So I saw this at work today but I couldn't watch it because they don't want us watching streaming video and doing other high-bandwidth crap at work. Not that they would have caught me. I also didn't want anyone to see me watching something so nerdy.
But yeah, I watched it when I got home from work and my desire to avoid embarrassment was futile because I watched it alone and felt embarrassed.
I mean, granted, it's based on "Mortal Kombat". I shouldn't have expected anything BUT embarrassment but I have to say that it blew my mind.
For starters, I can't believe that internet fanboys can get excited over something from the director of the "Fame" remake. On top of that, I can't see how they can get so excited for something that somehow manages to shamelessly pander to its audience while completely disrespecting said audience at the same time. I would have argued that those things were in direct opposition of one another but I guess I would have been wrong.
The whole thing takes itself far too seriously, it's literally nothing but a series of "bad-ass" movie cliches strung together, each one leading up to the reveal of a character's name. Seriously. That's it. It's like "watch this guy get all procedural and growly for 2 minutes and... WAIT FOR IT... HE'LL SAY SCORPION HERE IN A MINUTE!"
THEN it uses said super-seriousness coupled with the promise of extreme violence to COMPLETELY ignore the setting and story of the MK series. Now don't get me wrong, I'm no MK fanboy, I think the MK story has always been incredibly lame and hilarious, but I tend to think that you should probably stick with the established story since that's the ONLY THING LEFT when you take a video game and remove the audience's ability to, um, PLAY THE ____ING GAME.
But hey, there's no audience of demographic as starved for credibility than the nerd/fanboy audience. Nolan's Batman movies prove that you can show complete and utter disdain for your source material and the nerds will eat it up because it's being taken "seriously". Newsflash, Hollywood: WE DON'T NEED YOU TO PULL OUT SOME OBSCURE MEDICAL DEFORMITY TO EXPLAIN THE GUY IN THE RUBBER LIZARD MASK. It's called "suspension of disbelief" and the "Mortal Kombat" audience is fine taking these leaps without this nonsense.
Call me crazy, but if I actually gave a crap about Mortal Kombat I'd be pretty furious that some Hollywood hack was dangling blood and darkness in front of me to try to distract me from the fact that he was completely repurposing the entire property and making it something its NEVER been.
But hey, I'm not an MK fan so how can I really give a crap? It's not like making good movies based on video games is even possible. How many have they made by now? Probably like 20 and they ALL suck. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.
But yeah, this one takes the cake. I can honestly say this thing is one of the worst things I've ever seen in my entire life. I honestly feel sorry for every actor who participated in this thing.