First things first the story is complete rubbish. As you would have read in my review the first hour and a bit of this movie is a complete waste of time as the movie jumps to a completely nonsensical plot line involving Shao Khan and Raiden being brothers (even thinking about that still makes me cringe) when in reality there are plenty of ways to have the Kitana storyline work. In my musings over the week I have come up with two storylines that would have fit better using the Kitana and Sindel reunion model. The better of the two would have been to use Mileena as she was intended. Mileena’s role in the mythology of MK is that she is Kitana’s clone and her sole purpose is to pose as Kitana and rule Edenia. This way you could have had Kitana kidnapped (not by Scorpion, but I’ll get to that) and then have Mileena take her place with the group none the wiser. The tension could then be built around this until it finally comes to a head when they capture Sindel and the reunion fails when the gang find out it’s Mileena not Kitana that’s been with them the whole time. The final battle could then not only be for the restoration of Earth but also to save Kitana from the clutches of Khan. While I will admit this is a little cliché it at least ties the story together as one whole as opposed to an hour of time wasting and twenty minutes of stupidity. One really big plus for this storyline is that it would lead to one truly great “holy shit” moment. For those not fully aware of Mileena I will explain this moment (that Mortal Kombat fans already know is coming). While I said above that Mileena is Kitana’s clone she is not entirely a mirror image. Every part of her is the same except for her mouth which is Tarkarten. What that means is that her mouth resembles that of Baraka’s in that she has giant fangs that jut out of her overly large mouth. This would be a great moment in two ways, fans of MK would be waiting for this reveal as they know it’s coming where as people unfamiliar with the series would be taken back by the reveal that Mileena resembles one of the incarnations of The Thing from John Carpenter’s movie. The story would resolve itself with the villains dying and the proper Kitana being reunited with Sindel to destroy the portals and restore the realms. I hope you would agree that actually sounds like a proper movie with a cohesive story.
 |
| HOLY SHIT. See what I mean! |
The second of my two ideas revolves around giving Sheeva a much bigger role in this movie then she has. The movie briefly touches on the fact that Sheeva and Motaro don’t like each other by having them bitch at each other before getting into a scuffle that more resembles a hug then a fight. Going back to the game series Sheeva and Motaro don’t just dislike each other, they fucking hate each other! So much so that in the game Sheeva actually helps Jax in his attempts to kill Motaro. But if there was only some way to write into the script the complexity of having a villain change sides through the movie. I mean it’s not as if any other movie has done it before, well no other movies besides ALL THE MOVIES THAT DO THIS!! Seriously if they had studied the source material (and this is from MK3, the game the movie is based on so they didn’t have to look far) they could have noticed this little fact and made it a major element of the movie. How I would envision it is that again Kitana is kidnapped and while she is being held in Khan’s fortress she notices the discontent between Sheeva and Motaro. When Kang rescues Kitana instead of having that fucking stupid ACME inspired death of Sheeva the three could duke it out until Kitana convinces Sheeva to switch sides to spite Motaro. Then in the end battle you set up, what should be, a great fight with Motaro taking on Jax and Sheeva. The demise of Motaro then makes far more sense as you could imagine him being overpowered by both Jax and Sheeva as opposed to Jax simply beating him by believing in his own mortality! This adds something new as we have seen a Shokan (the race that Goro and Sheeva are) be evil and indestructible but this movie had a chance to show that they can be good forces used by humans, which nerdishly ties into the gaming history of Sheeva as she was the first Shokan a human player could play as! I’m not saying these storylines would have turned this into an epic movie all I’m saying is that I truly believe either of these stories could have made a more enjoyable experience out of the movie. I hope you agree.
Now that the story is out of the way the next thing to fix is to cull some of the characters from this movie. This movie definitely suffers from the same illness as the Street Fighter movie (and don’t worry I haven’t forgotten about that piece of shit) in that it tries to cram so many different characters from the game into the movie thinking that fans of the game will be so impressed when really all we need is about six or seven characters done correctly then twenty done poorly. Here is my list of characters that should have not been in this movie and how you would go about fixing it in their absence.
• Scorpion – To have one of the major characters of the MK series only appear as a cameo is just unforgivable so if he’s not going to be a major part then he doesn’t need to be there. But now you’re asking who kidnaps Kitana... oh I don’t know maybe SECTOR! For real, this movie uses both Cyrax and Smoke (and Smoke is a hidden character from MK3) surely they could have shelled out another $50 to make a red robot costume and have Sector!
• Nightwolf – I hope I got across to you in my review just how utterly stupid the animality plot in the movie is. It’s done completely wrong, it doesn’t decide anything and it looks unbelievably cheap. Again not to mention that animalities were only a side note in the MK series and not a major device carried throughout the series. I say cut the animality subplot and the piss poor excuse for Nightwolf while you’re at it.
• Jade – I don’t need to say anymore about this do I. If you’re not even going to cast her correctly then don’t bother and as I’ve said above this role should have gone to Mileena anyway.
