One day whilst flipping through channels I landed
on a very generic looking movie with an asian guy fighting. Being the
little kid I was, I kept watching and after a few minutes, especially
after seeing Sub Zero, I realised that it was a freaking MK movie! I
loved this movie. It is actually still holding up as one of the best
video game movies of all time, which isn't much thanks
to Hollywood and its awful takes on our beloved games.
The MK movie debuted at the peak of the franchise.
Ultimate MK had just come out and everyone was in the craze, or
should I say Kraze. The movie had a lot of casting choices, it
actually considered Johnny Depp, Tom Kruise and Jean-Claude Van Damme
(okay I'll stop with the 'K's) for the role of Johnny Cage but
actually ended up choosing an unknown actor. This movie also wanted
to cast Cameron Diaz for Sonya but she ended up breaking her wrist in
martial arts training. Hell, Steven Speilberg was also gonna do a
cameo in the movie but had to back out. In short, a lot of weird
casting stuff went down for this movie, in the end though this still
ended up as a well cast movie. I bet Van Damme wishes he didn't put
down this movie to do the Street Fighter movie. It's that cheesy type
of acting which worked well for a laugh back then and works well now
for some 90s nostalgia.
The plot of the film is
typical MK elder gods nonsense with some badass fighting featuring
Scorpion, Sub-zero, Liu Kang, Kano, Sonya, Johnny Cage, Raiden, Shang
Tsung and even Goro. This movie had a full on cast and it performed
well. I loved this movie as a kid and even like it now due to its
cheesy nostalgic value. Its good action if you like MK, don't
expect professional Jet Li action and you'll be satisfied.
The only problem I have with this film is with its
age rating, a PG age rating for MK does no justice. MK needs an 18
rating and that could have made this film so good, especially due to
some annoying characters I would have loved to see getting
decapitated (fatality!).
The film had success and well, that spawned it a
sequel, which is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. So never
mind the sequel just be happy that in 1995 a movie based Mortal
Kombat debuted at #1 in the world on the movie charts. This is a film
I actually still recommend for fans of the game and fans of old 90s
nostalgia, just keep you expectations low and you will enjoy ....
MORTAL KOMBAT!
God dammit I can't get the catchy techno theme
out of my head
For next week I don't know what I'll look back at, maybe Mega Man, maybe the Silent Hill movie. Any suggestions would be nice, since I'm a little indecisive.
For more retro goodness check us out on twitter @VGI_Gaming, If you want to follow me personally follow me on twitter @TheGeekyPenguin.
Retro Fridays is a series of articles focusing all things retro by Ali Penguin. To catch up on previous articles, feel free to check out: RF: Castlevania, RF: The Gameboy Era and RF: The Gameboy Advance
