Review: Mortal Kombat 2021 [SPOILERS]

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After so many years of waiting, we finally got the Mortal Kombat reboot, something that fans were waiting for 24 years ago, which was when the infamous Mortal Kombat Annihilation came out, a movie that destroyed everything the first movie did well and sent the saga into a bottomless pit from which it took more than two decades to come out. But all that is history of the past and since last April 23 we could see the new material, I invite you to read this review to know my opinion of the film.

SPOILERS ALERT.


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Let's start with the technical specifications:
Is an dark fantasy martial arts and gore film from 2021. Directed by first-time director Simon McQuoid and scripted by Greg Russo and Dave Callaham. It stars Lewis Tan, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Tadanobu Asano, Mehcad Brooks, Ludi Lin, Chin Han, Joe Taslim and Hiroyuki Sanada. It had a budget of 50 million dollars and is rated C (extreme violence and foul language) according to IMDb.

Now let's talk about the plot first, I will narrate the sequences and then I will leave my opinion of it in a quote, to make an objective evaluation of each chapter of the movie. Mortal Kombat begins with an epic scene in which we are introduced to Hanzo Hasashi and Bi-Han, Scorpion and Sub-Zero, respectively, Hanzo, a member of the Shirai Ryu clan, is in a villa in feudal Japan with his wife and children, in an oversight Bi-Han, a member of the Lin Kuei clan attacks their home, the wife hides her youngest daughter under the floor but then Bi-Han appears and kills her and her son, Hanzo arrives and contemplates furious and hurt to his dead family and then ends with the acolytes of Bi-Han in a very good sequence of fight and then face Bi-Han himself, fight in which Hanzo is defeated and then killed, but not before telling him that he will return seeking revenge, Bi-Han leaves and Hanzo desperately tries to go to his family but dies, then his body is engulfed in flames and this descends to hell, Raiden appears, rescues the girl, and takes her with him.

The letters that form the word Mortal Kombat appear on the screen and by this point my hype for the movie reached monumental levels, I love this franchise and had years waiting for this, this first scene fascinated me, the setting was perfect, the fights were regular on purpose, regular for what we are used to see in MK, because they are brilliantly done, but serve as an entry just for what we will see later. We are told the story of who will be the hero and who will be later, the villain, special point to Sub-Zero, who in my opinion took the spotlight of the film and I say this as a confessed fan of Scorpion, simply no character was at his height in terms of prominence and similarity to the video game, after him are Scorpion, Kano and Liu Kang, in my opinion.


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After a text that explains a prophecy we focus on the fists of Cole Young, the protagonist of the story and a character who does not appear in the games, this is a retired UFC fighter who now fights for a few dollars to survive, during his fight Jax arrives, who sees him lose and then approaches him to ask about his dragon mark, one that have the fighters chosen to participate in Mortal Kombat, Cole leaves politely and goes to eat with his family, when Sub-Zero appears to finish him off, he is saved by Jax, who had followed him, they try to flee but Sub-Zero catches them, then Jax stays to fight him and give Cole time to find his colleague, Sonya Blade, Cole leaves and Jax faces Sub-Zero, with whom he has a short confrontation in which Sub-Zero is victorious, freezes his arms and then rips them off. FATALITY!

In just 25 minutes we already have a fatality, something I always wanted to see and that did not disappoint me at all, the shot, the music, the atmosphere, everything, personally I would have loved to hear the background voice saying Fatality, but I understand why they did not add it, the plot gets interesting and the action is pretty good, so far the rhythm convinces me and makes me want to keep watching the movie.


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Cole manages to get to Sonya and they both catch up, she explains everything she has investigated about Mortal Kombat and here are a lot of references that make us dream about the possible sequels that will come out, this is where we meet Kano, who was captured by Sonya and keeps him prisoner, in a previous scene Shang Tsung ordered Mileena to send Syzoth or Reptile as most know him, he arrives at Sonya's hideout and starts a fight that turns into a 3 vs 1 when Kano He frees himself, he is the one who ends Syzoth by doing his characteristic Fatality, he takes out his heart, then he agrees to take Cole and Sonya to Raiden's "temple" with the promise that she will pay them 3 million dollars, these They arrive at the site and are received by Liu Kang, who takes them to Raiden, in that place is also Kung Lao and Jax, who was saved by Liu, Raiden is disappointed with the warriors who arrived, but Cole convinces him to train them, in that comes S Chang Tsung who attacks the temple with Sub-Zero and Mileena, but Raiden repels them using a magic force shield.

