Mortal Kombat

I'm pretty sure Last Action Hero introduced us to Bridgette Wilson. Also, this movie is a guilty pleasure for me. It didn't try to do anything different for the most part. One of the most accurate game-to-movie movies. Decent fight scenes. Plus, Lambert is hilariously bad in this.

Let's all try to forget Annihilation and cannot wait for MK3 to come out. (Been in Development HELL forever)

So much fun. The fights are, mostly, decent. The set design and cinematography are actually really well done. The film's accurate to the games, despite the PG-13, and yet still has an intentional sense of humor. And the soundtrack was fucking awesome.

Still miffed that Stryker and Kabal were left out....okay not really.

Kabal, yes. Stryker, fuck him.

Fuck Stryker? Fuck you, sir....okay not really

The greatest thing about the Mortal Kombat movies is the chick playing Kitana.

God knows that was my feminine ideal for my early teen years....

It's originally from the commercials for the first game when it went to consoles. The Immortals ended up mixing the sound byte into Techno Syndrome when the time came.

One of the best times in chud chat.

She was also Lupe in Licence To Kill. I can't decide which Anderson movie I like best: this or Soldier. That's also pretty much it when it comes to entertaining Anderson movies.

"I don't... THINK soooooo... Heh. Heh. Heh."

Frank Welker voicing Goro was awful though. Is that Dr. Claw? Is that the Diamond in the Rough head from Aladdin? I wish someone would rape Welkers vocal chords out the back of his Welker-neck.

Oh, shit... all those guys did sound exactly the same, didn't they? Hahaha. If anything, I find that even more awesome.

Someone in another thread said that Paul "Not Thomas" Anderson has been trying to achieve the pinnacle he reached with 'Mortal Kombat' during the rest of his career. I agree with that person.

And yeah, great soundtrack. The Orbital track at the end was, at the time, one of the most sublimely awesome pieces of music I had heard.

Paul Anderson just had to do what the creators of the video game did, copy Enter the Dragon and add some special effects. The 2nd movie was just proof that even the video games were just out there till about MK4, which then got bad again (they're fighting Batman now).

Still, I wonder why the video games never got the soundtrack from the movies

I can't stand Paul Anderson's films at all, but I have an odd soft spot Event Horizon. Probably helped by the fact that I first saw it when I was 12 years old and that the 'crew in hell' sequence terrified the shit out of me.

Mortal Kombat doesn't even have exciting fights.

Oh that Reptile fight begs to fucking differ.

What? Scorpion vs Johnny is a fine scene. Also, don't forget this one has Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa in one of his best roles.

Anderson actually doesn't deserve that much hate to begin with. AVP? Not in the same world that did AVPR to us.

Event Horizon? Not bad actually.
Soldier? Solid, due to Russell.
Death Race? Well, it can't be worse than Tokyo Drift.

Resident Evil? One insult as an adaptation, but basically not that bad actually. Compared to RE2 and RE3 it's clearly watchable.

Event Horizon freaked me out on VHS. Just really really unpleasant. I did not enjoy that movie. I was in 10th grade at least, but hadn't had much exposure to such gore in films yet. I've never revisited it.

I watched Mortal Kombat again several years ago. Fun, but I remember the Sonya fight being really crappy.

The first Resident Evil was okay. A couple protracted moments of greatness (the laser room, the Red Queen, the final shot), but otherwise, inoffensive.

I still can't decide which one of the sequels is worse: Extinction or Apocalypse. The latter has a so-so Nemesis, the other a neat scene involving crows but what they have in common is that they suck. Big time. If I ever met Sienna Guillory I'm gonna punch her in the ovaries. Her "Jill" is one of the worst movie characters ever.

Oh well, just read that Anderson at least wrote both RE sequels. That makes him half guilty.

Apocalypse is basically a long, violent cigarette ad.

the two best fights were the Reptile vs Liu Kang (which was choreographed by Robin Shou. should have let him do all the fights) and the Scorpion vs Johnny Cage fight.

cheesily great movie. over the top but believes in itself wholeheartedly

one of my favorite soundtracks ever

I love how the fight with Sub-Zero goes:

CUT TO: Sub Zero freezing shit

CUT To: memories of Rayden's Words of Wisdom

CUT TO: CLOSEUP OF BUCKET OF WATER

CUT TO: CLOSEUP OF SUBZERO

CUT TO another 4 or 5 clips of Rayden saying "use your enemies strenghts against him!"

CUT TO throwing bucket of water at SubZero

CUT TO: Water fereezing into an icicle!
CUT TO: SubZero being impailed on said Icicle!

Mortal Kombat is still the best videogame film with DOA: Dead Or Alive a very close second. Maybe Street Fighter: Legend Of Chun Li will put all the other videogame adaptions to shame. I also thought that Bridgette Wilson was the best thing about MK the film...although Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa was great as the EEEEEEEvil Shang Tsung.

