This was something I said I wanted to do more regularly a while back and like comes naturally to people like me I promptly stopped doing it and immediately began hating myself. I knew it would happen almost the second I hit publish on that first Friday post and while I don’t regret stating the goal I do regret not following through. One because it sucks to make a promise and not come through and two because I actually legitimately enjoyed writing it.
So let’s give it another shot, shall we? I’ve missed a lot in the past month because of the aforementioned personality defect which I’ll wrestle with until I’m dead so I’m not going to bother recapping it all. We’re going to start fresh and cover a few interesting things that happened more recently.
In past posts I’ve been pretty harsh on companies like Ubisoft for their myriad failures and gaffes so I wanted to take this opportunity after reading an interesting article over at Kotaku to give them some kudos. We’ve had plenty of examples of companies who instead of fixing their mistakes simply abandon them and move on to a new project without so much of an admission of guilt. Unfortunately we don’t have a lot of great examples of game devs who are willing to stick around and fix what they broke. Bungie did so with the first Destiny and are in the process of voluntarily re-living that adventure with Destiny 2 for reasons that escape me and everyone else.
The Division was a good game that failed to deliver on its promises at launch, a story as old as time, song as old as… anyways, suffice it to say that it struggled along for quite a while. In a surprising move Ubisoft and Massive were unwilling to simply let the game languish and die so instead they persisted until with the final content update it felt like the game they’d promised from day one. This questionable financial move was validated with the return of scores of new and old players giving what should have been a dead title a new lease on life. Even more to their credit with the announcement of The Division 2 complete with extensive gameplay previews they still haven’t stopped giving people reasons to play the original game. New challenges and badges have been added in order to earn cosmetic items in Division 2. They’re being drip fed to the community as the release of the sequel gets closer. As someone who stopped playing a while back after finishing the game finally I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t considering going back to get these shields.
I have high hopes for The Division 2 and this only serves to bolster them as Ubisoft and Massive continue to prove that they stand by their promises while striving to learn from their mistakes.
On the opposite end of the spectrum lets rewind several years and remember the somewhat hilarious disaster that was Aliens: Colonial Marines. Recently it was revealed by an enterprising modder who was dead set on fixing the game that some of the more noticeable problems may have been caused by a typo. For anyone who has ever dabbled in any level of programming you can understand how much frustration a typo can cause you, only for most it isn’t to the tune of six figures and international ridicule.
If for nothing else it highlights just how delicate the development process can be and the kind of hell these developers put themselves through with 80+ hour weeks in crunch time trying to get games finished. I can’t even imagine the amount of typos my code would be riddled with in that environment. In the case of this game it was one mistake among many but one of the few that was truly funny.
I came across this announcement about a game called Digimon Survive and 16-year old me has completely lost his shit especially since it was announced for the Switch which is exactly the right platform. I honestly don’t even remember much about Digimon in spite of watching the cartoon but I’m excited none the less to see how it turns out.
We. The Revolutionis possibly one of the coolest game concepts I’ve seen in recent memory, either that or I have some kind of undocumented fetish for pixelated death after playing Domina for way too many hours. It doesn’t have a release date but I’ll be watching it closely.
Young Justice Season 3 was announced which is fantastic! DC has had the market cornered on great animated content and its nice to see one of their best coming back.
Lastly I want to touch on the Shazaam! trailer that came out and say that I’m really happy to see that DC is attempting to loosen up a little bit and have some fun. It’s no secret that DC’s top superhero line-up is decidedly darker and more dour than their competition but playing into that has done them no favors so far. Their animated offerings have struck an impressive balance between being somber and funny but so far its eluded their DCEU outings except for brief moments here and there. And a somewhat ham-fisted attempt with the Flash in Justice League which was plagued with other issues. I’m not sure where the DCEU is going from here and if we’ll even see Shazaam team up with the rest of the Justice League but if for nothing else I hope this marks a new beginning for them. From here I’d definitely like to see them reintroduce Green Lantern who to date has been a conspicuously absent piece of the puzzle.
I think that’s it for now! What cool things did you come across recently? What things should I know about?
I hope you have a great weekend full of whatever it is you like to do or just some good old relaxation and doing nothing at all.
The above symbol for anyone who was around in the 90’s, even if they weren’t involved in video games, should be pretty familiar. There is a rather storied history with this franchise including a series of court cases which led to the creation of the ESRB – Entertainment Software Rating Board. In spite of the controversy surrounding it the series went on to spawn more than twenty games and various movies as well as a smaller live-action series released on YouTube. In addition to that it’s also had a fairly successful comic book run which was going as recent as 2015. Many people may rightfully question how something as shallow as a fighting game could warrant so many retellings in story based mediums. Outside of the brutal and sometimes hilarious ways you can dispatch your opponents in the game there actually exists an impressively robust story explaining the games many characters. For the sake of some form of brevity I will spare you the lengthy version of that lore and give you the basic rundown from the game so we can compare to the eventual movie.
What You Need To Know
The universe of Mortal Kombat is made up of different “Realms” which are actually distinct planets instead of separate planes of existence. In the actual lore the number of realms is actually closer to 15-20 but for the sake of simplicity these are all we’re going to see in the movie.
Outworld – A purplish barren wasteland pockmarked by pools of acid, deserts and even the occasional lush forest it is the home of most of the series prominent antagonists. It is technically the amalgamation of a few different realms that Outworld’s Emperors have conquered, but thats for another time.
Netherrealm – Hell.
Earthrealm – Pretty much what you would think from the name. It’s the Earth realm, an Earth so close to our own that the distinction seems unnecessary. I guess they have more magic than we do, whatever.
The Mortal Kombat Tournament –
Mortal Kombat was set up by the Elder Gods of this universe after Outworld went on a conquering spree and became much too powerful for other realms to effectively stand up to them. The rules of the tournament however extend to any realm who wishes to invade another. Once a generation the two competing realms send their champions to a single elimination tournament to fight for supremacy. When there is only one left standing they are crowned champion until the next generation when the competition happens again. If one of the competing realms can attain ten straight victories then they may invade the losing realm.
Er, yeah. Try not to think about it too much, this is all based on a fighting game after all.
Who You Need To Know
So lets get to know our all-star cast who will be punching, kicking and, quipping their way to victory.
First up is the rather incredible introduction to our main villain, Shang Tsung.
Shang Tsung Wants You! To Join the Mortal Kombat Tournament.
On the left there we have the Outworld sorcerer and all-around soul sucker Shang Tsung portrayed by the incredible Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. Shang Tsung in the name of Shao Kahn the Emperor of Outworld, who you’ll see only glimpses of, is on the brink of making Earthrealm yet another in a long line of conquered planets.
Our scowling villain and his champion Goro (Not the kid in red.) have managed to win nine consecutive tournaments against Earthrealm prior to the events of the movie and first game. Shang Tsung has set plans in motion to lure a couple unwitting participants to the tournament so he can secure a guaranteed tenth win. Earth stands on the brink of invasion and it’s up to our heroes to save the day.
First up is Liu Kang who was raised a Chinese Shaolin fighting monk specializing mainly in Jeet Kun Do and Kung Fu. Also he’s been having some restless nights recently.
If you’re getting a strong Bruce Lee vibe don’t worry, it’s not just you.
Liu Kang, played by Robin Shou, was raised as a member of the White Lotus Society who trained fighters specifically to compete in Mortal Kombat for the defense of Earthrealm. In the movie Liu Kang left the monastery and moved to America as he didn’t believe in the legends and wanted his own life. The catalyst for him returning was due to the boy in red with Shang Tsung, his brother Chan Kang. Desperate to bring down the man responsible the journey would eventually land Liu Kang front and center at the tournament.
Next up is the no-shit taking law enforcement officer, Lieutenant Sonya Blade. In the movie she works special forces for an undisclosed agency and is introduced along with a brief interaction with her partner, Jax, another character from the game.
Lt. Sonya Blade, portrayed by Bridgette Wilson, is pursuing a criminal by the name of Kano (Also from the game) who is responsible for the murder of her previous partner. In the film Kano has been recruited by Shang Tsung to lure Sonya to the tournament grounds under the guise of fleeing justice. Once there she will have to enter the tournament representing Earthrealm for her shot at vengeance.
Note: I just want to note how hilariously awful the flashlight mounts for those shotguns are. Really props department, really? I too can stick a mag-light down some spray-painted PVC pipe and call it a day.
Finally our cast of heroes is rounded out by Johnny Cage, a highly trained and exceptionally skilled martial artist who is seeking for ways to prove his legitimacy on the world stage…
… Because in reality he’s an action movie star who is constantly accused of his skill on screen being all thanks to special effects and good editing. With his ego and reputation on the line Johnny Cage, portrayed by Linden Ashby, is eager for any chance to prove that he isn’t a pretender. Shang Tsung takes advantage of this by using his sorcerous powers to pose as Cage’s former mentor offering a chance to compete in a tournament that would remove all doubt of his true skill. Cage accepts and finally our three heroes are on a course to defend Earthrealm.
While more of a “hands off” participant in the tournament I do want to take a moment to introduce Raiden the Eternal God of Thunder who is the protector of Earthrealm.
If he’s the protector of the realm then why isn’t he fighting for it? Simple answer is that Raiden, portrayed by Christopher Lambert, is more of the guy who enforces the rules but doesn’t really get into the nitty-gritty of it. Instead he helps recruit the fighters who will do the actual defending. His movie role centers on convincing the three heroes that there is more going on than they understand or may believe. Once they’re on board Raiden is there to protect them from Shang Tsung’s scheming and help guide them through the tournament while they fight for Earthrealm’s survival.
Note: I wasn’t originally intending to include a gif of Raiden but honestly it’s one of the funniest reveals ever. Seeing the face of Christopher Lambert appear under that conical hat never ceases to make me laugh. Sorry, Highlander.
That’s the down and dirty set-up for Mortal Kombat the movie, now lets talk about how they did putting it all together.
The Review
First a quick rundown of the numbers –
Production Budget – $20m
Opening Weekend – $23m
Domestic Gross – $70m
International Gross – $51m
Worldwide Gross – $122m
If you’re like me those numbers were quite a shock because even as a fan of the franchise and having seen the movie when it released I remember it being cheesy and terrible. Admittedly a fun time but by no means a good movie. Those box office numbers are bordering on smash hit for the time, certainly a tidy profit. Even looking at it’s rankings on various records like New Line Cinema’s biggest opening weekends it sits at 27. For context this is the same company who produced the Lord of the Rings movies.
So how did this happen?
You’re kind of asking for trouble when you decide to take a fighting game and put it up in theaters as a feature length film. Not because a lack of lore fluff to work with but rather because the general mentality will lean towards action heavy and story light meaning no substance. Or someone will decide that they’ll be the ones to really show the mythology behind the game and make an unnecessarily narrative heavy feature that ends up being boring or worse, incomprehensible. Or both.
What strikes me as truly strange about Mortal Kombat is that Paul W.S. Anderson actually did neither of those things. The story is actually faithful within reason to the lore of the first game and any changes that were made were really only a result of having to flesh it out into actual dialogue and action. Some obvious limitations because of the PG-13 rating but a rated R movie based on a video game was going to exclude most of your potential audience so again reasonable changes to be made.
Seeing that again makes me want to go watch it and believe me I say that having already watched it several times putting together this review. In fact it’s playing on my other monitor as I write this. I’m actually amazed at how good that trailer is at doing everything it needed to for such a hard to market movie. It explains a story that has no right to make sense in such a short amount of time for people who don’t know what it is. It hits on every note, including cleverly used game audio, to energize gamers so they’ll be excited to go see it. It’s also got just enough Enter the Dragon vibes to garner attention from Kung Fu Genre fans who might see it on a lark.
In my initial post about video game inspired movies I made the argument that one of the major flaws is directors and writers feeling the need to put their own stamp on an already existing IP. This inability to put their ego aside undermines the appeal to the core audience who will pay to see this film based on nothing more than the title . If you piss them off then you’ve got little else to hang your hat on. Mortal Kombat cleared that hurdle with room to spare and took off running to the finish line.
Everything seems gravy so where did it fail?
For me the true stumbling blocks for this movie laid pretty solidly in the dialogue, acting, CGI and, some aesthetic choices.
In movies like these you expect a certain amount of cheese and camp when it comes to the actors or their dialogue and as such I don’t find a lot of fault with the actors themselves. At various points in the movie you can clearly see that they can act like normal human beings when they aren’t being forced to deliver stiff and unimaginative dialogue. Actors are often put in the uncomfortable position of knowing that what they’ve been given isn’t all that good while needing to simultaneously buy into the directors vision. At a certain level actors can wield more power on set to help shape the movie and hopefully help improve the quality by working as a team with the director and writers. I’m also sure that just by virtue of the kind of movie being made that the quality of things like the dialogue and overall acting weren’t super high on the priority list.
Even more unsurprising when you consider that Mortal Kombat was the fourth movie based on a video game being preceded by –
Super Mario Bros – 1993
Double Dragon – 1994
Street Fighter – 1994
I can’t really blame them for not having a lot of faith in the genre.
As far as the CGI goes I’m going to use what by now is probably a tired old metric but looking at the quality of special effects in this movie and then remembering Jurassic Park came out two years prior is painful. I certainly understand that they weren’t working with with the same budgets, in fact Jurassic Park had triple what Mortal Kombat did, but then why do what they did with Reptile?
They clearly had access to very talented set and costume designers so it makes the decision to include this questionable at best–
When they probably could have designed an incredible costume with a few lizard like prosthesis for the actor that would have been much cheaper and looked much better. Additionally the insane animatronics to bring Goro to life make me question further how their version of Reptile ended up in the same movie. Obviously they wanted something that looked nothing like Sub-Zero or Scorpion and it’s hard to say that was the wrong impulse to follow in the moment without the benefit of hindsight. But given everything else they accomplished it seemed like such an avoidable misstep. Especially given that they just morph him into the much more familiar looking Reptile two-thirds of the way through.
Combined with CGI and aesthetic choices that brings me to Scorpion’s kunai-harpoon which for some bizarre reason they decided to make into an apparent symbiotic creature that lives inside his arm? This feels to me like the encroaching ego of the people in charge who can’t stop tweaking and improving on whats in front of them. I can almost hear the discussion –
“He has a harpoon, right?”
“Yeah, but thats boring. Anything we can do to punch it up?”
“Well, he’s called Scorpion so maybe he should have like a stinger?”
“Like a tail?”
“Nah like his harpoon is his scorpion stinger.”
“I like that, but it should be alive, like a creature. Be able to move on its own. And lives in his arm but comes out through his hand.”
“Uh, okay.”
I get the impulse and often have to fight allowing myself to do the same thing but hopefully continuing to talk about the concept helps others avoid the same pitfall.
Lastly on aesthetics I wanted to touch on sound design with the use of game audio and music sprinkled throughout the movie. Like I mentioned in my last post part of the appeal going to movies like this is the thrill of seeing and hearing your game come to life on the big screen. Part of that is transferring iconic action, dialogue and visuals accurately into the script in ways that don’t ask for the kudos when doing so. They should feel organic in their new setting and not stick out as the references that they are. In Mortal Kombat the first time we hear the games main theme outside of the opening credits is for a fight between our three heroes and a bunch of faceless goons. How much more impact would it have had underscoring the final conflict of the movie or one of the other major fights between named characters? They also use the phrase “Flawless Victory” a few times in painfully awkward ways and whats worse is they use it incorrectly, even outside of the context of the game.
“Flawless” implies that the victor made no mistakes during the course of the fight, that they emerged undamaged. In one case it’s used correctly but pointlessly as the defeated opponent was a faceless mook fighting Sub-Zero after which Shang Tsung basically looks into the camera and says it to the audience. Then Liu Kang says it after the final battle with Shang Tsung where he gets hit several times. I know it’s nit-picky but adaptations will live and die based on their accuracy to the source material, much of the audience were fans already for a reason. It might be controversial but I would go so far to say that accurate references and representation of the source material is almost more important than the quality for longtime fans.
I know we still get articles wondering if the latest movie based on a video game will “finally break the curse and be good” like the ones that popped up about Rampage. Overall though after going back and watching this movie, several times, I honestly have to say that I would probably recommend this movie to people who question whether or not a good one has ever been made. It is certainly a product of it’s time and I don’t think it rises above the style of Kung Fu movie its loosely based on but I can’t say that it is an objectively bad film either. It does what it set out to do in fine fashion, stayed true to the source material and gave fans a true silver screen adaptation of a video game they loved.
So a very, very belated congratulations to everyone involved. You did what is still largely considered to still be un-achieved even now by making a fantastic video game movie!
Y’know, mostly.
If you stuck around this far, thank you for reading! Took a lot longer than I thought it would to put this together but I like the result. Learned a lot about video capturing, editing, FX and a bunch of other things. Let me know what you did and didn’t like as it’ll help me decide how to improve and how much work I should put into these in the future!
Also feel free to let me know if there is a specific movie you’d like me to do next!
The other day I was scrolling through my RSS feed trying to keep up with the non-stop torrent of news and came upon an article over at Polygon touting an interesting statistic which I had to be honest came as a bit of a surprise. This was mostly due to the fact that a couple of weeks ago I went and saw the new Tomb Raider which while not perfect I thought was an overall solid movie. This opinion comes with the rather important caveat that I have not seen Rampage yet but my own love for the old school game is enough to make me want to go. The movie also isn’t hurt in any way by having Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson as its lead, say what you will about his other career the man has impeccable comedic timing and oozes charm like most of us sweat.
On an unrelated note it’s fucking hot in Florida.
I don’t think anyone can, with a straight face, say that they saw the Rampage trailer and thought that anything good would come of it. It’s fine, I didn’t and if I’m honest I still don’t but I will go see it because it looks like a big, dumb summer blockbuster that should just be a fun time. I’m entirely okay with that being the case, people may denigrate these movies as nothing but a waste of the memory they’re filmed on but not everything society produces needs to be high art or commentary. Sometimes a giant ape knocking over buildings and fighting humongous crocodiles as a backdrop to Dwayne Johnson’s biceps is all we need. After reading the Polygon article I immediately hopped on Rotten Tomatoes to have a look at Tomb Raider 2018 and needless to say I was a bit aghast at what I found, 49%?! I will say that at the time of this writing Rampage has officially fallen to the 50% mark which means according to RT it gets a… splat? A rotten tomato, I guess. At the very least it looks like it will in fact not be the first video game movie to break the curse and become critically acclaimed which overall I think is a good thing lest the studios learn the wrong lesson. Video games have much, much more to offer movie going audiences than fleshy alternatives to whatever Transformers disaster is set to explode onto screens this year. As you’ve probably gleaned from what I’ve written so far I actually did like Tomb Raider and feel it certainly warrants better than a 49% but I’ll expand on that later as well as my feelings on Rampage when I get in to see it.
In the interim while we do wait for the one chosen adaptation which will break the critic ceiling I thought it might be interesting to set forth a little series project for myself and go back to do a retrospective on what video game movies we have gotten so far. Obviously I won’t be going over them all in this post but I thought I’d at least put this out there as an official starting point and an outline for how I’m going to go about it. If you have suggestions for ones you’d particularly like to see talked about, let me know!
So whats first? Criteria, what makes it a ‘Video Game Movie’? I mentioned Transformers above and while there have been games using that IP none of the movies are actually based on those games so those are out. Movie Tie-In Games while an interesting subject in their own right, namely because some of the great games over the years have been as a result of this, don’t count for this particular subject. Perhaps something I can cover down the road. Comic book games/movies also not going to be included in this. I will strictly be sticking to movies that were created as a direct result of or to tie into a video game franchise.
