Mortal Kombat (2021): Review

Episode 251: Mortal Kombat (2021) - Review

GET OVER HERE! And listen to our review of the new Mortal Kombat flick that serves as a reboot to the franchise that somehow doesn't live up to the original 1995 flick... like really. It doesn't. PLUS, we talk about our first look at Venom: Let There Be Carnage!

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You're listening to Screen Heroes. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Screen
Heroes Podcast, Episode two fifty one. I am your host Derek and I
have with me my two lovely cohosts, Ryan Hello and Ray Hello,

(00:25):
Hello, Hello, Welcome back everyone. This week we are taking a look
at the twenty twenty one reboot ofMortal Kombat, another video game adaptation flick.
Last week for a two hundred andfiftieth episode, if you missed it,
we kicked off our new monthly segment, MCU Revisited with two thousand and

(00:47):
eight Iron Man, looking back atthe first MCU film in a post Infinity
Saga world. So you can gotake a listen to that. Don't forget
you. Of course, you canwatch us live Tuesday nights on our Facebook
page Screen Heroes Podcast Facebook page andchat with us. So thank you to
everybody who does join us live thisweek. And Ray, I think you

(01:10):
were going to kick us off andstart the conversation. So yeah, Mortal
Kombat it was. I mean,is there is there anything you guys want
to talk about before we talk aboutMortal Kombat because there will be carnage trailer

(01:32):
came out. We could talk aboutthat we could talk. It was shaky
cam and dark and I couldn't seeshit. Yeah, it was basically like
I mean, okay, so there'sthe first scene right where you get to
see Venom making Eddie Brock breakfast,which I loved. Right, we all
love that interaction or like that kindof interaction between the two of them.

(01:55):
In the first one, that waslike the I think most people did.
That's why it was so successful despitebeing a shitty ass movie. But this
one, right after that scene,it's just like a bunch of random darkness
and shit that was exactly like thefirst movie, the things we didn't like
in the first movie. So Idon't know, I'm hoping they're leaning more

(02:19):
into the things that people seem tolike, and I actually enjoyed like that
breakfast scene and less into the darkRaney fights where you can't see anything that's
going on because it's two literally blobsof something fighting each other. Right,
Yeah, it was hard to seewhat was going on in most of the

(02:40):
trailer. It was even a littlehard to hear what the symbiate was saying.
It was like a bad impersonation ofhim. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
So like the at the tail end, when they have the scene in
the convenience store, like, I'mI'm not entirely sure what the symbiate said
and wanted to eat missus Kim,Right, I got that because because Tom

(03:02):
Hardy says that, right, butit says now we eat miss Kim or
something like that. Is that whatthe line was? Okay? Yeah?
See I couldn't even like really pickthat out. And you know, I
know it was supposed to be thebig reveal of Woody Harrelson's carnage and you
couldn't even see it. Yeah,you can't even see it. Thank god.
I got rid of that stupid fuckingwig. Oh my god. Yeah,

(03:28):
this was rough, and don't doWoody Harrelson dirty like that. That
wig was awful. Yeah, he'stoo good of an actor for that nonsense.
He's just too good of a person. He's a really good person.
He doesn't deserve that. I mean, that's fair. I do really hope
that the movie does a better jobexplaining how he becomes carnage than that trailer

(03:49):
seemed to depict, because I don'tknow why you would take a murderous prisoner
and then test that type of thing. It looked like they were giving him
lethal injection like you had already gottenthe cynbio and ful injection like triggered in
Carnage to Yeah, come out interesting. That's better. That's what I was
thinking too. Okay, but you'reright, it wasn't necessarily clear. If

(04:10):
we are sitting here debating this,then there's clearly an issue. Yeah,
I mean, explaining the entire backstoryof Carnage in a two minute trailer is
probably not I don't want the entirebackstory. You know, he's just he's
been in jail, So how didhe get it? Well, I mean
they hinted at it in the endof the first one. The comic backstory
is that Eddie Brock and Clidas werecellmates. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just

(04:42):
gonna throw out a hot take here. Carnage is overrated and I'm not really
looking forward to him at all inthis movie. It's he's there's nothing interesting
about him. He's literally just likeviolent for fun, and that's as interesting
as the character gets. Anytime anybodysays that Carnage is like is their favorite
character, I judge them so harshbecause there's nothing redeemable about the character that's
interesting at all, except for hecomes up with fancy ways of killing people.

(05:06):
So hot take here. The symbiais basically v D or you know,
coronavirus, like a little bit getson somebody and all of a sudden
they have a symbia. Now,so I like, these movies are not

(05:26):
going to be that interesting to me. The first one's funny when it wasn't
trying to be funny, or maybelike Tom Hardy was the only one who
thought he was in a comedy orsomething. So I am going to watch
it because it's on our list ofshit that we are going to review.

