Mortal Kombat (The New One)

 I apologize for being gone for days; now is the time to catch up: 

Great... for a videogame movie.

Not to start off another review of mine with an update on my long miserable saga concerning my Internet/phone/cable situation, but due to reasons (monetary being one of them) I now have a new cable provider. It will be a fiber optics hookup-it's wired all through the neighborhood-and that sounds great... except that sometime in the next few days, they have to install that cable in my abode... Cripes almighty that will be a lengthy process and preparations have to be made to ensure they have space to install it in my room. The appointment for that hasn't even been confirmed yet but unless it's tomorrow, I hope to see something somewhere tonight and post a new review sometime tomorrow. No guarantees there... but this has been far more of a nightmare than I could have predicted.

Last night I literally had nothing better to do, so I used my AMC A-List service and saw this film. Neither of the films made in the 90's have ever been seen by me-as the first is from Paul Writes S***** Anderson and Annihilation has such a toxic reputation-but in the 90's I at least put a few quarters into the original arcade machines and at home I have played some of the games on console. I am not a superfan of the franchise by any means so take that into account with my review.

Whenever playing the games, the story or any sort of story mode was never of any concern; one on one battles where hopefully I can land a fatality was more my focus. It is to be expected that bringing this wacky over the top characters with special powers into “the real world” will be pretty goofy, and this was just that. My opinion: Mortal Kombat 2021 is nonsense but at least entertaining nonsense. A new character (Cole Young; why not introduce someone that will be playable in the next game?) is an MMA fighter who discovers that competing in an epic tournament is his destiny. Of course, there's no actual tournament in this origin story movie, but maybe next time...

The plot at times is for the birds and it probably won't hold up well if I were to really scrutinize it. I've seen complaints concerning the pacing and editing-both are valid criticisms. Hardcore fans will likely think different but for me who has only played some of the games, the movie was fine for what it was. It is nonsense where several iconic catchphrases are shoehorned in kind of awkwardly, one character definitely qualifies as “odious comic relief”, and it blatantly sequel-bates at the conclusion. All that said, there was plenty of action, brawls, some gunfire, and several moments that were befitting of a franchise that caused a HUGE stink in the 90's with its graphic gore.

The circumstances I've been in as of late where I haven't been able to watch much of anything perhaps has impacted my rating; in any event, I did not feel disappointed with this silly motion picture.