MORTAL KOMBAT
Duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duhduh
Hold up. What many fans of the franchise would consider the definitive piece of MK musik is nowhere to be found here. So surely this is a zero star review? Tempting, in a hyperbolic way, but no.
Scorpion’s Revenge, the latest animated movie from Warner Bros Animation, is essentially a retelling of the first Mortal Kombat. With the benefit of years of stories to pull from, and a successful soft reboot that came along in recent games, it has everything in place to tell the origins of you guessed it…Scorpion!
The yellow palette-swap ninja has always been my favourite. Time spent at the MK2 cabinet after Saturday afternoon swimming was mainly spent with my brother and I facing off as Scorpion and Sub-Zero. I throw a kunai. He throws an ice blast. We both jump kick to dodge and then either cheese the leg sweep or attempt an uppercut. Repeat. Not the most thrilling match ups, for sure. It’s still always Scorpion that I look out for and it’s his design that I judge a lot of the games by.
So first off, Scorpion himself. His design is pretty good, definitely taking cues from several games, MK10 included. I’m not so sure about his actual mask or heavy brow., but overall he’s solid and should please most people. His characterisation should please most too. Now, this is an MK film, so don’t expect too much. It gives us so much of the violence that we expect that it also gives us the shaky story and paper thin reasons as to why anyone does anything.
Lui Kang is dedicated. Sonya Blade is a badass. Johnny Cage is cocky. Kano is…English? Australian? To be fair, that’s about right too! Raiden even makes a joke, a nice little reminder of Christopher Lambert. Scorpion’s Revenge takes a look around and uses what it fancies from the games and films.
What it doesn’t do is anything new. So calibrate your expectations and you should be fine. Even the ending is no surprise at all, mirroring those of the original games and the first film. There’s always a bigger bad guy.
You want a straight up MK film with the characters and OTTness that the series is known for? You’ve got it. With gore galore, and a sprinkling of x-ray shots to really hammer home the impact, Scorpion’s Revenge isn’t a flawless victory, but a solid piece of entertainment.
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