Mortal Kombat Movie With 90% On Rotten Tomatoes Proves It Shouldn’t Be This Hard To Get The Franchise Right

The best-received Mortal Kombat movie is also the most underrated – and proves it shouldn’t be so hard to get the live-action side of the franchise right. Video games are notoriously tricky to adapt to the big screen, and one of the few to succeed during the 1990s was the original Mortal Kombat movie. This had to water down the game’s bone-crunching violence, but was a fun adventure with some solid fight sequences. Sadly, the 1997 sequel was a total dud, with Mortal Kombat: Annihilation’s final cut being an unfinished workprint that producers somehow deemed worthy of release.

It took decades for Mortal Kombat 2021 to arrive, with the reboot cranking the violence all the way up to an R. However, the reviews for this outing were decidedly tepid, due to its bizarre decision to withhold the titular tournament until the sequel, and the blandness of new protagonist Cole Young (Lewis Tan). Hopefully, the upcoming Mortal Kombat 2 can right the ship, and the addition of new characters like Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) should help with that.

Scorpion’s Revenge Is Mortal Kombat’s Highest-Rated Movie By Far

This animated Mortal Kombat adventure is a must see

In addition to the live-action films, there has been a run of animated Mortal Kombat Legends movies, with the most recent being 2023’s Cage Match. The original outing Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge is the best-reviewed entry in the entire franchise with 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. This gory adventure revolves around the title character, whose family is brutally murdered by Sub-Zero; Scorpion then sets out on an epic revenge quest, with all this being set against the backdrop of the tournament itself.

Scorpion’s Revenge may just be the bloodiest film based on the video game series to date. Right from the intense opening, the screen is splattered with gore, though the film still takes time to develop its likable cast of characters too. It helps that the animation looks great, while the fights are wince-inducingly visceral. Perhaps accounting for its warm critical reception is that the animated spinoff peppers itself with moments of comic relief and humor (mostly from Joel McHale’s Johnny Cage) just to take the edge off the bloodshed.

What Scorpion’s Revenge Did Differently From Other Mortal Kombat Movies

Scorpion’s Revenge found an original angle to a traditional Mortal Kombat story

On paper, Scorpion’s Revenge sounds like a classic Mortal Kombat tale; Liu Kang, Sonya Blade and other familiar faces take part in the titular tournament to decide the fate of Earth realm and mayhem ensues. What really makes the movie work is its Scorpion framework. Not only does the focus on fan-favorite anti-hero Scorpion make it feel fresh, but it also allows viewers to dip in and out of the tournament without the story feeling samey. Of course, one of the big differences between the Mortal Kombat live-action movies and Scorpion’s Revenge is the outrageous amount of gory carnage.

Over-the-top action has always been a key staple of the property, but even the 2021 remake felt tame compared to what the games can pull off. Scorpion’s Revenge lets fans and newcomers know from the opening ten minutes that it will be holding nothing back in this regard, and it more than earns that R rating. Plenty of characters from the video games appear too, but unlike Annihilation or Scorpion’s Revenge’s direct sequel Battle of the Realms, it doesn’t add in a bunch of fan favorites just for the sake of it.

A third movie dubbed
Mortal Kombat: Devastation
was intended to follow 1997’s
Annihilation
, but fell into development hell after the latter’s underperformance before eventually being canceled.

Mortal Kombat Has Struggled With Movies In Live-Action And Animation

Scorpion’s Revenge is a template for how to do Mortal Kombat correctly

On the live-action side, Mortal Kombat 1995 remains the favorite; both for its retro charm and because it’s a genuinely good time. That said, it does feel like the PG version of the story, while neither Annihilation nor the 2021 redo improves on it. Sadly, even the Mortal Kombat Legends series proved to be diminishing returns. Battle of the Realms got lost in too many characters and subplots, while Cage Match was too goofy for its own good.

It’s almost surprising how effortless Scorpion’s Revenge makes a Mortal Kombat adaptation look.

Hopefully, Mortal Kombat 2 learned lessons from the original’s reception. The original film proved to be a hit, but from the premise right on down to the lack of truly memorable bouts, the 2021 film left major room for improvement. It’s almost surprising how effortless Scorpion’s Revenge makes an adaptation look. It might remix certain elements but it still feels incredibly faithful, and the actual revenge element adds a personal, emotional arc to the story too.

Mortal Kombat is an evergreen series, so the live-action side is sure to get the mixture right at some point. It would be great for the Legends spinoffs to get back on the right track too. A fifth outing titled Mortal Kombat Legends: Fall of Edenia is rumored to be in development, with the story being told from Kitana’s perspective.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes