With the newest toy of the 90s the personal computer that also spawned another industry the video game. Although God knows they can become addictive they do sharpen up reflexes if played enough. One of the most popular seems to be Mortal Kombat and got so popular someone decided a movie could be made from the game characters.The best martial artists in the world are recruited by a Shao Lin master Christopher Lambert for a tournament that will decide the fate of the planet. This is held periodically it seems with alien races. You've got to win 10 contests in a row and if you do you can plunder the loser's planet.Earth's lost 9 in a row when help arrives in the form of Robin Shou, Bridgette Wilson-Sampras and Linden Ashby. Lambert's all star team is up against wizard Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa's crowd that includes a really ugly four arm creature looking like the Incredible Hulk. He does however have a weakness common to the males of the species.Mortal Kombat is not the kind of film you take too seriously, just relax and enjoyed the skill of the martial artists.

The success of the 'Super Mario Bros' movie in 1993 provided many an idea for movie makers in the '90's. It wasn't an immediate success though. The 'Street Fighter' movie made in 1994 proved a box office flop. It was therefore brave that Ed Boon and John Tobias' much loved video game franchise 'Mortal Kombat' should be brought to the cinema screen. The film, written by Kevin Droney, was conceived in August 1995, four months after the third game in the series got underway. The cinematic film came after a straight to video animated film entitled 'Mortal Kombat - The Journey Begins' was released ( which was made to fit around the movie ) and met with mixed reviews, some felt it was completely unfaithful to its game predecessor and criticised it for not giving enough of the characters much exposure whilst others felt it was a welcome venture. I still have mixed feelings about it. On one hand I find it worthwhile, gripping and sometimes even humorous whereas on the other I find it sometimes disjointed, confusing and even lazy.The film more or less follows that same pattern as the game. The Earthrealm fighting tournament known as 'Mortal Kombat' is about to embark on its tenth and final battle against Outworld. Having lost the previous nine battles, the tournament looks destined to perish forever it is does not win the final tournament. Sorceror Shang Tsung ( Cary-Hiryuki Tagawa ) and his ghastly four armed body guard Goro ( Tom Woodruff. Jr ) both endeavour to win the tournament. and rule Outworld. Meanwhile, a group of Earthrealm warriors are competing for reasons of their own - Liu Kang ( Robin Shou ) enters to avenge the death of his brother Chan ( who died at the hands of Shang Tsung ), Special Forces agent Sonya Blade ( the beautiful Bridgette Wilson, in a role that was originally written for the equally beautiful Cameron Diaz ) hopes to get revenge against not only Tsung but one of his henchmen, the cold blooded Kano ( Trevor Goddard ), film star Johnny Cage ( Linden Ashby ) is entering to prove that he is a bona fide martial artist and not the fake that the media have made him out to be. All are guided by Rayden - God Of Thunder ( Christopher Lambert ).Also allying with the Earth warriors is 10,000 year old Princess Kitana, who is the daughter of Shao Kahn, the despicable ruler of Outworld.The cast certainly do a good job in bringing the characters to life, particularly Bridgette Wilson ( who I fondly remember as Veronica Vaughn in the hilarious Adam Sandler film 'Billy Madison' ) as Sonya and the husky voiced Christoper Lambert as Rayden. Talisa Soto is also wonderful ( as well as sexy ) as Kitana. One of the biggest downsides, as I encountered earlier, is the lack of screen time for some of the most popular characters such as ninjas Sub Zero, Scorpion and Reptile. One of the most notable things about the film is its soundtrack, particularly the opening theme by The Immortals which has become a global hit in its own right.A second cinematic release came in 1997 entitled 'Mortal Kombat - Annihilation' which fared disastrously at the box office, meaning there would be little chance of a third release, which is tragic considering it was a far better film than the first in about every respect.

It's a good film full of action and fights. The film is based of the popular video game series, and they did a good job at that. It could've been even more better had the movie been more than two hours instead, so it would've allowed more insight into each of the characters introduced in this film. Also, there was a sequel afterwards which wasn't really required, so that adds to my point that this Mortal Kombat film should've been a lot longer because the film was already good, and they could've even introduced more characters there rather than in the second movie. I gave it a 5 because of some of these reasons I mentioned above, but I could've quite easily gave it a 7 or even 8 had the film been a bit longer with more characters introduced, and with a much better story. The story in this film was fine, but not too interesting that will keep you attentive. Like I said, the film was only good for its fights.

As far as adaptations of video games go, this beats STREET FIGHTER hands down but it is still somewhat lacking in the basic film necessities department. The film still suffers from the translation - what was simply a game consisting of a series of brutal fights at the arcade now has to have a plot as well - it has lots of things in its favour, including mostly neat special effects and lots of gratuitous violence (but not gore). Okay, so the acting from the three male leads is atrocious, but what do you expect when you're talking about Christopher Lambert? Lambert is even less able to be taken seriously here when wearing a white wig and with a "twinkle" in his eye. His role is of the wise teacher but his ridiculously gruff voice just makes him sound like he's suffering from a particularly nasty sore throat.Robin Shou tries very hard to emulate Bruce Lee but has all the emoting skill of a brick. Linden Ashby, who tried very hard to emulate Bruce Willis in BLAST, plays an incredibly annoying movie star-cum-martial arts fighter, not too obviously modelled on a certain Mr. Van Damme. At least Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is relatively good (at least compared to the other "performers" here) as the evil sneering villain whose name I won't even try to type out. As I mentioned earlier, the plot is a ludicrous excuse for lots of fight scenes in all manner of places, and the characters have an annoying habit of mugging into the camera while uttering catch-phrases from the arcade game ("Fatality!", etc.).Still, what this film does have in its favour are a series of bone-crunching fight scenes which are all staged with relish and are all fairly exciting thanks to some quick editing and a thumping techno soundtrack. All of your favourite characters from the game are there with their special moves so expect to see lots of souls being extracted, snakes emerging from hands, people shattering etc. And the special effects are actually impressive here, whether they be in the spooky sets or in the incredibly four-armed monster Goro, who is a masterpiece of design and doesn't look too cheesy either. The only film's failing in this department is an over reliance on some old fashioned "computer" effects used to portray Rayden as lightning, which look like they have come straight out of some early '80s piece of trash.MORTAL KOMBAT may not be intelligent or indeed coherent entertainment, but the set design is great, the fight scenes are fun to watch, and things don't get TOO silly, as in a certain Van Damme-starrer. This was followed by a sequel two years later, MORTAL KOMBAT: ANNIHILATION, which is by all accounts terrible, although it does have the bonus of starring '80s hard man Brian Thompson as the baddie.