Mortal Kombat 2021

April 22, 2021 1:59 AM

The opening seven minutes of the new Mortal Kombat.
posted by sapagan (35 comments total)

The NSFW tag is appropriate here...
posted by WalkingAround at 2:19 AM on April 22, 2021

it's playing here already, and yeah it's so-so... which is too bad! i like the angle that the big centuries-long vengeance is actually between Sub-Zero and Scorpion.

(better watch godzilla vs kong for the wrestling fight scenes)
posted by cendawanita at 2:22 AM on April 22, 2021

Hard pass.

We're well beyond the age of video game adaptations where the source material could have been bizarrely interpreted as a baking competition.

Although wouldn't it be awesome if someone had the guts to give Mortal Kombat the Super Mario Bros. treatment and give us a completely unexpected film where all the challengers face off in a bright and sunny world where they respectfully compete to win the All-Earthrealm Martial Arts Championship?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 2:33 AM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]

Ok, well, glad I now know I don't need to bother with that one.

My wife literally said "I thought this was only seven minutes". We were at minute 5.
posted by krisjohn at 2:49 AM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]

Interesting, though the opening to Soul Calibur from (counts) 22 years ago is personally more endearing.
posted by Wordshore at 3:10 AM on April 22, 2021 [3 favorites]

I mean, it’s got Hiroyuki Sanada, so I’m already heavily interested, but then again, while watching this preview, I found myself frustrated that, Sunshine aside, Hollywood only seems to be able to think of Sanada as some sort of martial arts figure, rather than the absolutely amazing leading man that he can and should be.

I mean, I guess I’ll have to settle for them pointing out which language was being spoken, rather than just having blanket English subs. When all is said and done, though, the chances of this being worse than MKII: Annihilation are so minuscule as to be impossible.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:44 AM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]

Interesting, though the opening to Soul Calibur yt from (counts) 22 years ago is personally more endearing.

Now there's a video I'm interested in watching.

(The original Mortal Kombat film is actually a guilty pleasure of mine.)
posted by Gelatin at 5:47 AM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

All I saw was sweat until I typed in ABACABB during the opening credits.
posted by dr_dank at 6:01 AM on April 22, 2021 [10 favorites]

I'm reminded of one of my go-to elevator pitches for what I envision as an over-serious drama whose comedy was in deadpan seriousness, but script treatments could easily pivot to more overt dramedy as needed. IN A WORLD...where a strange shift of physics and biochemistry suddenly made wives and children unable to be fridged, men everywhere would sink into deep and total apathy. They'd lose all ability to even get out of bed, as losing even the possibility that their happy family could be tragic-backstory-killed removed even the possibility of one day having a training montage, let alone a driving motivation force. Without motivation there is no meaning. Without meaning, there is nothing. (Trailer foghorn.)

SHE: Honey, please. If you can't get out of bed, you have to at least eat something.
HE: (thousand yard stare, utterly expressionless despair) there's no point. There's no point to anything with you safe.

BWAAAAAAA
posted by Drastic at 6:43 AM on April 22, 2021 [17 favorites]

My parents would NOT let me see the original mortal kombat (1995) so it gathered an aura about it for me, which was instantly deflated when I finally watched it at 16 or so. Once bitten, twice shy, but if this is free on hbo max I guess why not? Has to be better than Godzilla vs Kong!
posted by dis_integration at 6:47 AM on April 22, 2021

I feel like a lot more people need to have watched Jackie Chan talk about filming fights - not just choreographing the fight, not just with competent fighters, but how to film them so the audience can see and feel the fight instead of fast-cutting everywhere forever.
posted by mhoye at 6:48 AM on April 22, 2021 [10 favorites]

Also, I liked the premise, but the execution... scriptwriters, this thing where you need to murder some women and children in the first few minutes of the story just so our dude can have himself a set of feelings is some lazy bullshit. It's beneath you, and we should put that whole exercise behind us.
posted by mhoye at 6:59 AM on April 22, 2021 [14 favorites]

I will always feel salty about Mortal Kombat. I can't decide if it's because I was still a somewhat-sheltered Nintendo playing kid when it was originally released and I obediently bought into the moral panic, or whether it's because I was old enough at the time to recognize that the game was mediocre at best and the developers only added gratuitous levels of violence to stand out from much better games (Street Fighter II).
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:30 AM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]

RonButNotStupid, you've made me wonder why there was never a Killer Instinct movie, but then I rewatched some gameplay maybe my answer is "for once good taste prevailed".
posted by mhoye at 7:43 AM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

This was a lot better than I imagined when it was announced. Not a big fan of "fighting movies" except for a few exceptional ones. Wasn't allowed to play MK growing up, but did see and enjoy the first movie. I think I will watch this movie eventually.
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:00 AM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

Movies based on videogames? Jackie Chan fight scenes? Street Fighter II? Man, if there was only some way to put all those things together in one movie...
posted by gusottertrout at 8:14 AM on April 22, 2021 [12 favorites]

