PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Welcome back to The Black Box Chronicles where I take a look at some of the movies I used to watch again and again back in 1995. For those that followed Congo and Species know that 9 year old me sat in front of my TV and watched the hot new movies that were out. One of the movies I saw the most was the 1995 action movie MORTAL KOMBAT.
Eight years ago I did an editorial on the first Mortal Kombat game and the legacy it created, but I’ll make it quick. In 1992, four men at Midway Games named Ed Boon, John Tobias, Dan Vogel and Dan Forden created a fighting game named Mortal Kombat that shook and shocked the world. It was a masterpiece that led to the ESRB ratings for video games being introduced and the legacy continues today with Mortal Kombat 1 in 2023. A sequel came out a year later that perfected some of the complaints of the first and a franchise was born. In 1995, Hollywood came calling while Boon & the gang had finished up Mortal Kombat 3. What came out of that? The first MORTAL KOMBAT feature length film was underway.
The Story
So what’s the plot of the movie? A more detailed story of the first game. The demon lord Shao Khan wants to merge Outworld with Earthrealm but to do so legally his crew of warriors need to win 10 straight Mortal Kombat tournaments in order to please the Elder Gods. They have won nine and this is the tenth. Liu Kang (Robin Shou – Beverly Hills Ninja 1997) is Earth’s chosen one and he’s got revenge on his mind as Outworld’s sorcerer Shang Tsung (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa – License To Kill 1989) killed Liu’s brother Chan (Steven Ho, professional stuntman).
Liu vows to win the tournament, avenge Chan and save the day. Meanwhile Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson – Billy Madison 1995) is on the trail of the murderous gang lord Kano (Trevor Goddard – Deep Rising 1998). Kano happens to be working for Shang Tsung and his mission is to lure Sonya onto the boat to Outworld. Also in the tournament is movie star Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby – Spy Game 1997) who wants to prove he’s not just an actor but he’s the best fighter in the world. The trio end up on the boat where Lord Raiden (Christopher Lambert – Highlander 1988) gives them the scoop. They win the tournament or else the Earth crumbles.
Standing in their way isn’t just Shang Tsung but his personal henchmen Scorpion (Chris Casamassa – Blade 1998) and Sub-Zero (Francois Petit – Frist Strike 2009). Once in Outworld, Shang-Tsung welcomes Earth’s fighters and says the winner will meet the reigning champion, Goro. Will Earth’s warriors survive and stop the Outworld merge? Watch the movie and find out.
What’s To Like?
So what made the movie so special? The fighting scenes mostly were epically choreographed and even had some cool elements of the game. In the first game, the character Reptile is a secret character you have to jump through hoops to get. In the movie, you hear the voice from the game say “Reptile” before he appears to fight Liu Kang. Supposedly massive cheers went up in the movie theaters during that moment. Ed Boon was the iconic voice for Scorpion’s “GET OVER HERE” in the games and he does it again for the movie. Let’s not forget the theme song. Two homeboys from Belgium came up with this remix of video game voices and the Mortal Kombat TV commercial to come up with this banger.
Take a listen:
The fight scenes stay true to the game in many ways with the “Finish him” aspect you’ll have to see to appreciate.
Then there’s the acting. Now you have to keep in mind, this is a movie based on a video game. If you’re looking for The Shape of Water or Shakespeare acting, you’ve come to the wrong place. That doesn’t mean its bad by any means. In fact, two of the characters steal the show, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa and Trevor Goddard. Cary Tagawa has always played stoic villains or antagonists in movies like Showdown In Little Tokyo and the James Bond flick License To Kill. His ice cold delivery really makes the character of Shang Tsung even better.
Trevor Goddard with his Australian accent breathed life into the otherwise worst character in the original game. Kano was a bald headed gangster that had below average moves, but Goddard and his one-liners saved it. To this day MORTAL KOMBAT fans still say “Ear….to ear.” What about the rest?
Linden Ashby was a little bit toned down since Johnny Cage was supposed to be a braggadocios loudmouth. Bridgette Wilson did a great job as Sonya, portraying her with a chip on her shoulder. Fun fact, Sonya was originally supposed to be Cameron Diaz fresh off The Mask but she hurt her wrist and couldn’t do anything physical. Bridgette had to fly off the set of Billy Madison to start filming MORTAL KOMBAT. Even though she was the “damsel in distress” (she was tied up in the second game, get over it), she was hardly helpless.
