I watched this movie finally. I went into it with low expectations so here are my final thoughts.
Mortal Kombat 1995 is a gem in my opinion and still enjoy watching that occasionally.
Mortal Kombat 2021 gave me very similar feels to the GI Joe films...... What do I mean by that? In GI Joe, the saving grace in my opinion was the Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow scenes. They stole the show, they kept me entertained in what would have been otherwise a lackluster film without them.
Subzero and Scorpion stole the show! Even with Scorpion barely in the film, his presence was known and that opening was FIRE as was the final battle.
However, I was hopeful after the epic opening it was going to carry the film but I was let down after discovering it was going to take while for the film to pick back up again.
While watching the film I felt it was very easy to pick out where they spent large amounts of budget and where they were either running low on budget or had to move money over to other areas.
The dragon mark as the "chosen one" was a cool new idea but lacked making any real sense..... Cole was born with it because of his link to Scorpion, ok cool. Scorpion also had the mark... ok cool. But then they say if you kill someone with the mark you get the mark, yet, Scorpions mark never left him, perhaps because Bi-Han already had a mark perhaps? But Kano killed someone for his mark, Sonya killed him for her mark........ The idea is there but seemed to be confusing as to how it actually works.
Sonya getting her powers instantly? made no sense... Girl Power? ok cool, but still made no sense.
Didn't care much for Shang Tsung. This actor didn't have the charisma that the 1995 actor had.
Goro went out like a B!tch (I guess he kind of did in the 1995 film as well but he felt more threatening in that film after squashing other fighters). I was annoyed at this Liu Kang... I didn't find him likeable and in fact found him a bit annoying.
Cole Young. I know there was a lot of negative comments on this new character. For me, I actually liked him. I liked the Scorpion connection, I liked the power, I just liked him in general. Perhaps it was made easier for me to accept and like him when I quickly realized that the Liu Kang in this film was going to be nothing like Robin Shou was in the 1995 film.
Pre-tournament.... ok cool. Shang Tsung wants to cheat... ok cool. Raiden " I cannot interfere" then later, "I'm interfering" ok cool..... A lot of out and back things didnt make much sense to me.
Overall, yes I enjoyed the film. It had several things I really enjoyed and several things I was not a fan of. I enjoyed the film enough to hope it gets the franchise that its hopeful for as I'd definitely like to see more and where the story and characters go from here. Hope they are able to clean up the story telling more and give some clarity to some of the very confusing plot points from this film.
