There has been quite a lot of material thrown out surrounding the infamous Mortal Kombat franchise, most of it has been mediocre to say the least, but with this little gem it looks like they finally got it right, or close to.
For me personally I put this full-length animated movie alongside the now classic Genndy Tartakovsky animated Star Wars Clone Wars series. And by that I mean both seem to be unique standouts that, surprisingly, most people tend to forget about. Both have a similar attractive art style, and both took a much more serious approach to their respective franchises at a time when that was lacking, or in Mortal Kombat's case, most other things had just been plain bad.
This animation basically introduces Scorpion and how he became the skull-headed fire-breather. Spoiler alert: He and his family were massacred by another clan, so in the Netherrealm, he makes a deal with Quan Chi to come back from the dead and get revenge. It's a tale as old as time. At the same time, the regular gang of MK heroes (Sonya Blade, Jax, Lui Kang, and Johnny Cage) are off to Shang Tsung's island to compete in the Mortal Kombat tournament to try and save Earthrealm. It's a tale as old as time.
So the most noticeable element of this animation is of course the fact it's an adult animation stuffed with lots and lots and lots of Mortal Kombat gore. Aside from the stories that are mildly engaging the rest of the movie is obviously seeing various characters fight to the death showcasing familiar moves, stages, and quips. Naturally that's what people are mostly here for and the movie doesn't disappoint too much. Don't get me wrong I was satisfied but certain well-known characters are killed off surprisingly quickly whilst others don't show up at all. I kinda expected a lot more, there could have easily been a lot more characters and fights, some montages perhaps.
Have to mention that I've always had a bit of an issue with MK characters in movie/TV form because so many of them are so powerful. It definitely feels like there are too many main villains with Shang Tsung, Quan Chi, Goro, Khan, Shinnok etc...You also know certain characters won't die for obvious reasons and other characters are sidelined. Reptile gets a pretty raw deal in this movie methinks. But this tends to lead to many characters just slamming their way through busloads of henchmen/thugs/ninjas as if they're in invincible mode. Gets a bit stupid really because how useless can these guys be??
I liked that the movie focused on Scorpion (it had to focus on one of the big names really) and his story was fine if predictable, cliched, and generic. As said the other main plot line was the simple tournament as you would expect really. The standouts were of course the brutal violence where we finally get to see some fatalities on the 'big screen' so to speak. The animation was lovely and much in the same vein as Tartakovsky's Clone Wars, a wise choice. They also give us the slow-mo X-ray damage hits with certain moves. The voice casting was spot on in my personal opinion and the small touches of humour with Johnny Cage were a pleasant addition.
In general overall this was a solid step forward in the Mortal Kombat franchise and probably the best thing to come out up to this point. All the live-action movies and TV shows have been so-so, never really hit the mark for me. But this animated entry certainly kicks all sorts of ass with electrifying high-paced action, thick gloopy buckets of claret, and top visuals to boot! The only problem is it all feels a bit by the numbers.
7/10
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