(05:46):
But I it's it's a thing.You didn't think that that first scene was
cute at all? That was fine. The breakfast scene was fine. No,
I didn't after that was pretty Ithought that was pretty funny. It's
a weird take on Venom admittedly,like if you're a Venom fan from the
comic books, yeah, this doesn'tseem like it's really going to be your

(06:08):
bag. I did think the scenewhere he smashes the Spider and says there's
no saviors or like whatdy, Harrelson'svoiceover says something about no saviors right as
it smashes the Spider was interesting,Like that's clearly lining up. The Spider
Man isn't around, Like maybe thisis when he can't be Spider Man because
everybody knows his identity or something.There you go, Yeah, I guess

(06:32):
I just because the movie has beendelayed so much due to COVID and everything,
and they finally released a trailer somewhatlike unannounced ahead of time, I
was maybe just expecting a little bitmore from it. You know, that's
all like that opening scenes great,but I have a feeling that that's like
only in the first act and therest of the movie is just blobs fighting

(06:54):
each other. Yeah, you wouldhave think they would, like I'm worried
that they didn't learn the first onewhy people liked it, Rachel, you
hit on it, and it wasthat, you know, everybody else thought
this was a serious movie and thatthere was at some point it became a
comedy, whether the actors involved knewit or not. Like the interactions between
Eddie Brock and Venom were pretty funnyfor most people. Like him just being

(07:17):
this hungry thing, it's like likefor food or humans or whatever was maybe
unintentionally funny, and that's what workedin the first one. But I'm worried
that they're not. They didn't learntheir lesson about the things didn't people didn't
like about the first one, whichwas dark blobs fighting each other especially,
So yeah, I'm with you there, I really am, because I think

(07:42):
that that's that was the key,was that relationship. It was different,
it was fresh, it was new. You know, yeah, he's an
anti hero, but it was sucha different take on things, and I
think that's what really drove people toit. And the final act is like
very pained by numbers, It doesn'treally hold up up. Yeah, I'm
worried this is gonna be the sameway absolutely, Like that's that's kind of

(08:05):
the problem because you remove Tom Hardy'stake on Eddie out of it, and
it is very early two thousand,like like early two thousand superhero movie.
Yeah, if that makes any sense. It's super basic, Like the climactic
ending, it feels like it wasdirected by Michael Bay, which is not

(08:31):
a compliment. Like it's very Transformerswhere everything is just clashing together and you
can't tell who is who and itdoesn't make any sense. And I just
like Eddie Brock was unique, andTom Hardy's portrayal of him was unique because
he clearly was like, Okay,I'm gonna play this guy as a serious

(08:52):
journalist, but I'm gonna play itlike I'm in a comedy, like the
rest of them world is funny andI'm a serious guy. And his take
on it was amazing. Like Ithink Tom Hardy did the best job of
the entire film. But it's justcan you ride that high? Like it's

(09:18):
one person enough to keep your franchisegoing, or is one gimmick enough,
or like it's got to be somethingdifferent. And I like that he was
a departure from where the comics started, because you know, that was not
how Eddie Brock and the comics started. It was really more of what Toford

(09:41):
Grace gave us. Now, hewas absolutely ridiculous for all the wrong reasons,
but his origin and his motives andstuff like that, we're a little
more similar to the comics. Yeah, I think the hot topic card is
gonna latch on the Carnage and ifit's successful, and that's probably most of

(10:03):
the reason why. You know,the same people that really loved Joker are
gonna love Carnage for probably the similarreasons. And so like we say,
you say the hot topic crowd,like we're talking about little kids and teenagers.
Well I'm an old man now,so yes, that's probably like gen
Z is not about these characters atall. They do not hype them up

(10:28):
at all. It's it's shitty millennialin cells, like get behind these characters
and you know they still and theyhave money, so they'll go see the
movie multiple times, just like theydon't. Joker you know is billion dollars.

(10:50):
We are down a path. MI think one of the best things
Sony could do is find some wayto unofficially recognize the existence of the mc
you. You know, I getthat it's not in a canon MCU film,
but they don't. They can dolots of things that can still reference
that it's within continuity, right.I can't imagine these stories are going to
be large enough to impact the MCUstories, but the fact that it's off

(11:16):
on its own, in this tinylittle side pocket is a little weird right
now, um, and I Ithink they'll address it. They just see
it an after credit scene that's likeEddie going to interview somebody and he walks
into the room and it's Michael Keaton'scharacter from from Spider Man in jail there
and then it cuts to black,just like they're doing Morbous or whatever.

(11:37):
Yeah, exactly like that. Yeah, even Michael Keaton be the lynch pin
between all these I'm good with it. I down for that, because my
biggest bear is that every single Venommovie is just going to feat another symbiate.
Yeah, he's gonna just spread Venomliterally everywhere, like VD or coronavirus

(12:00):
or both. And you know we'regonna get new symbias every time because there's
there's a million of them, sothey could do it each one less interesting
to the last. I do likethe idea though, Michael Keaton both being
the key to the Sony Marvel Verseand also Flashpoint in the DCU, He's

(12:24):
really just the lynch bit of allsuperheroes in general. He's the nexus of
the entire superhero cont always returns toKeaton. I'm good with it. It's
fine, it's fine. There's definitelyworse people to go with. That is
more interesting. If they are buildinga Sony MCU Sinister sixth collection, that's

(12:45):
so much more interesting than you know, Google Villain of the Week. Absolutely
well, right, because it hasthe same issue that we've talked about with
the earlier Marvel movies, is thatthe villain has the exact power set is
the hero, you know, Andit's just I'm I think we're all just
kind of over that. We areover that. Yeah, for sure,

(13:11):
you want to take a break andthen we'll talk Mortal Combat. Sure,
let's do it. Yeah, We'lltake a short break and when we come
back, we're talking Mortal Kombat twentytwenty one, available on HBO Max.
This is your spoiler warning for this, and I guess the original Mortal Kombat
movie and the games and the deep, deep lore that exists within world combat

(13:31):
games. We'll be right back everybody, all right, and we are back
everybody talking Mortal Combat twenty twenty one. Where do you want to start?
Right? All right? So,what's your guys least favorite part of the

