DVD Reviews

Mortal Kombat – Blu-ray Review

By Frankie Dees Apr 27, 2011, 13:58 GMT

Lord Rayden (Christopher Lambert) has rescued them, but he cannot fight for them. They – a martial artist, an action film star, a soldier – are the chosen three. And while the world’s fate rests on their shoulders, the rest of us can enjoy the thrills as they compete to save us all in the body-slamming, mystical-tinged, full-tilt spectacle of creatures and conflict that is Mortal Kombat. Paul Anderson (Resident ...more

To celebrate the release of the new ‘Mortal Kombat’ video game, the original 1995 pic comes to Blu-ray with all the now hilarious CGI, sloppy dialogue, cheeseball humor and subpar acting getting the best technical presentation possible.

While I never considered myself a fan of Paul W.S. Anderson’s debut pic ‘Mortal Kombat’, I can’t say I remember it being quite this inept. Then again, when this film came out in 1995, I was a sophomore in high school and it probably didn’t take much more than a kick-ass theme song to leave me satisfied.

This is not to say the film doesn’t have its charms in the so bad its good category however…

I played the game quite a bit back in the day, but I remember absolutely nothing about the story (assuming it even had one). Therefore, I have no idea how well represented the story translated to the screen. Unlike the vidgame adaptation debacles ‘Super Mario Bros.’ and ‘Street Fighter’ though, at least Anderson and screenwriter Kevin Dronrey had the good sense to at least keep it in the same ball park of what actually happens in the game.

In this case, a wide array of fighters get matched up in one vs. one battles. So yeah, it’s basically ‘Enter the Dragon’ with a nice helping of ‘Big Trouble in Little China’ mysticism. Well, if you strip those films of cool fight choreography and clever humor.

So once every who the hell knows, an otherworldly martial arts competition is held to decide the fate of the world. If the villainous denizens of Otherworld defeat Earth’s mortals in ten competitions, our world becomes a feast for the baddies.

And wouldn’t you know it, we’re on our tenth competition and Lord Rayden (Christopher Lambert), God of lightning and thunder has seemingly chosen our heroes poorly the first nine times. But at least he has a sense of humor about it.

This time, our world lands in the hands of Lui Kang (Robin Shou), a former monk who seeks revenge for a murdered brother, Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson), a drug task enforcer who, um, is also seeking revenge and Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby), a Hollywood star who is out to prove himself as the real deal.

Mysteriously invited to said competition, the details are filled in by Lord Rayden and they all seem to be relatively fine with the fate of the world being in their hands and facing such out of their weight class chuckleheads like the four-armed Prince Goro and doppelgangers Scorpion and Sub-Zero who spit fire and ice respectively.

So the film becomes little more than extended scenes of mediocre martial-arts and now questionable effects.

Instead of harping on what doesn’t work (which is a lot), I’ll go ahead and talk about what I like.

Christopher Lambert as Lord Rayden either knew exactly what kind of movie he was making or just had the expertise to pull it off but he’s easily the best thing about the picture showing a knowing wink-wink at the material and leaving with the best lines. His part wasn’t necessarily written better, but just delivered better and it’s a shame he doesn’t have more to do. 

Comparing Lambert to the chump delivery of Robin Shou and Linden Ashby shouldn’t be attempted. And excusing the dated CGI where Reptile could now probably be better created using an iPhone app, the production design and sets still manage to hold up and accurately reflect the game - no small compliment considering how such a simply obvious decision is usually ignored when adapting games to movies (take another bow ‘Super Mario Bros.’ and ‘Street Fighter’).

The film is presented with a 1.78:1 1080p transfer that does the film justice if not quite being good. There’s a peculiar amount of source issues that tell me the pic wasn’t cleaned up that much and a varying degree of grain. The DTS-HD Master Aud track follows suit with the video and is acceptable if a bit underwhelming.

Special Features include ‘Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins’ a forty-minute animated series of tales of that fill out the Mortal Kombat mythology a bit. Honestly, I got bored pretty quickly but others might enjoy.

Also included are trailers for the pic and the upcoming videogame. There is also an insert that includes a free and exclusive downloadable Jade costume to be used with the game.

Paul W.S. Anderson has certainly done worse with ‘Soldier’ and the absolutely dreadful ‘Resident Evil: Afterlife’ but ‘Mortal Kombat’ works best at this point as a laugh-at-it nostalgic journey or if you happen to be a teenage boy that still rocks a Sega Genesis.

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