I wasn't really paying attention and started this trailer thinking it was that new Disney movie with Simu Liu from Kim's Convenience. A couple minutes in and I'm like "holy shit, this is dark". Checks the label... ooooh.
posted by simra at 8:15 AM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

the Super Mario Bros. treatment

I would have paid to see Bob Hoskins read the phone book, but especially to see him do the five point palm exploding heart move on Dennis Hopper.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:50 AM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]

Do kids these days even play Mortal Kombat?
posted by The otter lady at 9:02 AM on April 22, 2021

Yes, they released #11 in 2019
posted by Jacen at 9:38 AM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

Thanks to growing up in a world where most of the popular media of the last fifty years is readily available, the answer to 'Do kids these days even x?' is in my experience almost always yes.
posted by box at 9:54 AM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

Do kids these days even play Mortal Kombat?

There's a thread a few doors south of this one about Tetris.
posted by mhoye at 10:05 AM on April 22, 2021

So when are they making a movie about Super Smash Brothers? The story and plot they would have to spin up to explain that would be absolutely delirious and might even accidentally explain the Super Mario Bros movie.
posted by loquacious at 10:16 AM on April 22, 2021

this thing where you need to murder some women and children in the first few minutes of the story just so our dude can have himself a set of feelings

Heaven forfend someone harms a dog.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 10:29 AM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]

So when are they making a movie about Super Smash Brothers? The story and plot they would have to spin up to explain that would be absolutely delirious and might even accidentally explain the Super Mario Bros movie.

Some folks are speculating that next year's animated movie might lead into a Nintendo Cinematic Universe if it does well, but I have my doubts. It would require Nintendo to dramatically change the way they treat their precious IP. See how Neflix's Zelda project was sunk by a single leak, or the very specific rules Nintendo have developed about how Mario must be depicted even in Mario games.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 11:31 AM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

The original film was the best translation of video-game-to-movie at the time, and arguably still is, and had an amazing mid-90's soundtrack. This new one looked intriguing, but maybe I'll wait on it.

At least the new version of Techno Syndrome is a banger.
posted by subocoyne at 12:09 PM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]

Interesting, though the opening to Soul Calibur from (counts) 22 years ago is personally more endearing.

The Soul Edge intro from 1996 is this for me.
posted by Reyturner at 1:00 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

I bought the novelization of the first Mortal Kombat movie to take to camp when it came out. It was... not great. Better than the Back to the Future 3 novelization though (three Docs on a single page does not make for easy reading)! I watched the movie again recently and it wasn't bad. No worse than the Kickboxer sequels or any low-budget martial arts movie of the time. But they didn't seem to understand why people liked the game. A sequel 25 years later seems like the height of "We have the rights to this property. Better make a movie or something...". I'll probably still watch it. But I haven't cared about the series since I was in middle school.
posted by downtohisturtles at 1:13 PM on April 22, 2021

Some folks are speculating that next year's animated movie might lead into a Nintendo Cinematic Universe if it does well, but I have my doubts. It would require Nintendo to dramatically change the way they treat their precious IP.

Did Nintendo oversee Detective Pikachu, or was that The Pokemon Company? I thought it was a pretty good film even though I didn't really care about Pokemon prior to seeing it. If that's an example of Nintendo guarding their IP, then I'm all for it. I don't think there was a single Olive Garden reference in the entire movie.

(Okay, Sonic the Hedgehog was a surprisingly decent and enjoyable movie, but Detective Pikachu was way more interesting and technically adept)
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:45 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

you've made me wonder why there was never a Killer Instinct movie, but then I rewatched some gameplay maybe my answer is "for once good taste prevailed".

Ditto Primal Rage. Or that other fighting game with the kilt...
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:54 PM on April 22, 2021

Wow, Time Killers was a whole lot worse than I remembered.
posted by box at 2:28 PM on April 22, 2021

Well damn, I guess I'm the only one who thought this looked better than I expected. Obviously I wasn't expecting much, and maybe 7 minutes should be the entire length of the movie.
posted by Liquidwolf at 4:59 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

Jackie Chan as Chun Li! My dreams have been answered.
posted by sixswitch at 8:57 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

I absolutely love seeing the Highlander guy, what's his name?--Christopher Lambert, in the first one of these, as Raiden. It's such an elementally pure form of cheese, and he's wooden in a way that makes it impossible to tell whether he thinks it's hilarious, or he thinks it's totally serious, or what. It's low-rent in a way that really gets across the fun of make-believe somehow; it's like watching kids whack their action figures together and make explosion noises. Pchoooochhhh! This new one isn't going to have that, so it better have good fights, which it sounds like it doesn't.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 9:00 PM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]

it's got good fights, and the actors obviously trained their asses off, but honestly this first seven minutes is such a fakeout - for one Hiroyuki Sanada doesn't show up after this bit until the very end, and the lead/audience pov is an invented character, whom i don't believe it's even in the main MK playable character lineup (i don't follow the latest). The joke is he's important because he's Scorpion's (Sanada) descendant. SO???
posted by cendawanita at 9:05 PM on April 22, 2021