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The California Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local health officials.
In the 1997 franchise-killing flop “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation,” the thunder god Lord Raiden delivers an ominous warning: “What closes can also open again.” He’s talking about the portals that separate Earthrealm (good!) from Outworld (bad!), though in retrospect it’s tempting to interpret his words as a vaguely optimistic prophecy about the state of moviegoing circa 2021. For better or worse, many of the theaters that closed last year are opening again, and starting this Friday they will be playing (what else?) a brand-new “Mortal Kombat” movie a blood-slicked reminder that, in arcade fighter games and Hollywood blockbusters alike, no fatality is ever truly perm
‘Mortal Kombat’ Review: A Klassy Looking Video Game Movie
Mortal Kombat (2021), like
Mortal Kombat (1995), a deadly tournament determines the fate of “Earthrealm” (AKA Earth) and “Outworld” (AKA a nebulous hellscape populated entirely by weirdos with gruesome fighting abilities). Supposedly, if either realm wins ten straight Mortal Kombat tournaments, they earn the right to invade the other. Seeing as how Outworld is a barren wasteland, this is not great prize for Earth, but it’s a hell of an incentive for Outworld and in the
Mortal Kombat movies, they always seem to be one more victory away from ultimate triumph.
But the actual rules of the tournament are . nonexistent? I’m honestly not sure we ever see Mortal Kombat in the new
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The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local health officials.
In the 1997 franchise-killing flop “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation,” the thunder god Lord Raiden delivers an ominous warning: “What closes can also open again.” He’s talking about the portals that separate Earthrealm (good!) from Outworld (bad!), though in retrospect it’s tempting to interpret his words as a vaguely optimistic prophecy about the state of moviegoing circa 2021. For better or worse, many of the theaters that closed last year are opening again, and starting this Friday they will be playing (what else?) a brand-new “Mortal Kombat” movie a blood-slicked reminder that, in arcade fighter games and Hollywood blockbusters alike, no fatality is ever truly permanent.
Not exactly a knockout.
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4/23/2021
A quarter-century has passed since Hollywood first adapted the arcade classic
Mortal Kombat, with a film that launched newcomer Paul W.S. Anderson into his career making bad but extremely profitable movies full of CG mayhem (and a side career flummoxing those casual moviegoers who confuse him with two similarly named but slightly more brilliant auteurs).
This year the newcomer is Simon McQuoid, whose version of
Mortal Kombat ditches original character Johnny Cage but revives most others dating back to Midway’s 1992 game. A B-movie that would benefit immensely from some wit in the script and charisma in the cast, it’s not as aggressively hacky as P.W.S.A.’s oeuvre, but it runs into problems he didn’t face in 1995: Namely, the bar has been raised quite a bit for movies in which teams of superpowered young people have fights to save the universe. While gaming die-hards may enjoy this riff on familiar characters and kills,