(13:52):
movie. Least favorite part. That'sa tough one. The fact that it
wasn't the original nineteen ninety five version. Oh my god, guys, if
you go back and listen to thisthe episode where we review the nineteen ninety
five Mortal Kombat, Ryan actually tearsup because he hated it so much and
because because I so much that Iloved it, like it was so bad

(14:16):
that I just like embraced everything thatwas happening. Yeah and yeah, yeah.
So that's episode two o five foranybody wondering. That was a year
ago. May twenty eighth, twentytwenty, we talked the nineteen ninety five
Mortal Kombat. I don't even rememberwhat I had heard of about specifically,
it was something with the way theywere fighting. You were crying on the

(14:39):
Show's amazing, that's the only timethat's happened during the show. It has
to be the reptile fight, right, it might have been. I only
was mad. I'm only mad thatthat didn't happen in person, so that
you guys could have shared the tearswith me in real life. Well,
you know, coronavirus kills our spiritsevery day, that's right. Here's one
thing that the nineteen ninety five MortalKombat has that this movie doesn't have the

(15:03):
actual tournament. Like, come on, this it's a fighting game. There.
I get that there's a bunch ofcharacters and there's weird, loose connections
between most of them and everything likethat, but it's not known for its
story. Just give us the fuckingtournament. Did you read why they didn't
do the tournament because they wanted todo it later. No, because they

(15:24):
wanted it to not be compared tothe nineteen ninety five movie where they did
the tournament. Yeah, fuck that, We're going to compare it no matter
what you think. Right, Nobodyin that room was like, but it's
the same characters, like, nobodylike you know, or it's the same
title, it's based on the samegame. Just clear you guys did not
like this movie. Okay, sothere were a couple parts in it that

(15:48):
I found enjoyable, but for themost part I found it really forgettable.
Like it's not even laughably bad likethe first one is or Annihilation is like
even worse than that, But it'sjust it's a fighting film that's not really
about the fighting. The stunts arenot really that great and seat right,

(16:11):
the small moments that are fun,like why I Showed up are few and
far between so and way too shortwhen they're there. Like, we we've
definitely reviewed worse films. Yeah right, well, fun that are worse.
In my opinion, I don't.I'm very much with Whey where it's just
really forgettable. I kind of nothingthis movie Yeah, I don't hate it.

(16:34):
It didn't like bring up any strongemotions for me negatively but also not
positively. I mean, also,you didn't need to remix the song,
just use the song. It's thegreatest thing to ever come out of that
movie. That made me so angry. What a waste. Yeah, I'm
with you there one hundred percent.I think, like the people, there

(16:56):
are another song that hypes you upas much as a more combat theme from
nineteen ninety five. But I thinkthat's the key. The key is the
nineteen ninety five film felt like theylike really went as far out as they
could with so much passion and lovefor the game, but they were limited
by money, by technology, youknow, and just physical constraints for what

(17:17):
they could do. This movie doesn'thave any of those constraints. They've got
one hundred million dollars, they've gotmodern CGI special effects, and somehow this
isn't really an improvement. Yeah,okay, so this I'm going to compare
this kind of two Ghostbusters twenty sixteen. This movie went so far out of

(17:37):
its way to distance itself from thefirst movie that it became a huge thing
that like, hugely noticeable that theywere trying to do first it was a
tournament, right, you know whatanimated this movie twenty times better. When
lu Kang shows up in the desert, it looked like Robin Shoe, the
outline from the first movie, thebig hair, all that stuff. Make
it old Robin Shoe and have itconnect to the first movie, and then

(18:02):
you can you know, you don'thave to change up the characters a little
bit, obviously, you know,Sonia and Kano and whatever. But you
could have you could have just madethat universe deeper and leaned on the success
of the first one instead of justbeing worried that you're like too close that
people are going to compare it.That would have been really cool. That
would have been so much better.People would have loved that. Right,

(18:23):
They're over like fifty different characters thatcould have been at and and here's the
thing, though, they're so worriedabout comparing it to the first film.
Why why are they? Why whydid they go into making this worried about
the nineteen ninety five film. Honestly, I would have been more concerned about
being compared to the mini series,the web series that was done, because

(18:48):
truthfully, that was good story telling. That was a lot great fight scenes,
well done acting in choreography, likeJerry Ryan of all people with Sonia
fucking Blade and that is awesome.Yeah, I can't have the character Sonia
Blade get anything worthwhile in these movies. She was not worth anything in this

(19:08):
movie. She wasn't worth anything inthe nineteen eighty five movie. Well,
it's it's really glaring in this onetoo, because mostly she's the only woman
in the movie, with very fewexceptions. Yeahs us she is. She's
absolutely the exposition dump and for eightypercent of the movie she's not even really
involved. She's just kind of liketagging along. Yeah, they're more like

(19:30):
just you. You don't have atattoo, so you have to just hang
back. You can't do it.Okay, the tattoos are the dumbest,
fucking the arcana is the dumbest.Oh god, I hated that. Like,
oh, you, if you reachenlightenment, you get special powers.
Your special powers are also technology andlike, okay, well like Jack's for

(19:52):
example, Yeah, Jack's am Kano. It's like, okay, it's our
kan of The word inspires the thoughtsof magic, right like fireballs. Sure
that arc arkana does not mean youget like super technical giant robot arms,
like, well, it's supposed tobe something that's in your soul, right,
that comes from your soul or whatever. And so before he got his

(20:14):
arms ripped off, his soul wasthat he had giant robot arms right,
like, or a laser. Alaser is not magic, you know,
so calling it arcana is stupid.Okay, So I'm sorry, listeners,
what's the dumbest thing? The arcanaor the dragon tattoos? I want to

