The fourth in my series of video game film essays for 1up.com. Like Street Fighter before it, I was massively disappointed in this movie when I saw it. I wasn’t even a fan of the Mortal Kombat series, I just happened to think it was kinda lousy. That being said, a few shots stick in my mind, even while pretty much everything else about it my mind has happily repressed on its own.
With a Street Fighter film in theaters, it didn’t take much imagination to assume that a Mortal Kombat adaptation would soon follow—after all, following up Street Fighter is what the Mortal Kombat franchise was founded upon. Anyone who made this incredibly safe bet would soon be paid off with the release of the unsurprisingly titled Mortal Kombat the following year. But while the two films were released eight months apart, they were actually in production and pre-production during much the same time period; it’s just that Mortal Kombat wasn’t rushed into theaters in nearly the same manner as its predecessor. That’s right, Mortal Kombat is that rarity amongst video game adaptations: a picture its creators actually seemed to give a damn about.
Lawrence “Larry” Kasanoff was a producer best known for his work with partner James Cameron, with whom he co-founded Lightstorm Entertainment. Kasanoff originally came to fame working for the little-known Vestron Pictures, which produced movies like Dirty Dancing, Earth Girls Are Easy, and C.H.U.D. II: Bud the C.H.U.D., soon rising to the head of Vestron’s production company before splitting off to work with Cameron. While at Lightstorm, Kasanoff worked on Terminator 2: Judgment Day and True Lies. Needless to say, both movies were hits, but Kasanoff soon balked at the Cameron-centric nature of the company, which remains its focus today, so he broke off to found his own production company, Threshold. Mortal Kombat was to be their tentpole release, with Kasanoff noting at the time that he was “expecting it to be as big as True Lies.”
Reportedly Kasanoff was interested in the Mortal Kombat franchise while it was still being tested in Chicago arcades (Midway’s arcade division was based there), and quickly swooped up the franchise’s film rights, beginning work on its scripts the first day of 1994. At the time the only video game adaptation released was Super Mario Bros., and Kasanoff wanted to take things in a totally different direction. While Super Mario Bros. twisted the games’ story until it somehow went past unrecognizable, his version of Mortal Kombat would be true to the arcade game he was a fan of and the script would tell the game’s storyline, no more and no less. More than 15 years after Mortal Kombat’s release, this remains a pretty novel and infrequently used approach as far as game adaptations go.
Like the games it was based upon, the plot of Mortal Kombat centers around a fighting tournament, which should be no surprise considering how there’s pretty much nothing else to the games, but is still worth mentioning considering the way Street Fighter completely forgot about that element. There are several different realms, Earth being one of them, and in order for one realm to take over another it must defeat the champions of another realm 10 times in a row in a martial arts tournament. At many times during the film other rules are alluded to, but that’s the gist of it, and amongst Earth’s champions Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, and Sonya Blade are the only ones who really stand a chance at winning, since they were hand-picked by your friendly neighborhood thunder god Raiden.
Even before the movie begins in earnest, Mortal Kombat makes the audience clear of two things: first is that its makers are fans of the games. This is hammered home through its soundtrack—featuring not only the games’ announcer but also elements of its music and effects—which kicks in before the the opening logos have finished. Equally important and impossible to miss during this title sequence is that the filmmakers have access to, and are unfortunately willing to use, egregious amounts of absolutely abysmal CGI. We’re talking CGI that looks so bad it appears to have been rendered using 1956’s finest vacuum tube apparatus, and merely watching it makes your eyes bleed. Yeah, be prepared for a lot of that.