Here is the list so far off the top of my head as I write this, the one at the top should be clear that this list is in no particular order –
House of the Dead
DOOM (Y Dwayne?)
Resident Evil Series (I will actually watch all of these, god help me.)
Assassins Creed
Prince of Persia
Ratchet and Clank
Warcraft
Mortal Kombat Series
Street Fighter
Far Cry
Super Mario Bros (I can’t promise I wont be drunk for this one.)
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
In the Name of the King Series
Double Dragon
BloodRayne
Max Payne
Dead or Alive
Silent Hill
Hitman
Wing Commander
Need for Speed
Postal
I’m sure there are probably a couple I’m forgetting but thats quite enough to get me started.
The conundrum of video games being apparently so difficult to adapt to the silver screen is very intriguing to me because from my point of view you couldn’t really be given more of a gimme. One of the core problems I think that directors and screenwriters face is the incorrect assumption that they have to change the story in order to make it distinct from the game and therefore interesting to movie audiences. As anyone who has read any amount of fanfiction can tell you the vast, vast majority of people don’t actually know better than the original creators. The real challenge they should be focusing on is how to condense the story into a much more limited time frame, the same challenge that faces book adaptations. I don’t know of any gamers who go see these movies who really hope for a totally different story than the games they’re supposedly inspired by. We go for the novelty of seeing a live, big-screen adaptation of a story we already love, to see those pivotal scenes envisioned in a different format with actors who can really pull it off.
My constant question has been: Who are these changes for? Why make them? The only answer I’ve ever been able to come up with that makes sense is the changes are purely ego or business driven. The directors and screenwriters feel like if they don’t put their own stamp on the movie then it wont be worth their time. They know full well that no one really appreciates the person who can faithfully replicate a Mona Lisa but the artist who does the cubist version might turn some heads. The problem with this line of thinking is that adapting a book or video game isn’t a 1:1 transfer, it isn’t an exact copy and requires a talent all its own to maintain the integrity of the original product. Peter Jackson has not earned the acclaim he has for The Lord of the Rings because its his original story, it isn’t but he has earned it because of the monumental task that it took to faithfully translate it to the big screen. Not everyone is suited to do adaptations and its up to them to know their place when taking on a project like this. When altering an already completed piece of media for a different format all of the heavy lifting has been done when it comes to the story, characters and, setting. It’s one of the reasons that Jackson’s addition of Tauriel to the Hobbit movies was so heavily criticized, it was a change that wasn’t needed or wanted. It served a trope of modern movies that didn’t belong in the story being told and wasn’t needed to improve it. In my view Jackson fell victim to his own ego there and couldn’t help himself from adding his input when it was unnecessary. To be perfectly honest here when I first saw the movies I didn’t even remember she wasn’t an original character chalking it up to the fact that I haven’t read The Hobbit since I was a teenager. After I went home and did some research to clear up my confusion at some of the scenes I realized she was a wholly original addition to the story. What that tells me in hindsight is that while not every addition will necessarily turn out badly its a pointless risk, you are presenting an unknown element into something that was already successful. Why? At best it might serve as an intriguing bit of seasoning to the story but it most likely is destined to throw off what was already a finely tuned and crafted work.
Anyways! So as not to ramble at you for much longer I’ll cut myself off here and say that I’ll be continuing these thoughts once I set up a schedule to start watching the movies I listed above so I can talk about them and where they went wrong and how they might have avoided it. I’ve been pretty painting, video game and podcast focused in the past couple months so this will give me another reason to branch back out to movies, albeit old ones. My current movie viewing project given to me by my co-host on The Ourcast is Man From U.N.C.L.E. which we’ll discuss on an upcoming episode once we’re both back from our vacations.
Thanks for stopping by, have a great rest of your weekend!
Non-Washable Gamer 
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