(20:37):
just throw out there that I alsothought the dumbest thing is the fact that
they give us this exposition dump,like so much exposition dump, only to
just basically tell us at the endof the movie that none of it actually
matters. Nobody has to follow therules and you can just do whatever you
want. Yeah, And also instantlyoff screen, all of a sudden,
it turns into hooth line isn't anyway, the points don't matter. The entire

(21:00):
premise of the movie is that theOutlanders don't care about the rules, and
rating's not really gonna bother doing muchabout it. That's the entire plot of
the movie. Because the whole movie, because he's cool looking, people like
him, so he's in the movie. That's I mean, that's that's why

(21:21):
he sub zero and Scorpion or anyI guess at least he wasn't a white
guy in this movie. Yeah,the casting. The casting was certainly good.
I liked the cast. I thoughtthey did a decent job with the
casting. It was just written superpoorly. We don't know main character.
Can anybody tell me he's not acharacter from the game, And he's basically

(21:41):
the most boring character in the movie, Like this failed failed MMA fighter be
our guy that defends our realm?Right, Cole Young? Yeah, it
felt like the idea was and thisis just my my perspective, it felt
like he was supposed to be likethe audiences. Yeah, right, exactly
into That's what I thought too.But I also that's just like an amateur

(22:07):
screenwriter myself, who wouldn't have beenthat dumb. Yeah, I mean,
did you feel like in the firstone you were left out because lu Kang
was the main that's the that's thething, right, Like, were you
Cage? You know Johnny Cage,who was kind of like a guy that
didn't buy into all this stuff,But well, did you need someone who
doesn't buy into it? I mean, Sonya is still your normal character who

(22:30):
doesn't have superpowers. For most ofthe movie, she easily could have been
the everyday person Lens. Instead,she was the person that knew everything about
the tournament, which it's not areal good look at all to have your
one woman with an actual role bethe one who has done all the work
ahead of time, the one whofinds people to that have the dragon tattoos,

(22:55):
and who can't participate until the veryend. You know, that's not
a great look, guys, Likeeverything about it is bad, And Sonia
is not my favorite character from thegame. But as like the blonde white
chick who was literally the only femalein the first game, I get why

(23:17):
you want to go with her allthe time. But now, but now
there's been so many other games,like with so many other female characters,
Like who cares if she was thefirst character in the first game, her
first female character in the first game? You are going to do? Molina
is so dirty? Like that wasrough. She's basically a demon spawn.
You're right? Did she even havemore than like one line? I don't

(23:40):
even did she even have one line? Especially, I thought she had a
quip it when she first thought thought, Sonya, I thought she had like
a one liner, but I couldbe wrong, and that that in itself
is a problem, right that,like we're not even really sure she spoke.
Yeah. I mean the best scenein the whole movie was the opening

(24:02):
scene was subject on scorpion. Yeah, that that got me hype. I
was like, this is gonna bea good fucking movie. And then it
went to coal and I'm like,never mind. Yeah, big, it's
a it's a big problem. Andlike the even just the settings are a
bit of an issue too, becausemost of the movie is set like in

(24:22):
this one dinky little rink that they'vebuilt. Yeah, like we spend half
the movie there. Your locations donot need to look like actual game levels.
I at bothered me about the firstmovie and Annihilation, like you you

(24:44):
can fight literally anywhere. They don'thave to look like the games, Like
stop, it can happen anywhere.If I was making this movie, I
would worry about being compared to someof the other recent video game adaptations that
have been decent and have been wellreceived, at least, between Tomb Raider,
Detective Pikachu, and Sonic Like theseare well received popular films that looked

(25:08):
good. Age had better cgi andand the Rock god damn it a better
story. It's like Page have abetter story, right, It's just ridiculous.
And so I don't know. Idon't know where the money went.
I don't understand the thought process forthe story, like I just I just

(25:30):
don't understand, with all the expositiondump that they do, why we needed
to know that much history for afor a tournament that they don't even do
in the movie, Like, you'renot even telling us because we need we're
gonna see it. You're telling usa bunch of stuff that we don't even
get to see because the bad guysjust decided not to do it right.

(25:51):
And I think that's the biggest gripefor me, is that you wasted all
of this time with all this expositionfor no reason. Yeah. Absolutely,
And the I didn't even feel likethe nods to the fans were good enough,
Like it does not do me anygood as a Katana fan to actually

(26:17):
see her fucking fans in the background, Like it No, just cast her
in the movie and give me theshowdown. I've wanted to see live action
for years, and that's Melina versusKatana. So that would have been trash
in this movie if they did it, because yeah, because the fights were

(26:37):
horrible. Can we talk about howmany jump cuts they had, even though
they had actual martial artists play thesecharacters? Like, you know what I
find really funny about this is youguys never comment on the number of jump
cuts that there are. I'm alwaysthe one that brings that up. It
was pretty bad. It must havebeen real bad. You can tell that
the actress who play Sonya is indamn good shape and did a lot for

(27:04):
this movie. It had to bea choreography issue, right, They just
didn't hire choreographers that could handle thefight scenes that they were trying to write.
That has to be what it is. I don't think it's the cast
again, Like, I don't thinkthey're the problem in this movie. I
think this is an example of theright the casting agents doing their job and

(27:26):
a bunch of other people not doingtheir job. You know why the Robin
Shoe fights were so good in thefirst one is because one he was a
real martial artist, and then twohe was also one of the choreographers for
the for the film, So everythinghe does is stuff that is natural for
him, right, it's not somebodyelse planning something out for him, it's
something he feels flows naturally. Thismovie not none of the fights felt like

