Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge

If you're a fan of the video games, stick to them - the visuals and narrative that they deliver are still at a much higher level of sophistication than 'Mortal Kombat Legacy: Scorpion's Revenge'.

• Jake Watt

Read Jake's full article... https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/article/review-mortal-kombat-legacy-scorpions-revenge-an-animated-gorefest-for-aggressive-preschoolers

Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge gets off to a very promising start. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to call the first 10 minutes a blood orgy – I mean, a waterfall ends up literally flowing red with the blood of the dead. This is all great stuff, brutal and uncompromising. Unfortunately, it’s also the best part of the film, after which it doesn’t take long for things to go downhill.

The plot goes in autopilot, following a very familiar path – and, as they say, familiarity breeds contempt. For starters, we have all the usual suspects; Liu Kang (Jordan Rodrigues), Sonya Blade (Jennifer Carpenter), and Johnny Cage (Joel McHale). The latter is the designated comedic character, at which he fails miserably – though the only laugh to be had here does have a little to do with him (or, rather, with a poster for one of his fictional films).

Once the inevitable Tournament begins, the movie gives up completely and becomes an animated remake of the 1995 Mortal Kombat – and, I guess, an animated prequel or something to the 2021 version. Scorpion's Revenge is without a doubt the best looking of the three films; it’s also the closest to the game, and while that’s good in terms of gore, it’s not so good in terms of storyline.

It’s just one fight after another, with little to distinguish each from the one before or the one after, and the characters are just as one-dimensional as their video game counterparts: Sonya is constantly trying to prove herself as good or better than the men, Cage is a buffoon who persists beyond the limits of reason in believing that the MK Tournament is his latest movie, and Liu Kang's dialogue consists almost entirely of Buddhist pseudo-koans. Furthermore, the script has a plothole so big a giant stalagmite could pass through it – and literally does.

My favorite Mortal Kombat movie to this day. I loved the story and all the characters. Scorpion was amazingly done and so were other characters like Liu Kang. I loved Shang Tsung and Quan Chi as the villain. I really enjoyed how they managed to tell us the story of Scorpion and his quest for vengeance while also showing off Liu Kang and his development through his dialogue with Raiden and his fight and dialogue with Kitana. Kitana was amazingly done as a supporting character. Additionally, seeing goro and cameos like nitara was a lot of fun and added to the movie.

Watching a video game adaptation always comes with a heavy dose of skepticism, especially for anyone who grew up pumping quarters into arcade cabinets in the '90s. Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge promises to bring back the raw, uncensored carnage of the original games, and for the most part, it delivers on the action. If you spent hours memorizing button combos, you'll appreciate how well the fight choreography translates the heavy, brutal feel of the games to the screen. The sound design is fantastic, giving a sickeningly realistic crunch to every broken bone and sliced tendon. However, the studio leans a bit too hard into the gore. The constant use of slow-motion "X-Ray" bone-crushing shots—which feel like a fun reward when you're playing the game—quickly becomes an exhausting gimmick that drags down the pacing of the movie's fights.

The film’s biggest flaw is its rushed structure, trying to cram two massive storylines—Scorpion’s tragic backstory and the actual Mortal Kombat tournament—into a tight 80-minute runtime. Because of this, neither plot really gets the room it needs to breathe. This insane pacing also creates super jarring shifts in tone. The movie opens with a brilliantly dark and depressing look at the massacre of Hanzo Hasashi’s family, only to immediately throw us into goofy, Saturday-morning-cartoon dynamics. Johnny Cage is the main offender here; while his arrogant movie-star jokes are funny at first, his constant need to be a punchline machine completely ruins the tension and urgency of a lethal tournament where the fate of the world is on the line.

This hurried script ends up ruining the character development for almost everyone who isn't Scorpion. The movie gives the yellow ninja so much focus and plot armor that it turns iconic villains into mere punching bags and sidelines the franchise's other heroes. Liu Kang, the actual chosen one, is pushed to the background, making his eventual victory feel completely unearned and hollow...