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I’m A Mortal Kombat Fan And I Liked The 2021 Reboot
It wasn’t a flawless victory, but it was pretty victorious.
Mortal Kombat is a fighting game that was created two decades ago. Over the years as the game evolved, new characters were introduced and many interesting storylines and plots were developed. In 1995, the first movie adaptation of the video game was created, and it was a success. Two years later, producers made an attempt at creating a sequel, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Let’s just say most Mortal Kombat (MK) fans like to pretend that movie didn’t exist.
As someone who played the games as a child and loved the movie adaptation, I was ecstatic to hear about the 2021 reboot. After watching the trailer, what was shown had me looking forward to the release date, but I had many questions. Since I haven’t played any of the newer versions of the games, I was a bit behind on the storyline and backstories of the main characters, so I found some gamer channels for a memory refresher. It’s safe to say I was pretty invested, but still, I entered the movie theater with neutral expectations.
Since I’m in Taiwan, I got to see the movie on the original release date, while the US had to wait two more weeks. To be honest, I really enjoyed the movie. Once my family, friends, and other fellow Americans watched it, the opinions rolled in on my social media timelines. I was taken aback by the number of harsh criticisms I saw. The movie wasn’t 10 out of 10; however, the way people talked about it, you would think it was Annihilation bad. It wasn’t. While I understand everyone isn’t going to like the same things, I noticed a common trend.
The majority of the harsh criticisms were coming from Millennials like me, people who most likely played the games and watched the movies as a child. The first two Mortal Kombat movies are available on HBO Max. The 2020 animated version, Scorpion’s Revenge, is also on that platform. I decided to watch the original Mortal Kombat movie, and I watched Annihilation for giggles before watching the 2021 film one more time. Rewatching the 1995 film as an adult made me realize that this movie did not age well. I don’t say this because of the lack of special effects and bloody fights. The acting definitely had its cringe and unrealistic moments. There were also some holes in the plot.