(27:48):
they flowed naturally. No, well, you've seen better fights on Arrow,
yeah, really, I mean we'veseen better fights in almost every superhero media
across the board. I mean itwas bad, and like that's the whole
point of the movie too, Like, this isn't like a secondary thing that
we're picking on. It's a fightinggame movie. It's the entire point,

(28:10):
right, And it still wasn't verygood. You know, like the Kano
scene, you know where they keeptripping them over and over again, like
it's funny for a second, butyou're also like realizing maybe it's because they
just couldn't choreograph anything better. Well, it's it's it's a joke referencing the
fact that you can Luke Kang spamsweep people and like in the game,
and it's super fun it's super frustratingin the game to get that done,

(28:32):
and it was super frustrating to watchin this It wasn't funny. It was
funny the second time was funny,and then they just kept going with it,
right, And I'm like Okay,it's a joke that people like me
who are button mashers can beat peoplewho are really good at you know,
figuring out the codes and the combinations. Like, I get it, But

(28:52):
that doesn't need to be in themovie. It really doesn't. And I'm
sorry, but Kano was literally thebest part of this film, oh easily.
That guy had a lot of funon set. And you know,
I keep hearing everybody say that Ilike, Okay, some of his jokes
landed, but a lot of hisstuff was like racial jokes and stuff like

(29:14):
that, and I didn't really findmuch of that funny. Personally. He
just felt like the only character thatreally had any true personality to it.
Yeah, everybod is definitely true.Showed up ready to act and play a
character. I think everybody else sawthe script, realized how bad it was
and kind of checked out, AndJosh Lawson was like, no, I'm

(29:37):
gonna go so hard into this,you know, And that's that's just what
he did. So he just comesoff more genuine then the other roles did,
I think, at least to me. I'm not saying that I like
the character or anything like that.Yeah, you know, I just think
that he he brought his A gameto the role, and I think everybody

(29:59):
else kind of checked down a lotof the time. I personally found lu
King to be a giant. Wassure, Yeah, he was not anywhere
near the quality of the first movie. I mean, right, that's another
reason. Yeah, that's another reasonwhy I was like, why didn't they
just bring him back? It wouldhave been so much better. By the

(30:22):
way, I do want to mentionthis because I learned this because of this
movie. There's actually a term foryou know, there's like blaxploitation. This
is very specific genre what Kano wasdoing in this movie and what like Crocodile
Dundee in a lot of this there'sactually a specific term for that. Did
you guys know this osploitation? Idid not know that. It's when,
like you, they dig into likethe Australian stereotypes really hard. Like I

(30:45):
said, Crocodile Dundee and like thischaracter, and there's been a lot of
other examples, but I didn't knowthat. I learned that because of this
movie. I was watching an Australianguy that was talking about this movie and
he mentioned that, and so Ilooked it up. That's super interesting.
Yeah, I had no idea thatwas to get genre right into itself.
That's I mean, it's fair.I never really thought about it, um,
But it's an interesting point. Itis very interesting. It's something that

(31:07):
I have to have to put somemore thought into. Does Mad Max count
like the old stuff with that?I don't know if. I don't think
the original one would because he wasn'tlike going into the stereotypes, but it
definitely got closer in the sequels.Yeah, I still don't think it was
far enough though. It's a littlelike darker and grittier than yeah to be

(31:29):
Yeah, it's usually done for comedy, I think, just like kind of
blaxploitation stuff. Is So what aboutJay Courtney Boomerang's character. Yes, I
would say that's definitely for me.I would assume that's that. I don't
know. I'd have to watch itagain. It wasn't something I thought about,
so it's interesting. Yeah, Ihad no idea as plantation. If
anybody wants to look it up,it's definitely opened my eyes a little bit.

(31:52):
Um. But Ryan, to yourpoint about, like, you know,
connecting it to the first movie andstuff, I think I think what
you're saying is it's just like theantithesis of what these people had in mind.
For some reason, they were soscared of the nineteen ninety five movie
they wanted to stay as far awayfrom it as possible. That in itself
is confusing to me, right becauselike why that first movie it's a bit

(32:15):
of a cult classic because it's cheesybecause the special effects just weren't ready yet
and they just didn't have the moneyto put into it, and so it's
something that isn't like, doesn't holdup well over time, But we still
have a place in our heart forit because you could tell that they really
cared for it. Why not dialinto that, Why not try and bring

(32:36):
that forward? And people would complainabout the characters, but you could have
literally just used like Johnny Cage andSonia and Luke King as like the guidance,
like the mentors. Right, Well, they wanted to save Johnny Cage
for some sequel that may never happen. Well, the problem is everybody is
making movies in terms of franchises.They're like, we can't go so hard

(32:59):
in the first one so that there'splaces to go in the second. But
I don't really care, Like Iactually think if they wanted to do something
completely different full of fight scenes,they should have done a Mortal Kombat origin

(33:20):
story where the gods created the tournamentand you see people like Setrion and Raydon
and Chinok just go at it withlike ungodly power, and it would have
been stupid. By comparison, itwould have looked like a bunch of like
children fighting on the playground compared toGod's fighting, you know what I mean.

(33:42):
But to raise point though, it'sit's okay to go all in though,
because you don't know if you're gettinga sequel. So in this case,
they had an idea for like itwas something like No Joe, like
four or five films, Yeah,and they're like, well, we're gonna
save this for this one. We'regonna save this for this one, okay,
but we may never get to seeany of those. So give us
everything that you got, now,give us all of your A plus ideas
in the first film, and thenworry about the sequel. Well, supposedly

(34:07):
they didn't use Johnny Cage in thisone because they didn't they thought with Kano
in that role that there would betoo many like wise cracking white people in
the movie. I get that.That's a reasonable thing. Like you,
you don't need to overdo it onthe same kind of characters. I mean,
we've seen that a million times before, so I totally understand that.