• Baraka – The Jim Henson snotball that is Baraka in this movie is a disgrace and a true slap in the face to fans of Baraka, like myself. Leave Baraka alone and at the very least this scene should have been where Liu Kang fought Sheeva.
• The “Reptiles” – I proved that MK nerds would have spotted that these things should not have been in the movie so this would have been a good time to tie up a loose end. For example have Raiden fight Scorpion (or if I had my way, Sector) so at least the audience gets a decent fight and one of the many characters without an end gets one.
 |
| Yeah, look how lame Sector is. I wouldn't bother either....... IDIOTS! |
Removing these characters would give you the ability to build on the ones you have left in and really make the audience appreciate what you have done with them.
When you are creating a movie from an already established source, such as a book or video game, it is very important that you follow the flow and traditions of that medium to the letter. These sorts of movies are not a licence to add your original creations into the mix and see if they fly. If you want to include original ideas then here’s an idea CREATE AN ORIGINAL FUCKING MOVIE! I am of course referring to two key things from Annihilation; the Velospheres and Puff the barely credible CG menace. Firstly the Velospheres are not from any Mortal Kombat game and the tragedy of all this is all the writers needed to do was have portals in their place. Portals are all over the place in Mortal Kombat and we easily would have bought this but instead the writers had a massive Gladiators hard-on and wanted to include some cage balls. Ditch them! Then there is the CG monster that I still have no idea what it is. I had a friend tell me after my review that he heard it’s suppose to be Kintaro which I hope is not true because it is really fucking sad if that is the case. Kintaro is basically a hairy version of Goro so to misinterpret him that badly is worse than the fuck up with Turquoise.. Hey at least they got her gender right. I choose to believe this was simply the director wanting to flex his CG muscle and thinking this was way cooler then it was. I reiterate, you have a whole cast of evil monsters to use, this is not the time to add something new that is only going to confuse general viewers and piss off fans. Both of these ideas should have been left on the cutting room floor.
The final piece of remedy I have for this movie is kind of the opposite of the point above and that is to embrace the elements of the game you are making a movie about. A really easy way to do this is to include some of the stages from Mortal Kombat. To a certain degree some of the stages of Mortal Kombat are more famous then the characters. Imagine if you will the fight between Liu Kang and Smoke taking place at the Dead Pool or the fight between Raiden and the Reptiles (or Sector if I had my way) taking place at the Subway or the ultimate; have the final duel between Kang and Khan take place at The Pit. Fans of MK would instantly recognise these places and not only enjoy the fight more but also remember their own virtual battles at these locations. On top of this you could even include some stage fatalities from these places. While the character fatalities can be a bit full-on for the PG rated movie they are going for the stage fatalities aren’t nearly as bad especially if they are robots being hurled into them. What’s the harm of having Smoke thrown into a pool of acid or Sector being hit by a train? The fans get their fatality fix and you get to keep your precious PG rating.
 |
| Stages like this would have added some much needed atmosphere |
Another way of doing this is to just leave little “Easter eggs” I guess you’d call them for the fans. For example, have the gang come across a guy in a black trench coat with two hookswords sticking out of him, a reference to Kabal’s slaying of Mavado or how about having a steel bladed hat jutting out of one of the walls at the final battle that Kang hurls at Khan. It’s little things like this that let fans of the movie know that a fan made this movie and not just some asshole who was looking to make money off of gaming culture. There is no need to overdo it, like Alien Vs Predator does (and don’t worry I haven’t forgotten about that piece of shit either) but just some slight references that fans will notice is a nice touch to any movie with a cult following.
It’s hard to do a remedy of Mortal Kombat Annihilation without mentioning the viral YouTube video for Mortal Kombat Rebirth. For those of you who haven’t seen it check it out because it is worth a look. While I am against the fact that this seems to have thrown away the theme of Mortal Kombat, that being a tournament to decide the fate of the realms, it would seem that this may finally be the dark, gory film that Mortal Kombat was always supposed to be. How this movie franchise was born neglecting its violent video game roots I will never know as this was the appeal of the video game itself. I mean if you wanted to play a fast paced, well controlled fighting game at the time you were going to play Street Fighter. You were only playing Mortal Kombat to rip someone’s fucking head off. So in that respect Rebirth earns a giant tick as it looks a truer representation of the games then the first two movies combined. The story itself seems a little weak (serials killers meeting in a tournament simply to kill each other?) and I don’t like the fact that Baraka’s background is that he is a failed plastic surgeon but I do have to remind myself that this is only a short pitch for a movie and despite these complaints I would be more than happy to see this turned into a feature film that I would definitely see.
 |
| Rebirth's Baraka. Certainly better then Annihilations! |
And so ends my remedy of Mortal Kombat Annihilation, while I don’t believe my changes would have made it a truly awesome movie that would have appealed to every movie goer, Mortal Kombat fan or otherwise, I do believe these changes would have made it a far better movie. I will say again that the biggest issue with the movie is its story and the two I pitched I believe would have worked in both the makings of a movie and keeping the ethos of MK intact. Next I tackle my first game review and prove that just because you can make a good horror movie doesn’t mean you can make a good horror game.
No comments:
Post a Comment