Coming out on April 23rd, Mortal Kombat has been a highly anticipated hit since its trailer was released back in February. Sadly, the movie didn’t live up to its expectations and could be hard to watch at times. Adapting video games onto the big screen is always a gamble that directors must take regarding if the film will hit or miss, Director Simon McQuoid fell victim to the fate of a miss.

The film stars a wide variety of characters which is one of the better features of the film. For diehard fans of the Mortal Kombat video game series, being able to see some of your favorite players be brought to life is a high that will leave you wanting more. However, what the film lacks is character development for the overabundance of characters, a plothole riddled story and decent dialogue between characters.
The film starts off strong with the introduction of two of the franchise’s most popular characters Scorpion and Sub-zero meeting and fighting for the first time, essentially cementing their rivalry and how it came to be.

The film then immediately jumps to the present day following Cole young, the film’s main protagonist. Cole Young is not in any of the Mortal Kombat video games, therefore his backstory and who he is needs to be implanted firmly for watchers to understand what kind of character this protagonist is going to be. Yet, instead of doing so, for the next couple of scenes of the film, we are given such a lackluster introduction of the new character that, before we know it, he’s already thrown into the mix of a fast-paced plot that hasn’t even been explained yet.

This seems to be the situation throughout the entire film. There is too much content for the amount of information being distributed. It seems like the producer just decided to stack the lineup with one dimensional characters and hope to persuade watchers with intense fights and gory finishing moves.

I, being a fan of the Mortal Kombat video game franchise and having seen the original Mortal Kombat film released back in 1995, expected this result. This is a vast improvement of the film released in the ’90s, but it’s not good enough for me to say I enjoyed it. The Mortal Kombat series is such an in depth masterpiece that this film just doesn’t do justice to.

I am not taking away from the fight scenes and fatalities because those were some of my favorite parts of the movie to see adapted from the games, but as for the story, McQuoid needed to pick a decent plot and stick with it. I like how we got a new character as the antagonist, but if you’re going to branch off and build a unique story alongside following the original plot then you need to do a better job at developing your characters and making sure everyone, not just the video game players, can understand the story without having to google every detail.

This film was by no means good, but it was a step in the right direction. At the end of the day that is the most important thing to take away from this lackluster film. If Warner Bros is looking to potentially build a new movie franchise with this movie as the root, it’s not impossible for a sequel to happen; but if they want to succeed in the box office then they have a lot of work cut out for them. I personally rate this movie 5/10.