(34:31):
And the Asian representation in this filmis some of the best I've seen in
a very long time, So thatwas pretty great too. I don't really
care for Johnny Cage. You've neverbeen my favorite character, so it was
sad for me. Oh yeah.It's the name recognition though, too,
because a lot of people don't knowthese games, but they know a lot

(34:52):
of the name drops. That's whysub Zero is so popular. People know
the name, and they know kindof what the mask looks like, and
they know the name Johnny Cage.So you use him in your first film
to draw in your external audience,right, that isn't the core gaming audience,
And you can even kill him offin that movie if you want to
bring in Castide Cage later as likefighting for her her father's honor or whatever.

(35:16):
You know. Sure, yeah,I mean even if you connect it,
if they connected to the ninety five, they could have still used the
same sub Zero and Scorpion and justbeen like, these are the evolutions of
these characters, like, you know, these characters get killed and brought back
a bunch. They referenced it inthis movie that no one's ever really dead
or whatever. Yeah, which,by the way, is not a good
thing to do in your first movieeither, because and they do do it,

(35:38):
because Scorpion dies in the movie andcomes back at the end to kill
sub Zero. But like, whyshould we care? They'll just a throwaway
line at the end, right,Yeah, So yeah, I mean they
could have easily been connected to theninety five movie without much you know work.
It just pulls a lot of thepunches though, because then does any
of it matter? Right? Thebad guys can cheat, The gods don't

(36:00):
care. People die, they resurrect. I mean, what's the what's it
actually at stake here? There's noweight to anything in this movie, and
that's a huge problem, right,But that's the thing though about Mortal Kombat.
There's no weight to the games.You you die, you come back,
and that's it. The problem isthere's no cohesive intelligence story in the

(36:29):
games, So trying to come upwith one for the movie, it should
be done loosely. If they wantto make a ton of these films,
they don't need to be connected byone single hero who's trying to keep his
family safe. They need to bedone as anthology films, like Okay,

(36:49):
we're gonna have these two face off. We're gonna have these face off.
And because I mean, I wasthere for the Gore, I was there
to see some of those silly fatalitiesin uh finally on screen, and they
gave me some of those, butthey also didn't live up to what they

(37:10):
could have done. And if aguy can make a web series with much
better fights and story than you shouldhave just hired him. Yeah, just
do the tournament. Just do afighting tournament. You know there's been It
doesn't have to be deeper than that. You want to do the out world

(37:31):
thing and do some basic explanation forwhy there's a tournament. I mean,
that's fine, but just do thetournament, show us the fights. You
can go through whatever characters you want, kill off whoever you want, and
then if you get a sequel,then you can tell us how nobody's ever
really dead and bring back whoever youwant. It doesn't have like that's the
thing. It doesn't have to bethat complicated. I'm gonna throw on a

(37:55):
hot take here for you guys,another one. So many hot takes tonight,
lots of hot takes. Steve GoroCGI in this movie looked better than
the ninety five movie, but thepractical Goro from the nineteen ninety five movie
looked significantly better than the CGI Goroin this movie. Thoughts. My hot
take is that this Goro looked likea B grade Mark Ruffalo Hulk. I

(38:21):
couldn't stop seeing it. It wasdistracting as hell, and they just shouldn't
have done it. But but itlooks better than the nineteen ninety five version,
not just it's been twenty five years. I would hope that a movie
with you know, four times thebudget and twenty five years the technology would
do a better job. But itstill didn't look good. That's the problem,

(38:46):
right, it does. It's notthat it didn't have to look better
than the nineteen ninety five version.It had to look good by today's movie
standards, and it didn't. Okay, But what about the practical Goro from
the ninth nine five movie? Doyou think that was all puppetry and they
worked really hard on it. Itend to give that goro more love because

(39:13):
more effort and passion went behind it, and it just looks better. It
looks better. It holds up.Yeah, like that's the key. It
holds up, right, This doesn'thold up now when the movie came out
in ten years, it's going tolook even worse. But practical effects don't
age like that. It's just notthe way that that works. And if

(39:34):
you don't have the money to doit, then don't do it. I
don't know why they were like,oh, we can't do Janey cage,
but we can do Goro. Yeah, and we're gonna kill him off.
It's just a guy whose power islike grow armor and orb okay that his
power is knetic energy. His poweris knetic hot tape. Yeah, rowing

(40:00):
armor is kind of a cool powerset, but it was mishandled, Like
armor looks really cool. That couldhave been done in a much better way,
Like there are a couple X menout there who have similar abilities and
I think are really cool and husky, So yeah, I think that could

(40:23):
have been awesome, and it wasjust it was dumb. Like it was
dumb. Yeah, it was likehis armor starts glowing whenever he takes a
punch, like, oh my god, this his power getting the crap beat
out of him, because it literallyis that's who's defending Earth Realm. That's
the person that we were like,we're gonna give this guy Earth Realm to

(40:44):
defend from birth, he's gonna havea tattoo signifying that he's the true one.
This guy that lost like twenty mmafights in a row. I don't
know why, you just don't makehim inherit like the scorpion ability, which
is the way they were setting itup the whole movie, and right,
and he's new Scorpion whatever you wantto call him. That at least makes
more sense and is more interesting becauseit's a cooler visual anyway, and then

(41:08):
end upping any of the other ninjastoo, like we get a really bad
version of Reptile. And yeah,Reptile looked better in this one than they
did in the ninety five movie,but the bar wasn't that high. He's
again, he still didn't look good. Like, like, this movie's budget
was around fifty five million dollars,so it's not like Marvel movie budget.