It should be no surprise that a producer whose biggest success was Terminator 2 would want to add tons of execrable CGI to their movie, and eventually the studio closed everything but its computer animation department. After a couple shots of terrible computer-generated backdrops, the film shows us our first dose of acting, which is a good time to introduce the film’s other chief architect. While Kasanoff was the driving force behind the entire production, the man he hired to helm the project (while he hovered nearby in the wings) was the now somewhat infamous Paul W.S. Anderson. Anderson is well-known not just for being a much lousier director than the other Paul Anderson (you know, the guy behind There Will Be Blood and Boogie Nights), but also for doing more work on video game adaptations than anyone short of Uwe Boll. A lot of people also know that he’s married to Resident Evil star Milla Jovovich, which seems to add insult to injury considering how mediocre of a director he is, but that’s really neither here nor there.
Paul Anderson, as noted above, is not a great director, but he’s also perhaps not as bad as his reputation would leave you to believe. He’s just not one of those people who can maintain control over every element in his movies—he seems to get caught up in some parts so much that he forget entirely about others. In the case of Mortal Kombat what seems to have slipped his mind are believable performances, which you’ll rarely find in the film’s 101 minutes. As the film shows Liu Kang’s brother being killed by Shang Tsung, it’s already clear that acting is going to be just perfunctory here, an insignificant concern compared with terrible CGI effects and remembering to put scenes in slow-motion whenever possible.
This sequence also introduces us to Liu Kang, one of our protagonists, and gives him immediate pathos. He’s played by the rising Hong Kong action star Robin Shou, who you probably don’t recognize from anything else—despite showing off Shou’s martial arts skills, Mortal Kombat also illustrated how non-existent his acting chops were. Next up for our protagonists is Sonya Blade, played by Bridgette Wilson in one of her largest roles. She’s in an indeterminate military and within that group has an indeterminate rank, but you can tell she’s tough because in her first scene she beats a bunch of people in a rave with her rifle. She also has pathos because her partner was killed by Kano, who is in cahoots with Shang Tsung. Last we meet Johnny Cage, played by an equally unknown Linden Ashby, a film star who also dabbles in martial arts. He’s given pathos because… umm… well, Mortal Kombat forgets to give him any real reason for sticking around, instead he’s gifted with low self-esteem and a need to prove himself to the tabloids. I guess that’s something?
These three intrepid heroes—well, two intrepid heroes and one guy with image problems—meet on a mystical boat to another world. The boat stops at a dock which, unlike much the rest of the movie, is not made up of CGI. It is, however, a studio set, and one that’s almost aggressive in its fakeness at that. At times, Mortal Kombat seems to exult in its lack of verisimilitude, such that scenes like Liu Kang’s meeting with the monks feel strange, and not just because it features Chinese monks speaking perfect English. It’s that location shooting has no place in a movie this closed off from reality, making this sequence stand out awkwardly in its defiance to bad CGI and obvious props.
Mortal Kombat takes a little while to get going, but on the boat we’re introduced to Raiden, the group’s mentor/expository device. Following his introduction, featuring enough exposition to choke a bear, the boat arrives at Shang Tsung’s island realm and the movie starts really taking off. Raiden is noteworthy not for playing an important part in the movie, since other than acting as a literal deus ex machina at times he really doesn’t, but for being played by Christopher Lambert, who unlike everyone else in the movie is a good actor. Maybe Paul Anderson was too busy working on the fights to notice some decent acting slipping into the film, but in general he sticks out just as much as those shots of the village—every time he pops up you suddenly start caring about the story again. Then Johnny Cage responds and you’re reminded exactly how little it matters and go back to enjoying the fights.
Once the heroes have arrived, they begin eating in what’s my favorite sequence of the entire movie. All of the humans are given a big banquet, but in the middle of it Shang Tsung’s ninja stormtroopers come in and unnecessarily throw all of the food on the ground. No explanation is given, but even better is that this food, rather than creating a mess of debris on the floor, instantly clears up and the room becomes a perfect fighting arena. This makes no sense, but hey, it’s a movie with magic ninjas, so just go with it. Then, apparently just for everyone’s entertainment, Shang Tsung has Sub-Zero fight a ninja, who he instantly freezes to death, allowing Shang Tsung to act as the match’s announcer and tell us, “Flawless victory.” The entire sequence is nonsensical, entirely unmotivated by the story, and is all there for a groaningly bad reference to the Mortal Kombat games… it’s also really, really badass.