I was in 8th grade when I saw this and at the time, it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. Then I rented some random Jackie Chan movie and realized MK was pretty shitty.

She's married to Benjamin Bratt. Fucker. Also the only thing worth seeing in "Ecks vs. Sever". And not a bad choice for "Vampirella".

And I loved me some Mortal Kombat. Bought the soundtrack and everything.

WHAT??????

"You. Weel. DIE!"

I'm really amazed so many people love this and/or consider it Anderson's best(COUGHeventhorizonCOUGH). I'm not saying the guy is a great filmmaker or anything, but Mortal Kombat kind of sucks. I will give it the fact that the fight scenes were pretty cool when it came out, but that was before Hollywood started doing the kung fu thing right(and also very, very wrong).

*edit- I don't mean to be overly negative, I know it's not being touted as some masterpiece, but even for shlock and stupid fun, it's still pretty bad. Lambert's miscasting is pretty awesome though.

It doesn't take itself so damn seriously, like most of Anderson's other work. It's schlocky and stupid and it knows it. It's almost like it mocks films like Resident Evil, which have the same over the top posturing and bravado without any of the charm.

Oh, and the Shang Tsung quote is "Your soul... is MINE!" I believe.

Yoh brotha's soul is MINE! You... weel be NEXT!
*face turns into scary skeleton face for some reason*

The Cage vs Scorpion fight that starts in the forest and transtions to the underworld is fun.

Especially with Fear Factory's Zero Signal accompanying the underworld scene (but not an obnoxious 'this is off the soundtrack' way)

Reptile looks really dated, but his human form fight is my favourite.

But the most enjoyable character goes to Kano.

Huge fan of Kano in this. Isn't that actor dead now? I still like the creature effects for Goro as well. As goofy as he comes off in the movie.

Yeah, Trevor Goddard's dead sadly. And yeah, I loved him in this. His entire lead up to the Sonya fight is the only good thing about that scene.

Well, that and Bridgette Wilson in shortie shorts.

It's too bad that there hasn't been a better DVD for Mortal Kombat. I think the WB dropped the ball...There should have been a Mortal Kombat Vs DC Universe dtv release sold with the game. The dtv could have been put in a 3 disk Mortal Kombat Kollection with the game, the original film.

This movie had me at "the credits".

It was one of the first excellent uses of dolby digital I had heard. The rotating camera around the fire-MK logo, coupled with the music, swirled around the theatre I was in. It could've been the beer I was drinking, but that intro was impressive.

I must say, this is still going to go down as one of the most fun times I've ever had in a theater. With MK at the height of its popularity, the audience ate this movie the hell up. Most of the audience jumped out of their seats and stayed up after that "Reptile" announcement.

To this day when I see their fight scene I go "eww" when he starts slobbering all over her leg in the headlock.

"Those were $500 sunglasses, asshole."

I was never a real fan of the game (more of a STREET FIGHTER 2 guy), but this flick was loads of cheesy fun. The STREET FIGHTER movie would disappoint me on so many levels (especially the fights), but would end up only being a good time with beer and a MST3K atmosphere. Which is weird, considering Van Damme's output up until SF were some of my favorite American Martial Arts flicks growing up (until I discovered HK cinema).

If that is his idea of "trying", I'd hate to see what happens when he phones one in.

I enjoy the hell out of Mortal Kombat though. Developed a school boy crush on Bridgette Wilson. I believe it came out at the peak of my love for cheesy martial arts films as well and it works pretty well on all levels. It has fun with the cliches without resorting to too much obnoxious "wink at the camera" humor like many of the post-Scream horror flicks did just a few years later. I'm almost glad there hasn't been much of resurgance in the martial arts genre as it's spared us from hip new flicks that parade around their self-awareness. I'm sure there are plenty around but I'm happy to have avoided most of them. Good show, Anderson.

I'm not exactly dying to see another MK movie. Maybe if they brought Shou, Ashby, and Bridgette back, it could be cool but honestly, I kind of grew tired of the whole deal around the time the 3rd game came out.

Wanted to bump this as I watched it recently. Bottom line, it may not be class cinema, but man it's tough to hate on this movie for a lot of the rights it does.

So much disrespect for Lambert. He was better than Remar, at least.

The hype before this movie was released was incredible. I didn't see it until 2 weeks into it's run, but for once, a videogame adaptation lived up to it's promise. It's solid entertainment, and could have been a franchise for up and coming martial artists. Instead all we got was Mortal Kombat: Annihiliation.

Can someone explain something to me: why would you WANT one of your favorite videogames to be a movie? What's the need for further dramatization with less interactivity? I could say that today, given that so many games are so cinematic and/or lifelike, but even back when Mortal Kombat came out, I would much rather just play the game instead of watch the movie. Maybe I'm too unaware of the subgenre - has there been a single good movie based on a video game? I would say, for imagery's sake, Silent Hill comes close, but even then, it all felt secondhand, as the games themselves seemed to be borrowing liberally from more gothic sixties and seventies horror picture.