Hanzo Hasashi loses his clan, family, and his life during an attack by a rival ninja clan. He is given the chance to compete in an interdimensional tournament to save his loved ones.
Written by redmiatazoomzoom
With me being in my mid 30’s, the Mortal Kombat video game franchise has been around since I was a child. It not only entertained me, but millions of fans across the world; bringing that brutal blood splattering gore that you can’t get anywhere else. The series has had its ups and downs as far as proper adaptations go, but as time passes each attempt at some live action installment increases in relative quality. Although this time Scorpion’s Revenge wasn’t held back by the limitations of live action. This marks the 2nd animated film after Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins (1995), and it gets full treatment with a Hard R rating.
It was a wise decision to choose Scorpion as one of the main protagonists in this film. He’s never received that much attention in the past while still being one of the most popular characters from the video game. As a fan of his, I was able to see a number of his special character moves that make him so unique and special. There was no amount of overstuffed fanservice to be found either. Each attack from the character was natural and had substance in its use. If Scorpion wanted to throw out his long retractable chains yelling, “GET OVER HERE!!!” it was because that was the most practical move at the time given his skillset; not just a random move at the time, because it looked awesome. This was consistent throughout the entire film for a majority of the characters. Any fan of the series would be in joy over all of the Easter eggs that are present to bring up nostalgic memories.
Besides all the special character moves and fighting styles which are stellar, the characters’ costume designs stood out like a gem. It especially seemed liked Raiden, Subzero, and Shang Tsung’s makeup were treated with special care. You get to see all the main characters on the big screen for a respectable amount of time, and the film even shines some good light on the secondary bunch of characters as well.
While everything mentioned above was great, you can’t say that about the entire production. Mortal Kombat is mainly known for its Outworld tournament of evil supremacy. And while the film does focus on that, it’s bogged down trying to simultaneously tell the story of Scorpion and where he comes from. Because of this the two story points suffer dramatically and are not able to be completely tied together into a cohesive plot line while laying out all the grounds rules of the said universe. It’s unfortunate and may be a bigger problem for a viewer who is not very familiar with the source material.
Another downfall is the dialogue between characters in some scenes. At times it seems as if it was written at the last minute with no real thought of sounding meaningful or being a realistic interaction between a group of people. It was just too simple to take seriously at times.
Though all of that is made up for in the end with the level of brutal fighting and carnage. Mortal Kombat: Scorpion’s Revenge is no masterpiece by far, but it is a worthy adaptation that at least any fan of the franchise would at least appreciate. The level of detail in the portions that did work can’t be ignored, and does deserve a bit of recognition.
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