Mortal Kombat slows down a little bit here, so that our one-syllabled triumvirate of Cage, Blade, and Kang can painfully banter a bit more (with the added bonus of more unnecessary exposition!), but it’s not long before the picture’s fights begin in earnest. The big surprise here is that the film actually delivers. This begins with Kang’s fight against an opponent known only in the credits as Fighting Monk, a fight which despite the inauspicious nature of its antagonist is actually pretty good, even in retrospect. In the past decade movie fights in the United States have really improved, but even by today’s standards this one is well-choreographed. It goes to slow-motion way more times than necessary, a statement that’s equally true about the film as a whole, but this fight scene alone is better than the entirety of Street Fighter.
From here on out the movie’s almost straight fights, which coincidentally is also precisely what audiences were hoping to see. The next one is between Blade and Kano, which is more of a slugging match than the first one but is nonetheless exciting. It both continues the film’s vaguely disturbing subplot about Tsung’s infatuation with Blade (he’s mighty rape-y for PG-13), and also makes an odd choice to finish off her story. As she snaps Kano’s neck with her legs, she ends her relevance and from here on out will be just a damsel in distress. For now, though, she’s won the admiration of both her compatriots and the lech-y tournament referee, so good for her.
Next up is Cage vs. Scorpion, which takes place in a completely context-free environment for absolutely no explained reason, which would be unforgiveable if it weren’t also really well-filmed and interesting—who would’ve thought an orchard could be so moody? This fight in particular is marred by Mortal Kombat’s CGI of doom, with the first half being nothing more than Cage running from a slimy tentacle, and even that’s marginally less sexual than it sounds. When the tentacle runs into a tree, which is probably a metaphor for something, he’s forced to use his changing-stages-through-a-terrible-CGI-portal special attack, taking Cage with him into what looks weirdly like the Valley of Defilement from Demon’s Souls. Cage kills Scorpion by slicing his skull with a shield, and presumably gets out of this magical world somehow, although this is also never explained or addressed in any way whatsoever. Screw continuity.
Last of the tournament’s regular fights is Kang against Sub-Zero. Once again Anderson floods this sequence with slow-motion shots, but otherwise it has some pretty good action as well. Kang wins the fight due to advice he received from the underdeveloped Princess Kitana, who tells him that the only way to stop Sub-Zero’s blue CGI attack is to splash him with water—well, technically she tells him to “To win the next match use the element that brings life,” which just seems like another penis joke—the time-honored method of dispatching villains since 1939.
At this point Mortal Kombat’s villains realize that, wait a second, they’re losing in their own rigged tournament. In order to set things right, Goro is sent out to murder all of the extras, which I guess they think is helpful for some reason. All it actually does, though, is piss Cage off by killing his only fan, a character named Art Lean but who I like to call Token Black Guy Who Gets Killed First (the bad guys had one of these, too, with Fighting Monk).
Because of Token Black Guy Who Gets Killed First’s death, Cage decides to skip any other possible fighters and go straight for the final boss, challenging him directly. Even though Johnny Cage’s sunglasses get destroyed, this is still a somewhat disappointing battle, but that’s no surprise given that Goro’s just three rather fake-looking rubber puppets. Goro’s character design is interesting, because it’s both significantly better than the CGI yet still significantly worse than everything else in Mortal Kombat. Cage ends this fight quickly, first cribbing a page directly from his inspiration’s (Jean Claude Van Damme) book by doing the splits and hitting Goro in the crotch, then easily kicking him off a convenient ledge. In short, Goro is a helluva lot easier to defeat in the movie than he is in the games.
