Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge - Digital Review

[Michael Scott]

Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge

Movie:
Video: N/A
Audio: N/A
Extras: N/A
Final Score:


Warner Brothers Provided the Review Link for this Review

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Movie
Again, we have another review that was forced to go digital due to the Covid-19 shutdowns happening across major states throughout the country. According to Warner Brothers the Blu-ray and 4K UHD discs WILL be available on the 28th when the film is slated to go up for sale, but review shipping houses have been shut down, so digital it is.

Mortal Kombat has always been a hugely lucrative gaming franchise that has spawned 11 Canon games, as well as a few spinoffs (some of which should never be mentioned they were so bad, and others that were really nifty), and even had two full length live action films come to fruition. As a RABID fan of the games since my teenage years, I was kind of curious to see where Warner Brothers was going with this animated film. Usually Warner animation is much more concerned with the DC universe super hero films, but having a Mortal Kombat film certainly peaked my interest, especially since it seemed to be starring the fan favorite, Scorpion.

To put it short and sweet, Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s revenge is a reboot/retelling of the original Mortal Kombat game, with Lord Raiden gathering several human fighters to go fight against the fighters of Outworld, led by the sorcerer Shang Tsung. Leading the way is the chosen one Liu Kang, as well as arrogant martial arts actor Johnny Cage, and Black Ops soldier Sonya Blade. Together they have to engage in mortal combat to keep the Emperor Shao Khan’s fighters from winning the 10th mortal kombat tournament, and subsequently gaining the right to invade and take over Earth for his own pleasures and destruction.

While we get to see our heroes grow to their potential, there is another “protagonist” in the story. That is our title character Scorpion. Before the events of the tournament take place, we see the typical destruction of the Shirai Ryu ninja clan by the ice wielding Lin Kuei ninjas. Hanzo Hasashi, the last of his kind, watches as Sub Zero destroys his entire clan, including his wife and child, only to be murdered himself and sent to the Netherrealm. There he is given a choice. Stay there and suffer for eternity, or be reborn as a hellspawn with supernatural powers to go to the mortal kombat tournament and retrieve a key for the sorcerer Quan Chi so that he can free his master, the god Shinnock, and the sorcerer will bring his wife and child back to life.

] The story is your basic Mortal Kombat story from the early years, pitting Sonya, Jax, Johnny Cage, and Liu Kang against the typical Outworld bevy of villains. Most are unnamed, though we do get to see a bunch of the video game roster show up in the background (Mortaro, Shiva, Reptile, etc..), and the film is quite a bit of gory fun. However, the decision to put Scorpion’s story in WITH a typical Mortal Kombat story feels a bit like fan service. I fully understand that Scorpion is THE most liked character of all time, but the fan service is pretty blatant. It feels like two stories are at play here, with the typical tournament going down on one side, and Scorpion story going on with the other. As such, the movie comes off as a bit disjointed, especially when they re-write the canon ending just to shoehorn a Scorpion vs. Quan Chi fight at the end.

Did I say that the movie was gory? Well, let me reiterate. The movie is GOOOOOOOOOOOORY as all getout, which is actually quite in tune with how the video games are. The film just revels in slicing, dicing, and dismembering people at every turn. Gallons of blood flow from every crevice, and the film has a bit of fun showing off the X-ray moves from game, as well as a few fatalities as well (I mean, we can’t have a scorpion movie without showing off his infamous “Toasty” fatality wouldn’t it?). The movie itself is bloody and fun, but the script IS a bit cheesy. Dialog is very Saturday morning cartoonish, and the story truncated a good bit to fit in an 83 minute runtime while having TWO stories running simultaneously. Fun, but flawed.




Rating:

Rated R for strong bloody violence throughout and some language




Video: N/A

Due to the fact that we were provided with a very low resolution screener (think the screener's of old, with a running clock and "property of WB" plastered across the image), thus we really can't evaluated the video quality. As such, this is going to be a film only review and we will leave both video and audio blank, as they would not be representative of either the typical streaming services, OR the physical discs.








Audio: N/A
(already covered in the video section)










Extras: N/A

• (No Extras on the Streaming copy that I screened)

Final Score: ​

Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge is a fun retelling of the classic story most video game nerds have known for the last 30 years, but it does so with enough twists and new reveals to make it interesting. It’s pretty obvious that Warner is hoping for a series out of this (it sets up the Bi Han/Noob Saibot story, as well as several other sub plots), but it’s still cartoony enough that it FEELS like it’s made for children, despite the film just dripping with blood and gore. I’m really not sure who Warner was aiming at for the demographic, but it’s a bit choppy and unrefined. Fun, but flawed is what I would put my final label on it as. Sadly without a physical copy I can’t review the video/audio OR the extras, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Jennifer Carpenter, Joel McHale, Ike Amadi, Steve Blum, Artt Butler, Darin De Paul
Directed by: Ethan Spaulding
Written by: Jeremy Adams
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Audio: English: Dolby Digital 2.0
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: R
Runtime: 83 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: April 28th, 2020

Recommendation: Decent Watch

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I remember playing the game back in the day and I saw the first movie in the theater long time ago. Will check this out for nostalgia mostly.