The Lord of the Rings: Gollum isn't as polished as I was hoping for ahead of its May release window, but it still finds ways to endear itself to longtime fans.
Screenshot: HBOMax
Well, this is a real bummer way to start off the week, but let’s get into it. One of the coolest moments in the new
Mortal Kombat movie was also the coolest moment in the trailer for the new
Mortal Kombat movie: Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim) is engaged in battle with his eternal arch-nemesis, Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada). Sub-Zero slices open Scorp’s chest, and as the blood spills forth from his enemy, he flash-freezes it into a deadly icicle and stabs Scorpion with it. Again: it is
cool. But is it actually possible? According to
The Lovely Bones, you could kill Stanley Tucci with an errant icicle, so why not a deliberate bloodsicle magicked into existence by a mythological freezer man in the midst of Mortal Kombat (with a K)? This is the question
Cast
Availability
Select everywhere and HBO Max April 23
To be fair, the four-armed extra-dimensional champ does eventually make an appearance. The titular tournament, in which the best fighters of our dimension (referred to as “Earthrealm”) face the bruisers of the evil dimension of Outworld, does not. There is, technically speaking, no Mortal Kombat in
Mortal Kombat. (They’re saving it for the sequel.) There are, however, some unremarkably choreographed fights with sporadic VFX gore and digital blood spatter. Whatever happened to the gnarly prosthetic? The fire-hose-strength arterial spray of bright, bright red? Digital effects haven’t made movies any cheaper, but they’ve definitely made them less interesting to look at.
First time feature director Simon McQuoid admits to the extensive "research" that went into making Mortal Kombat, and shares details about how the action of the franchise's gameplay informed the impressive fight choreography of the film.