Mortal Kombat (1995) A movie review by Serdar Yegulalp (C) 1997 by Serdar Yegulalp
CAPSULE: Just plain fun -- no more, no less. Check your brain, and don't think futzing with a D-pad is going to change the storyline.
I didn't want to see this film. As enamored as I am of video-game culture, I still went in with gritted teeth. "Okay," I snarled, making it sound like a dare, "entertain me."
Dare accepted.
MK is as silly and ephemeral as any trendsploitation movie has ever been (when do we get the MAGIC: THE GATHERING flick, for instance?), but it's one of the best made -- certainly one of the best-looking -- and a ton of lowbrow fun. I've got high standards for most movies, but I can still be a pushover for a good, silly picture: high production values, yards of action, nothing that would make the movie seem rancidly exploitive or cynical. MK fits all three categories nicely.
Based somewhat loosely on the video game that made video games a bad juju with parents all over again, MORTAL KOMBAT takes three heroes and pits them against impossible odds -- evil magic, vicious martial-arts masters, demons with four arms, and everything else the makeup and FX people could plaster together or digitally synthesize. Do they win? Are movie-theater floor sticky in summertime? Well... devil's in the details, y'know, so feel free to read on.
Mortal Kombat, as we learn, is a cosmic karateka that takes place between our world and some outlying dimension you don't want to get stuck in after the last bar closes. The best of the best come to fight, and if "we" (meaning Earth) wins, the world doesn't get overrun by evil for another generation. Our three heroes, Liu Kang, Sonya and Johnny Cage, all come into the contest with considerable trepidations and a little emotional baggage of their own. Their nemesis is the cold-hearted Shang Tsung (played with tasty nastiness by Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa, who always gets roles like this), and their mentor is the god of thunder, Raiden (also hammed up happily by none other than Christopher Lambert, the best bad actor around).
The movie isn't a masterpiece of story or intellect -- but it does something few movies of this type do well: it grabs you from the start and keeps you solidly entertained all the way through. Almost every scene begins and ends with a spectacularly choreographed fight, and the photography is stylish and fast-moving. This is the kind of movie where you want to take home the stills and hang them on your wall.
What else makes the movie work? A sly sense of self-referential humor, which thankfully isn't overdone. (Watch, for instance, the way the battle between Johnny Cage and Skorpion ends, and pay careful attention to the very last shot. It's a howler.) Lambert has great fun as Raiden, and everyone involved seems to be enjoying themselves. Which, when you think about it, isn't something you can base on any one thing; it's everything.
I recently saw a movie with similar ambitions -- the uninvolving CRYING FREEMAN -- and walked out disappointed. Why? Nobody seemed to be really enjoying themselves. It all looked like one giant slog. MK may not be the best movie ever made, but it's a gas, and few enough movies are good on just that level.
Three out of four flawless victories.
syegul@ix.netcom.com EFNet IRC: GinRei http://www.io.com/~syegul another worldly device... you can crush me as I speak/write on rocks what you feel/now feel this truth =smilin' in your face, all the time wanna take your place, the BACKSTABBERS=
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