also very well timed, never going on so long as to become boring or being too short to be fully exciting. This is what Mortal Kombat fans want to see and it will not let them down. When it comes to characters some work and some don't. The best are Cole (Lewis Tan) and Kano (Josh Lawson). Cole is a likable hero who while not a complex character is easy to root for. Kano is a foul-mouthed man-child who while (purposely) unlikable, he is fun to watch. Unfortunately the main villain, Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim), has little to no personality outside of a bad guy. This is where the film's video game origins become all too clear. The character has cool powers and is dangerous and in a video game that is enough to make him a cool villain, but in a movie that character comes off as pretty bland. The movie moves at a fast pace and never takes itself too seriously. In many ways I liked this. The storyline is quite cliché, predictable and in many ways very silly but the movie never acts like we are supposed to find this in anyway emotionally moving or powerful. I have sat through too many films that asked me to take something that either comes off as silly or overly clichéd somewhat seriously and any time this happens the movie pretty much loses me. However here you can just enjoy the silliness as kind of fun. The fast moving pace helps and hurts the film at the same time. It keeps the movie from ever getting boring or giving us too many scenes where we can stop and examine the faults. On the other hand, sometimes plot points happen so quickly that they don't quite work or seem to come out of nowhere.
All in all Mortal Kombat provides a fun time at the movies, but will never stand as a great film.
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