This is where the movie more fails arguely in my opinion, but it is deadly Kombat demand that deceive a script worthy of an Oscar is something that brushes the ridiculous, so I accept certain inconsistencies for my love to the saga, the same is nothing other world, small script holes that occur but do not change the development of history, have already presented us almost all the characters of the movie and we are ready to receive pure and hard action, they continue to appear references to the game and possible sequels, And this is still exciting much because I love to see this well-developed universe, I start here to notice that the characters are at 50/50, that is, there are characters that are very well adapted (Kano, Liu Kang, Sonya, Jax, Scorpion, Sub-zero) and others who were far away from that (Shang Tsung, Reiko, Mileena, Goro, Nitara) and the rest are neither good nor bad, they are only (Kabal, Raiden, Reptile) but I insist, the movie convinces a lot if you are a fanatic of this .


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Kano awakens his arcane, Raiden reveals to Cole who is a descendant of Hanzo and then sends him home, Kabal convinces Kano to betray the group and this ends at the Invasion of Shang Tsung, Goro is going to look for Cole and fight with the , so Cole awakens her arcana and beat Goro, in the temple of Raiden, dies Nitara at the hands of Kung Lao and then Kung Lao itself dies at the hands of Shang Tsung, all wake up his arcans, Cole returns to the temple and helps repel The Attack of Tsung and Raiden saves them transporting them into the vacuum, where Cole explains the final plan.

Already for this point I had recovered the interest in the plot, I was anxious to see the outcome of everything and although yes, the end was predictable, but not that's why I stop being fantastic, it seemed an insult to existence what they did A Goro, the Prince Shokkan who helped the Outworld win 9 Mortal Kombat tournaments is overcome by a guy who was not even worthy to participate in the tournament when he started the fight, in the Goro video game and I am very attracted in the plane, of Made is dead, but not that is not a very powerful character that I finish very badly, as in the 1995 movie, a blow in the testiculos and a fallen fall ... An total injustice, something else, Shang Tsung is Everything in this movie Less Shang Tsung.

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The final scene is a plan designed by Cole, all the fighters are going to face the Subditos of Tsung, Sonya fight against Kano, Liu Kang fight against Kabal, Jax against Reiko and Cole against Mileen, scenes of spectacular fights and a Final Brutal, Cole seesaw to know that Under-Zero kidnapping his family and goes after him, the fight begins and sub-zero begins to take advantage until we see who we all expected, Hanzo under his pseudonimo of Scorpion, between the two They expire to Sub-Zero and Raiden expels Shang Tsung from Earth, and then sends the heroes to recruit new members, there we see Cole going to recruit anything else and nothing less than Jhonny Cage.

The fan service of this movie is extremely necessary and is very well developed, the fatalities are spectacular, I highlight that of Liu Kang to Kabal and Kung Lao A Nitara, the movie has spectacular moments and in general is very good, besides something from Techno Syndrome, that iconic theme of the 90's movie, pure nostalgia, also the plot for the sequel is there, waiting, something that I hope they do because it enjoys this movie a lot, if you want to see Action Gore very entertaining, This movie will not defraud you.

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4 comments
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The movie was cool, it was pretty much what I was expecting, but I didn't like the fact they had to invent a new main character. Mortal Kombat has enough characters and there is no need to create a new one. I am looking forward to the sequel.

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I really enjoyed this movie, very good action scenes and even in certain moments I felt trapped by the drama, I didn't like the fact that they created a character when they have a huge universe to choose from, I think a great story could come out of mixing the story of Shujinko and the kamidogus with the original MK and make Onaga a future antagonist, after Shao Khan's frame is finished, they have a lot of lore to work with, we will have to wait to know how it ends, even so I am very excited.

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Hi mvl2304,

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I couldn't bring myself to read much more than a few paragraphs of this out of fear of ruining the film for when I do watch.

I am quite worried though... I hope the re-boot hasn't destroyed the movie for me.

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