Even the most daring speculations about future of motion picture industry failed to predict one of the most bizarre phenomena in 1990s Hollywood – films based on popular video games. On the other hand, this trend wasn't hard to recognise, since the Hollywood in that time showed the need to compensate for its own lack of creativity. And the video games, especially those belonging to action genre, provided the best possible demographic group for Hollywood - teenagers - together with the very little need for something like plots and characters. However, this reasoning usually proved to be quite wrong; only couple of such films managed to justify their existence commercially. One of the few that did was Mortal Kombat, directed in 1995 by Paul W.S. Anderson.
The plot of Mortal Kombat argues that mankind might not live in the best of all possible worlds, but it definitely doesn't live in the worst possible either. That might change if the evil Shang Tsung (played by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) has its way and his hordes win the martial arts tournament known as Mortal Kombat. This would allow Shang Tsung to enter Realm of Earth, but before that his contestants must win nine times. The only thing that could stop him are three unusual contestants recruited by human-loving deity Lord Rayden (played by Christopher Lambert) - former monk Liu Kang (played by Robin Shou), action film star Johnny Cage (played by Linden Ashby) and secret agent Sonya Blade (played by Bridgette Wilson). All three of them come to the remote island and start preparations for the fights in which they would have to fight their own fears together with demonic opponents.
Mortal Kombat is surprisingly good movie, considering the source material. The most fortunate thing for this film was relatively low budget - being unable to indulge in the orgy of special effects, director Paul W.S. Anderson had to rely more on more traditional skills of film making. The exotic sets are quite elaborate, the fight scenes are brilliantly staged, and George S. Clinton's musical score based on techno is quite refreshing in comparison with other Hollywood films. Despite having limited script by Kevin Droney, director Anderson snatches opportunity to pay homage to martial arts classics, including legendary Enter the Dragon. Even the casting is very good - while the leads are played by unknowns (among them only Bridgette Wilson would later reach some sort of global fame), supporting characters are played by veterans, including Tagawa who can eat such villain's roles for breakfast. The wisest casting choice was Christopher Lambert, who usually doesn't play supporting roles; here he excelled in role of Rayden and proved that his presence doesn't have to be a box-office poison. Even the author of this review, who cares very little for video/computer games of action genre, was quite pleased with Mortal Kombat, so he believes that this film should be recommended to people who don't like that particular form of entertainment.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews on December 10th 2002)
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Critic: AA