(Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the blu-ray I reviewed in this Blog Post. The opinions I share are my own)
Your eyes do not deceive you, this is a double review of the first movie that came out last year. I couldn’t get a review copy of it when it first came out, so I bought it, and when the sequel was announced and I could get a copy of that one I decided to do a double review.
The opening plot to Scorpion’s Revenge is similar to the new live action movie: future Mortal Kombatant Sub-Zero kills of Hanzo Hasashi’s (aka Scorpion’s) family, eliciting instant bloody revenge from Hasashi, but Sub-Zero gets the upper hand and kills Hasashi. Same dynamic for both films, but in animation you can show oh-so much more, and the violence is crazy bloody, more so than the live action. The landscape is more elaborate too.
If I’m not correct, in the live action flick Hasashi went to Hell, in this version he’s killed and his soul goes to Netherealm (kind of Hell adjacent, I guess). Leader of this Hellish realm is a sorcerer named, Quan Chi, who bargains with Hasashi, he’ll get him into perfect position to revenge his family if he does something for him, steal a key from sorcerer Shang Tsung that’ll free his God, Shinnok. Hasashi agrees and rebrands himself Scorpion.
Eventually, and as usual, we’ll get an explanation to what Mortal Kombat is in that there are many realms in existence and any realm can challenge another, but only through this thing these Elder Gods created called, Mortal Kombat, the best champions from each realm is pitted against one another; a realm has to win ten tournaments against the realm being challenged. The winner gets to invade and make it theirs. Outworld and Earth have been in Mortal Kombat for centuries, and Shao Kahn is the emperor of Outworld, Shang Tsung is his emissary, which means we see much more of Tsung than Kahn; however, Kahn puts in a cameo at the very end when Tsung loses this tenth tournament and is punished because of it. That’s right, Outworld has won nine against Earth, and that’s probably because they cheat. They certainly tried to cheat in this one.
The usual MK combatants of Good and Bad are included: Raiden (God Of Thunder), Lui Kang, Johnny Cage (yes, the animated movie included him, while the new live action one did not), Sonya Blade, and Jax (his appearance here is to become an armless victim that needs to be saved at the end. His character gets more screen time in the sequel). The Bad: aforementioned Shang Tsung and Shao Khan, Reptile, Scorpion (more an anti-hero), Sub-Zero and Goro (has more speaking lines than his live action counterpart).
The animation (character and action) was good, only complaint being I wish there was more technique on display when a character skilled in martial arts was on screen fighting. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some presented, but this past summer I reviewed the mid-90s anime, Street Fighter II V, and mostly in the final collection of episodes the martial art techniques on display was amazing, and amazingly animated, and that was a decades old toon, and much better in that department. I’m guessing it’s labor intensive to properly and dynamically animate stylized combat moves. Having said that what’s currently on display did not disappoint.
What almost disappointed was Johnny Cage’s character and in a way he kind of did. For most of the movie he’s displayed as being a wimpy douchy, but isn’t Cage supposed to be skilled in the arts? Until the end the highlight of his career is getting kicked in the balls a couple of times by Sonya, not believable, but then again where has there ever been a believable reaction by someone who’s gotten nailed in the ball sack on screen? One good shot puts you down for good. One good shot can also cripple. But Johnny takes two good shots and is down only momentarily. Real world balls aren’t that resilient. It’s not until a final fight that Cage decides to reveal is indeed a skilled martial artist, but why did the creators of this animated film feel they wanted him to downplay his skill and make everyone think he was an entitled, prissy, action star that uses stuntmen for his fight scenes until he gets pushed into revealing that’s not the case?
The movie has a couple of nice twists I liked. All in all this wasn’t a bad film.
The sequel kicks off with Outworld invading Earth, which is somewhat shocking as Earth won the tournament in the previous flick. As I said Outworld likes to cheat, they’re also sore losers. Leader of Outworld, Shao Khan and Raiden go to the Elder Gods and ask them to arrange one final Mortal Kombat that will tell the final tale as to who gets to rule Earth. They agree, and then Raiden asks them to take away his immortal powers so he can compete, they agree to this too. Raiden is now mortal. Did NOT see that coming.
In the meantime a new threat is brewing, The Mad (and Elder) God, Shinnok is looking for a series of artifacts that once united will bring into creation an all-powerful cosmic being that will unite and destroy ALL the realms. Yeah, that’s right, he was one of them psychopathic Elder Gods who just wants to watch worlds burn.
Scorpion and Sub-Zero are back, well, Sub-Zero’s brother taking up the mantel and vowing his own revenge against Scorpion, who’s now seen the error of his ways, and eventually works to help the others stop Shinnok, barring that, which they do not succeed at, then adds is skills to try and stop the being once it’s come into existence.
While all this is going on Earth realm defenders and Outworld fascists go head to head in that final tournament, in an actual arena this time, and I dug the blood stained look of the arena, which if you think about is what that arena would look like given the insane level of carnage Mortal Kombat is famous for.
While the action animation is relatively good, the martial arts animation, like the first flick, could still use some improvement. Powerhouse Animation, who’ve done animation for the likes of the Castlevania anime and Kevin Smith’s Masters Of The Universe toon, is what I wish these movies looked like. Now that’s dynamic and impressive animation. Having said this sequel does have it’s moments where the action animation turns impressive.
Warner Brothers Home Entertainment has Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge and it’s sequel, Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle Of The Realms in current release in DVD, Blu-Ray/DVD combo and 4K UltraHD/Blu-Ray editions! Buy them both here on Amazon!
Video/Audio/Subtitles: 2160p 1.78:1 ultra high definition widescreen—5.1 English DTS-HD Master Audio, 5.1 French Dolby Digital, 5.1 German Dolby Digital, 2.0 Spanish Dolby Digital—English SDH, French, Spanish
Extras Included (Scorpion’s Revenge) . . .
- Audio Commentary With Producer Rick Morales & Screenwriter Jeremy Adams
- From Epic Game to Extreme Animation (4:57)
- The Weapons, Wardrobe and World of Mortal Kombat Legends (7:08)
- Mortal Kombatants (4:36)
- The Savage Sound Design of Mortal Kombat Legends (3:44)
- Trailers (Superman: Red Son, Wonder Woman: Bloodlines, & Batman: Hush)
Extras Included (Battle Of The Realms) . . .
- Audio Commentary With Producer Rick Morales & Screenwriter Jeremy Adams
- The God and the Dragon: Battling for Earthrealm (7:05)
- Voices of Kombat (8:34)
- Kombat Gags (4:06)
PHYSICAL MEDIA LIVES AT . . . 