If there’s something to be learned from making movies out of video games, its that no matter what you do, its going to be a shallow experience. You’re basing it all on a game, so why try to complicate things with plots? It has been the case with movie adaptations of popular video games that they take the characters from the game and put them in situations that have nothing to do with the source material, or they change the characters to the point that they don’t have much in common with the people you were happily guiding around the screen with your joypad. Street Figher: the Movie had nothing to do with the game on which it was based, and no amount of camp can hide that. Tomb Raider lost the plot when the sense of danger, an important part of the game, was totally eradicated from the big screen interpretation. Mortal Kombat, however, is probably as good a video game adaptation as we could hope for. One of the first games to really offer gratuitous blood, gore, and violence, and the chance to execute your opponent when they are defeated, this game caused quite a stir even though when it comes down to it, it wasn’t particularly good. It caused enough of a stir for New Line to option for a movie adaptation, with one horrible sequel already released and rumours of another one in 2003.

The filmmakers saw fit to only embellish the story to the point where they could get all the good guy characters into a situation where they can have lots of fights, and for this I praise, revere and worship them. Liu Kang (Robin Shou) is haunted with the vision of the evil sorcerer Shang Tsung (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa on a scenery-only diet) soundly beating and killing his brother. After receiving a telegram from home that his brother has died, he returns to Hong Kong, charged with the quest of entering a sacred tournament. He doesn’t believe in the mystical importance of the tournament, but his brother’s killer will be there and he wants revenge. Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson – House on Hanted Hill) is also on a quest for revenge, following the Australian crime boss Kano (Trevor Goddard in a greatly amusing role) after he killed her partner. Kano, however, is receiving instructions from the evil Shang Tsung who wants him to lead Sonya to the tournament, where he has plans for her. Our third hero is the wise-cracking martial arts movie star Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby), being dogged in the press for not really doing his own fights and stunts, ironic since Linden Ashby has this little guy with a bad haircut subbing for him in all the major fight sequences. Anyway, Johnny is met on the set of his latest film by his old martial arts teacher, who tells him he should go to the same tournament in order to prove himself as a martial artist. Johnny agrees and his teacher leaves, only to be revealed as the evil shape shifting Shang Tsung!

Our three heroes soon meet on board the mysterious vessel to take them to the tournament, and are accosted by the dastardly Shang Tsung and two ninjas under his control – Sub Zero and Scorpion. If you’re not familiar with the game, Sub Zero has the power to, GASP, freeze people, and Scorpion can teleport and has a big spear/grappling hook that comes out of his hand. Well before the two sides can tangle the The God of Thunder, Rayden appears! It appears that Rayden is the FRENCH God of Thunder, for its none other than Christopher Lambert (he must be on an all-air diet, because he sure does suck a lot in this movie). Rayden keeps the bad guys at bay and takes our heroes out onto the deck to give fill in the rest of the plot. Every generation there is the great sacred fighting competition called Mortal Kombat (yes, even the gods like ‘cool’ alternate spellings of words). The battles take place between the people of Earth, and the beings of another dimension known as Outworld. Shang Tsung and his emperor, the mighty Shao Khan, must win ten tournaments in a row in order to open up the portals to Earth so they can tear their way through our planet the way they tore through the Outworld before. They have won nine, and Rayden has looked into all the competitors souls and says that one of our three heroes will be the one to win Mortal Kombat for all of humanity. Soon after they arrive at a mysterious island and we are introduced to the other characters, an evil lizard creature called Reptile, the adopted daughter of the emperor – Kitana (the rather lovely Talisa Soto), and the massive four armed demon Goro, the reigning champion of Mortal Kombat. Now lets have some fights!

Unlike the unbridled camp of Street Fighter: the Movie, where they must have know what they were doing had nothing to do with the game except for some familiar names, and that it was a load of garbage anyway so they might as well have fun with it, Mortal Kombat is much, much more faithful to the source material. Sure, its not as violent as the game, blood doesn’t pour everywhere and people don’t get decapitated or have their hearts ripped out, but the film is still very much in the spirit of the game. Once they get the necessary plot introduction out of the way, it’s a full on audio-visual extravaganza of utterly po-faced, over the top fighting with lots of fast cutting, in-your-face visual effects and a pumping metal and techno soundtrack. Lets face it, any movie that has Napalm Death on the soundtrack is going to get a favourable view in my eyes! The fight sequences are the prime reason to watch this flick and by and large they’re great, particularly the ones involving the talented Robin Shou. One fight that stands out in particular is between Liu Kang and when Reptile takes human form being played by Keith “Superfoot” Cook, where they proceed to have a fast-paced and extremely well-choreographed fight sequence very much in the vein of Hong Kong movies. This, like all the other scenes, actually benefits from the much-maligned fast editing technique that is so over used these days, adding a great amount of pace and urgency when needed. While there is nowhere near as much style in the non-action sequences, by and large the sets and locations have been well chosen and the film does look great, never becoming cheesy. As for the acting, well this movie was never going to be about high quality performances, but I’ve seen a lot worse. Christopher Lambert is exceptionally hammy and terrible as Rayden, but other than that everyone handles themselves well, especially Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa who steals the film and makes it his own with his wonderfully ferocious and menacing performance. He does a great job tempering his outbursts and superbly evil facial expressions with moments of quiet malevolence, gotta add him to my list of underrated actors, and to my list of greatest villains too.

So, I think its fair to say that this movie succeeds in being greater than the sum of its parts. While it was always going to be that shallow experience I was talking about, Mortal Kombat remains a well-made and extremely entertaining movie, with an very memorable bad guy and some great action sequences, this comes heartily recommended. Make sure you turn the volume WAY up while you’re at it too.