Robin Shou was the most like the actual character, soft spoken and ready to fight at a moment’s notice as Liu Kang. Then there’s Christopher Lambert who once again breathed life into an otherwise bland character (at the time). Lambert’s sarcastic delivery and one liners also put Raiden up there with Kano and Shang Tsung as the best characters. Talisa Soto played a great “guide” so to speak in the movie as Kitana, even if that wasn’t supposed to be the game’s character. Still, this is a movie and Talisa rocked her role.
What’s Not To Like?
Now for the nitpicking, and this is going to be short. In the game, Scorpion and Sub-Zero are bitter enemies but have their own reasons to be in Mortal Kombat. Scorpion is a resurrected revenant and wants Sub-Zero dead while Sub-Zero is a professional assassin hired to kill Shang Tsung. In the movie, they’re henchmen for Shang Tsung who claims they’re slaves under his power. Scorpion, sure….but Sub-Zero? Yeah right.
Then there’s the AWFUL cgi. The movie’s Reptile is a little creature thing made in cgi that looks worse than a Sega Staturn game. Then he turns into the “real” Reptile for one of the best scenes in the movie. Then there’s Kitana. Princess Kitana is not in the first game and she has no real use in the movie apart from being a guide to the Earth warriors. Although who’s going to complain about how great Talisa Soto looks?
The animatronic Goro was fine considering the original was made out of clay, and the voice matched the character, but still looks out of place sometimes. As mentioned earlier, very few of the actors played their characters as they should have been, but some of that ended up being for the best.
Finally, to get a PG-13 rating they had to sacrifice blood and gore. Gamers at the time called it the “Super Nintendo version”. Still, when that’s all that there is for nitpicking, you know MORTAL KOMBAT a good movie.
So how was MORTAL KOMBAT received in 1995? It drew $23 million its opening weekend, totally burying The Babysitters Club that also was released that weekend. It drew $124 million total when all was said and done, becoming the most successful video game movie…..until the Japanese Pokemon movie was released three years later. The sequel didn’t do quite so well but that’s an epic disaster for another day. Critics tore the movie apart but what were they expecting? The target audience was video gamers, not your aunt Edna looking for the next Gone With The Wind. The Super Mario Brothers movie sank like a rock in 1993 and Street Fighter in 1994 was more cheese than it was action. Mortal Kombat was generally well received by gamers even to this day.
The Legacy
So what about legacy? Robin Shou and Talisa Soto reprised their roles for the sequel but everyone else was re-cast or written out for Mortal Kombat: Annihilation in 1997. Let’s just say that movie missed the boat by a mile. The TV cartoon Mortal Kombat: Defenders of The Realm was your basic superhero action cartoon once again with no blood or gore. Mortal Kombat: Conquest came out in 1998 and got praised, but didn’t last very long. Then came the 2021 movie, which is another story for another time.
Even though the CGI doesn’t hold up, the rest of MORTAL KOMBAT does 30 years later. The movie even impacted the games in a few ways. As mentioned earlier, Mortal Kombat 3 was already out when MORTAL KOMBAT was released. Thanks to Trevor Goddard stealing the show as Kano, the Kano character went from a bald American to an Australian with a buzz-cut beginning with Mortal Kombat: Special Forces. Unfortunately Trevor passed away in 2003 so he barely got to see the legacy he created.
The original movie proved so popular that Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa and Bridgette Wilson reprised their roles as Shang Tsung and Sonya in Mortal Kombat 11 in 2019. The end of the first movie implied that Johnny Cage would end up with Sonya and Liu Kang with Kitana. One of them came true in the games, with Johnny and Sonya having Cassie Cage by Mortal Kombat X that was released in 2015.
Final Thoughts
All in all MORTAL KOMBAT was a good movie for its time that cashed in on the huge popularity of the video games. There’s been movies, TV shows and more games since 1995 but some of that doesn’t happen without the success of this movie. Bridgette Wilson was on top of the world in 1995 and Robin Shou got his big breakout role in MORTAL KOMBAT. Trevor Goddard created a legacy that changed the character he played in future games and Mortal Kombat the franchise reigns supreme 30 years later.
Test your might and get over here to watch it on its 30th anniversary.