(41:30):
I understand that. I think,maybe don't do a couple of these characters.
Ye didn't have to waste money onRico and Natara, who were clearly
added to the film just so theycould kill people off. But I think
they burned a lot of their moneyon Reptile and Goro. You don't need
to do a CGI character if youdon't have the money, do something else.

(41:50):
There are fifty characters to choose from. Well, we saw in Suicide
Squad killer kroct was done with practicaleffects. You could do Reptile in both
his human form and then also doa reptile mask. Yep, absolutely yeah.
Instead you do this weird scene wherehe's not there half the time because

(42:12):
you probably couldn't afford to do itthe whole time. You know it,
just when you do see him,it doesn't look good. It just isn't.
It isn't good. Don't do CGIcharacters if you can't afford to do
them well, because people are doingthem really fucking well. Now, whether
you like Detective Pikachu or not,those Pokemon all look pretty freaking amazing.

(42:32):
If you can't look as good asDetective Pikachu, don't do CGI. That's
the bar, Detective Pikachu. You'reeither below it or above it, guys.
I mean I kind of feel likethat now, because those are completely
fictional cartoon characters. If you can'tmake your stuff look as good as them

(42:52):
or better, hopefully don't do it. That's my take. I mean,
you're not wrong. I mean Inever saw the text Peaches, so I
have no opinions on it. ButI mean, these characters were not good.
And if you know you only havethis much budget, then maybe you
do characters that you can do practicallyand not Yeah, not to do that

(43:13):
kind of crap, Like the openingscene, the first ten minutes of that
film belong in a completely different film. They are so good, and maybe
they should have just kept going withthat, just have an entire movie about
how vicious and savage the lyn Quaiare and how like honorable Scorpion is and

(43:39):
and like a whole redemption through Hell. And did they ever explain how Subzero's
family like got the cold powers?Like this guy just has cold powers and
he's fighting his large nemesis who hasno powers other than just being a good
fighter. Yeah, that develops firepowersbecause he goes to Hell and apparently has

(44:00):
just been cheating on the tournament tournamentfor thousands of years. It was that
was really weird. Like I lovethe old like rivalry and like, you
know that kind of stuff. Butyeah, that was weird. You just
have this guy show up that canmanipulate the power of ice and whatever else
around him. But he's like,this is his this is his arcana,

(44:22):
I'm guessing, but everybody else hasan explanation for any magical abilities that they
have except for him, and itis implied that he's not the only member
of the Linque who can do that, and then he's lived thousands of years

(44:45):
without explanation as well. Yeah,well, because he's from the outland,
right, so time moves differently.Not he was there, he was from
the real world. And yeah,well but one of Kano's guys was like
that too, what's up? Yeah, I forget his name, but um

(45:05):
yeah, Like so that was thatwas definitely all over the place. But
even Subzero's powers, which by theway, it's just from a power perspective.
He's my favorite of the Mortal Kombatcharacters because I love ice powers.
I think it's just a cool concept. I don't even think they were used
very well in this The scene withwhen they're you know, Jack's is trying
to drive you know, coal around, it's really like they're throwing slushy slush

(45:27):
all over the car. No,the coolest scenes were when he froze Scorpion's
blood and used it as a dagger. Yeah, the only cool choreography in
the movie for me when he brokeoff Jack's arms. I did like the
gun moment was cool. You knowwhere he's freezing the bullets as that was
kind of cool. But I feellike those are the three moments in the

(45:49):
movie that look substantially good. Wellthat when whoever be it the director,
the screenwriter, or the fight choreographerknew what to do with his powers.
That yeah, can we talk aboutlike the whole third act of the movie,
or like the whole like climactic showdownof the movie, how the main

(46:10):
character of the movie was literally justpunching the shit out of his family to
while somebody else fought the big badguy for him. I mean, what
a stupid way to end the movie. And not only that. Okay,
So Raydon has the power to teleportanybody anywhere, right, Yeah I mentioned

(46:30):
that, So why doesn't he justlike teleport this whole group together to each
individual bad guy so that they canall team up and fight each one by
themself, Like when they're alone andjust fuck each one of them up.
But you know what I mean,like or wait till Shang Sung is on
the toilet or something, and thenteleport them because Raydon can't interfere until he

(46:51):
does. Yeah, he can onlyinterfere like when he feels like it.
But that's again the problem, right, Like the bad guys do whatever they
want. They've won, you know, every time by a landslide, and
Rayin's like, I'm waiting, I'mgonna wait, I'm gonna give you a
minute, and then when there's notime left in the movie, it's like,
well, I guess I better dosomething. Yeah it's not good.

(47:16):
Yeah, it was really dumb.And I wanted to like it, like
I really wanted went into this wantingto like it because I did like the
casting decisions. I figured, withthe new budget and the special effects you
know, of modern technology, they'dbe able to make it at least look
good, right, But when youcan't make it look good and you can't

(47:36):
give me a story that makes anydamn sense, and the fighting choreography is
trash, Like what am I watchingthis for? Because it's not a nineteen
ninety five film, it's a twenty. It was made in twenty twenty.
It was made in twenty nineteen.Yeah, you know, so I just
it was it was just a nothing, just boring kind of movie. Yeah.

