You’d think it wouldn’t be terribly hard for Hollywood to squirt out an hour and a half long bloodfest with a few choice fighters from around the world, some ninjas for flavor, a good, healthy dose of tongue-in-cheek humor and walk away with an easy $100 million. You know, like the original, still-fun-as-hell Paul Anderson flick did. And yet somehow, we live in a world where people just keep giving Kevin Tancharoen money to try and reinvent the wheel. Chris Nolaning the thing didn’t really work. So, I guess that Bloody Disgusting finding out that this is, in fact, the synopsis for the new Mortal Kombat film reboot makes a kind of lunkheaded sense:
“…the live-action reboot will follow a lowly unlucky supermarket employee who discovers that he has out of this world powers and must decide between good and evil, even though the evil side has helped him discover his true potential and who he really is.”
The sad thing is, if it was ANYBODY besides the guy behind the digital Ambien that was Mortal Kombat: Legacy, a lot of folks might be smiling right now. Imagine Army of Darkness, except pseudo-Ash goes to Outworld instead of England. There’s a high threshold of insanity this series can hold, Ed Boon figured that out a long time ago, and the movie only scratched the surface of it.
Unfortunately, the guy behind Legacy is involved. So, there’s a good, solid chance they’re dead serious, and there’ll be some paper thin Hero’s Journey weaksauce about a stockboy believing in himself, claiming some interdimensional Sword of Prolapse or whathaveyou, all the cool characters will be relegated to cameos, and because Lord forbid we let fly with the red stuff in one of these flicks, it’ll still be PG-13.
We’ll always have 1995.
3 comments
I kinda dug Legacy quite a bit. I didn’t think it was the bee’s knees, but I appreciated a new take on the mythology. This, however, sounds a little hokey, like they are trying to make it a kid’s film.
The Paul Anderson MK movie remains a guilty pleasure with good early CG effects and the Highlander laughing his head off for most of it. The sequel, which most have rightfully forgotten, was like a C&C Music factory video where everyone wouldn’t either stop talking, stop kicking things, or stop making shitty fireballs. I don’t think Nolan-izing it as a film would quite work, although I recall liking the redone Raiden story from the web series. MK is honestly dependent on the fantasy. Keep it, and just hiring another up and coming Brit director.
Wait. “Still fun-as-hell”? “At least we’ll have 1995”? PWSA’s MK was and is a steaming, bloodless turd. Mortal Kombat, at its base, was a shitty video game (anybody remember Pit Fighter), only made fun ’cause you could violently kill people. The ONE cool thing about the game and it is completely absent from the stupid movie. The Legacy guy has been the only person to film “R” material for this franchise, not sure where you get off here.
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