Anyone remember the first two Mortal Kombat movies? Me neither. Here's the new one. The trailer for this revamped Mortal Kombat movie introduces the potential cast and background story, but for me it raises plenty of questions about the overall entertainment value of the film. I feel like no video game has ever made a successful jump onto the screen (Max Payne, Street Fighters, Super Mario Bros, and Mortal Kombat - and if you have never seen these movies, don't bother). Every video game-movie I have seen lacked a coherent plot and usually rubs off as "cheesy" and cliche.
On the contrary, Mortal Kombat's latest trailer promises riveting fight scenes and delivers a darker, edgier cinematography (reminiscent of The Dark Knight) which effectively captures the spirit of playing the original game. So in that sense, the film appears like a hopeful advancement from the awful first pair of Mortal Kombat movies. One concern: after watching the trailer twice, I had a problem with the scriptwriting. It's downright cheesy. From what I can tell, the scriptwriters played it safe and continued the concept of a fighting tournament, which seems far-fetched and just...stupid, especially after Fight Club and similar films (Fighting, starring the infectious Channing Tatum) have beaten that idea to death with a lax stick. Outside of the tournament, the beauty of the original Mortal Kombat video game is there is no discernible script. No script = scriptwriter's dream. It's not like this is American Psycho and the director has to slim down a 300+ page novel into an 1 hour 40 minute film. The sky is the limit for the script of this new Mortal Kombat film and here's to hoping they got creative with it.
Cheers
Footnote: I usually do not enjoy mindless fight films and I don't think I will ever like this one. Still, part of me is intrigued to see if this film can capture my adolescent feeling for the game better than its first attempts. Sometimes nostalgia's more addictive than speedballs.
(Disclaimer: I do not partake in, nor do I encourage the consumption of drug reference above)
No comments:
Post a Comment