(48:02):
No, I mean I watched it. We hadn't decided what we were
doing this week, and so Iwatched it like the day it came out,
which I think it was like twoweeks ago, or maybe even like
three weeks ago now, yeah,But so I watched it then. And
when you guys were like, oh, let's review Mortal Kombat, this would
I'm like, oh shit, Idon't really remember a lot of that movie.
So and that's not a good thingin general, you know, to

(48:27):
like go watch a recap to makesure I remembered all the things I hated
about it. I just don't thinkthere's a lot to it. There really
isn't there. The sets aren't interesting, the characters aren't interesting. The costuming.
I mean, there's a couple ofthings that are cool, but mostly
it's very me No, and Iactually think a lot of the sets in
the first movie were more were betterdone than this. There's at least variance
in the fights areas, you knowwhat I mean, you had there were

(48:51):
more ambitious. You had like thisfight with Borrow and like a ring,
and then you had the sub Zerofight that was in like a throne room.
I mean, you've got a lotof like more true to Mortal Kombat,
varied locations for the fights. Umso yeah, I think in this
movie it was they were trying,Yeah, and they didn't do well.

(49:15):
Is a disappointment overall. And like, if the second movie comes out,
I'll probably watch it, but onlybecause my favorite character is going to be
in it, and hoping that it'sbetter than the first one. Yeah.
Well, they've they've got more planned. They've got like four more of them
planned, so we'll see how manyof those get made. I guess I

(49:37):
can't even believe that they have.They haven't even for sure greenlight a second
one, haven't they. So no, they do so that they have them
planned out, and I feel likewe're going to see another one because this
one did take the box office forthe first like two weeks, and it

(50:00):
like it pulled in money. Sowell, let's let's see how much we're
talking here. So the budget,like I said, was fifty five million,
and it's made worldwide almost seventy threemillion. So not like a It's
it's a hard comparison because COVID stillgoing on. It's about a fifty fifty

(50:22):
split between domestic and the rest restof the markets. So it's it's hard
to say. I don't know.I don't know. I don't know if
they can justify it, because thetruth is it needed more than a fifty
five million dollar budget to do whatthey were trying to do. Yeah,
and they'll probably be even more ambitiousin the sequels. So I can you
give them one hundred million dollars?I just don't think you can not with

(50:45):
what they've shown here. I didn'tsee potential here. I saw a wasted
opportunity. No, I'm with you. You know that there's been a lot
of movies we've seen and talked about. We're like, yeah, you know,
if they had like twenty million more, they could fix X, Y
Z and this would have really madeit, you know, top tier.
We've we've had those conversations. Idon't I don't know what the problems were

(51:07):
here. Money is certainly some ofit, but I think this needed like
one hundred million dollars. Well,they certainly need more money to hire somebody
that had better choreography. I mean, or they could do better choreography,
because this one was, like youguys said, the jump cuts are all
over the place. That's when yourmovie is literally a fighting game, where

(51:29):
like all you do is fight,you kind of need good choreography. Yeah,
you need interesting fights. Yeah thatare that are good to watch,
that feel good to see. Yeah, I agree. And you know,
we've we've watched a lot on martialarts films, and usually they don't get
great budgets either, So I'm notsure that money is a fair excuse in

(51:53):
that particular area. Special effects.Sure, Goro and Reptile don't look good
because you didn't have enough money forit, But forgiven that if like everything
else was good. We've forgiven badcgiing and move good movies before totally.
Many times it was just, youknow, just another thing on top of
another thing, exactly up. Ye, I mean, I don't know if

(52:15):
there's anything else to say about it. No, No, okay, Well,
next week we're going to check outNew Mutants. It is finally on
HBO Max and we can all watchit on a platform that we already paid

(52:38):
for. This movie was delayed eighthundred times. Ye. Yeah, It's
been on our podcast list of episodesforever, every year since the podcast started.
Why is a twentieth century Fox filmthat got purchased you know that was
part of an acquisition with Disney sittingon HB on Max. It just makes

(53:00):
not freaking sense licensing deals. Man, I just don't get it. Why
did the Christian Bale Batman movie switchbetween every platform every other month? They're
not on Disney Plus. I'll tellyou that, they're not on Disney Plus.
Some months are on Netflix, someone'sare on Hulu, someoneths, are
on Amazon Prime. They're definitely noton HBO Max though, even though Morbo

(53:23):
It's Yeah, streaming rights are confusingas hell, aren't they. But yeah,
we're gonna do New Mutants next week. We're finally gonna look at the
final X Men movie in the twentiethcentury Fox Marvel universe. Yep, that's
what we're doing. Any final thoughtsthis week? No, thank you?

(53:44):
All right, that's fair. That'sfair, all right. So, like
I said, New Mutants next week. Thank you to everybody who joined us
live. Remember you can do thatTuesday nights at nine pm Eastern on our
Facebook page, or you can joinour Facebook group, the Screen Heroes Podcast
Forum where we talk movies, TVnews, polt. We have polls and

(54:05):
memes. You name it, wegot it. Come talk fun entertainment stuff
with us. If New Mutants isnot your thing, then the following week
we'll be checking out Army of theDead, the News Zack Snyder, Netflix
zombie film with Dave Bautista. Sothat's coming down the pipe. If New
Mutants isn't your thing, we arethe Screen Heroes Podcast. You can find

(54:29):
all of our links at screen dashHeroes dot com. I am Derek.
You can find me at the StarTrek dude everywhere that social media is there?
Ray? Where can people find youat Siren? Ray? And Ryan?
What about you at Buster Props?All right, well thanks again everybody.
We are the Screen Heroes Podcast.We will catch you next week.

(54:52):
Have a good one everyone, ow