But in order to fight Goro, Cage agreed to some sort of confusing deal whereby Tsung gets to kidnap Blade, put her in a leather dress, and tie her up. This brings to light one of the strangest parts of the Mortal Kombattournament, which is that there are said to be rules, but these rules are quite clearly being made up on the spot. For instance: weapons seem to be banned, despite being used pretty much all the time. Tsung gets the souls of people who lose, except when he doesn’t. You’re allowed to stop the tournament and kidnap a combatant, but only if the other side beats up your champion. While it’s best, as usual, not to think too hard about these things, considering that the entire movie hinges on these rules makes it difficult not to question what exactly they may be.
So Kang and Cage follow Tsung into his dimension, to both definitively win the tournament and to get Blade away from his molest-y hands. After the last half hour’s more-or-less nonstop fighting, this journey feels really strange and unnecessary. First we get more of Reptile’s terrible-looking CGI form, then a fight scene that just feels tacked on between him as a ninja and Kang. Mortal Kombat hits some weird pacing missteps here, slowing down rather than building up for the finale, and the reappearance of the eternally affectless Kitana doesn’t help matters.
Finally we reach Tsung’s castle, where our erstwhile heroes interrupt the sorcerer moments before he begins his apparently quite kinky ritual. Tsung’s a three-stage boss, so first Kang has to defeat him normally, then Tsung uses his magical powers to release the souls of what appears to be like seven of the thousands of warriors he’s said to have enveloped, and lastly Kang has to look beyond Tsung’s illusions through the power of believing in himself. Of these fights, the second one is well-done, the first one is phoned in, and the last one is just stupid and bizarre. In any case, Lang finishes up in traditional Mortal Kombat fashion by knocking Tsung onto a spike, which releases a bad-CGI explosion that lights up the night sky.
In a normal movie, this would be the end, but since this is a video game adaptation, something just has to pop up to spoil the pooch. Here, it’s the appearance of a 20,000 ft. tall evil emperor right as the movie ends, thus allowing our gang to strike ridiculous poses before the credit start. Ugh.
Audiences really responded to Mortal Kombat’s level of extreme competence and propelled it to being the first unqualified video game adaptation success. From its surprisingly small $20 million budget, the film made $70 million domestically and another $52 million abroad, actually launching Kasanoff’s new company in the way he’d hoped. He soon went and squandered that, with the film’s significantly worse sequel, but at the moment he was flying high.
Critics were also significantly more forgiving than its Rotten Tomatoes score indicates, which at 35% is actually one of the highest for any game adaptation ever made. Both mainstream outlets like the New York Times and industry insiders like Variety were fairly positive, Variety noting that, “Unlike other video-arcade screen translations, including Street Fighter and Double Dragon, Mortal Kombat establishes itself as a bigscreen entity and shows the pluck and wit of which franchises are made.” It hasn’t held up particularly well, but neither has pretty much any 90s action picture, especially ones featuring copious amounts of CGI.
Mortal Kombat’s main issue in watching it todaydoes in fact from how dated its effects are, which went from “pretty bad” when it was released to “so bad it makes you feel unclean just watching them” within just a few years. It also has a lot of oddly unmotivated events—in particular location changes—that place it firmly within the Michael Bay school of filmmaking, wherein having things look decent excuses the director from explaining what’s happening. But unlike the CGI, this is a problem that’s easily ignored given the film’s generally quick pacing and engrossing action. The film’s also not very original, largely drawing its plot from Bruce Lee’s much better Enter the Dragon, but is still different enough from everything else to be interesting.
The surprise of Mortal Kombat isn’t that it’s a timeless classic. It’s not—in final estimation I’d say it’s maybe slightly above average for action movies being made at the time. Maybe. But it is frequently enjoyable, and more than that it really captured the essence of what the game it was based on. Like the games, it had a plot that kinda sorta made sense but fell apart if you looked at it with any degree of scrutiny. Like the games its fights were solid but not the best out there. And like the games it featured some graphics that are just unforgivably butt ugly. The film’s not that fondly remembered, but it’s the first game adaptation worth watching again more than a decade after its release and the first time one could be said to have achieved a modicum of success.