Mortal Kombat Legacy: Episode 1 Review

Click on the video above for a video review of the full Mortal Kombat Rebirth/Legacy webseries featuring LaughingMan, CineMax, and *STAR*

Mortal Kombat: Rebirth

The whole world was stunned on April 19, 2010 when a viral video was making the rounds. It was a roughly 7 minute long teaser trailer for a fan project titled "Mortal Kombat: Rebirth", and for days YouTube viewers, bloggers, and Mortal Kombat fans (like myself) didn't know exactly what to make of it. The depiction of this new Mortal Kombat short was dark and gritty, yet it took place in a more down-to-earth setting, much like in Christopher Nolan's "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight", and while the disturbing -yet realistic- ambiance of the trailer divided fans, the mystique of it was no less intriguing. Was this trailer a very well put-together fan video? Or was it Warner Brother’s studios (owner of the Mortal Kombat franchise after Midway Games went bankrupt) testing the waters to see if there was enough demand for a third Mortal Kombat movie or a reboot?

All signs pointed to the latter because of the abnormally high production values and a solid cast including Michael Jai White (Black Dynamite, Blood and Bone) as Jax, and the beautiful Jeri Ryan (Star Trek: Voyager) as Sonya Blade. However, the most impressive aspect of the trailer was the stunning, gritty, absolutely BRUTAL fighting choreography.

Sing along: "One of these things is not like the others..."
(Left to Right) Reptile, director Kevin Tancharoen, Baraka

After about a week it was discovered that the trailer was, in fact, a fan trailer, created by up and coming director Kevin Tancharoen (the director of Fame of all things...) and that the trailer was actually his pitch to Warner Brothers for his own vision of a new Mortal Kombat feature film. And thanks to YouTube, it was now a vision that hundreds of thousands of fans were backing.

Mortal Kombat Rebirth: Reptile the cannibal

My own personal opinion of Mortal Kombat: Rebirth was that it was an interesting take on Mortal Kombat, and despite the strange ‘realistic’ depiction, it was the fighting that swayed my opinion of the trailer from “This is pretty cool” to “HOLY FUCKING SHIT MAKE THIS GODDAMN MOVIE!” However, my support for Kevin Tancharoen being the next director of a Mortal Kombat movie was cemented during his recorded interview with Collider.comwhere he outlined his thoughts of what a Mortal Kombat movie should and should not do. He made a few references to The Matrix, and we share the opinion that the sequels lacked the “cloak and dagger”, danger around every corner, fight, flee or die feel of the first movie in exchange for a special effects bonanza. He vowed that, although he would keep some supernatural elements present, he would keep the entire series rooted in reality without bicycle kicks and fireballs. Tancharoen also noted that supernatural characters such as Raiden wouldn’t be just an electric worker with taser guns on his arms, but other heavily supernatural characters like the cyborgs, Sektor and Cyrax, would NOT be included because it’s stepping outside of the realm of believability.

Mortal Kombat Rebirth: Rasta Baraka

A Mortal Kombat movie that kept the supernatural elements to a minimum and stayed true to reality? It sounded really damn good to me!

So months later without any additional information, it was finally announced that Kevin Tancharoen’s vision for Mortal Kombat would be indeed produced. The fans were extatic... until they kept reading the announcement detailing that Mortal Kombat: Rebirth would NOT be making the rounds in the theaters, but that it would instead be produced as a webseries. As outraged as I was, initially, myself and other movie critics such as CineMax and Alphawolfx decided that this was infact a blessing in disguise. Considering the rampant bureaucracy of Hollywood, such an adult take on a Mortal Kombat movie would never see the light of day, as they would likely demand that the violence and adult content synonnomous with Mortal Kombat be toned down to merit a PG-13 rating in order to pander to the masses and expand the legal viewership.

In otherwords, if Kevin Tancharoen were to have directed a Hollywood feature film, he would be making lots of compromises that would have derailed his unique vision, and would have pissed off legions of Mortal Kombat fans (most of whom are presently between 20 and 30 years old now) who have been wanting a Mortal Kombat movie that takes off the gloves and pays proper respect to the nostalgia-factor of the original games.

Myself included among them.

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Debut Trailer

When I first saw the Debut Trailer which aired only hours before Episode 1, my fears and nightmares were made manifest. Being a cynic towards everything (even outside of movies, games, and whatnot), I had always lived by a code that when you have high expectations of anything, you’re always going to be let down. I’ve had high expectations for Mortal Kombat: Legacy (the official title of the web series), and the trailer was nothing short of disappointment.

While the choreography was beautiful, I noticed that the entire trailer was nothing sort of a montage of the half-dozen or so fight scenes that will be taking place throughout the upcoming series. While that’s not a terrible thing considering that the series is based on a fighting game, there was almost zero trace of plot, character development, or anything that really looked all that different from another Mortal Kombat trailer that once got my hopes up: “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation”

A movie trailer can make even shit look good... A hard lesson of my childhood...

The second, most crushing aspect is that, despite swearing to the public that he would keep the supernatural elements to a minimum, including his comments about excluding Sektor and Cyrax, BOTH cybernetic ninjas made their appearance in the trailer. In otherwords, Kevin Tancharoen had already compromised on the vision that had won me over heart and soul.

... Well, heart and soul sounds a little pathetic, but you get the idea. Tancharoen already compromised on one of his own personal pet peeves, so now that there is a crack in the dam, what else will be leaking through?

Mortal Kombat: Legacy – Episode 1

I didn't have much expectation towards the series considering what I had seen the night before: Nothing more than classic Mortal Kombat grudge match fighting, and a steep departure from the dark, realistic, gritty, EVIL feel from Mortal Kombat: Rebirth.

While cynics are often disappointed when they expect greatness, the exact opposite is also possible. Episode 1 was a relief to me in many ways, and I am now confident that Kevin Tancharoen probably, PROBABLY has a good thing going.

Story

The first webisode of Mortal Kombat: Legacy begins with Kano making/smuggling robotics in a massive warehouse. Little does Kano know that his rival, Sonya Blade, is in the warehouse taking surveillance and relaying the information to her partner, Jackson Briggs (aka "Jax"). Jax is in what appears to be a SWAT team debriefing led by Kurtis Stryker. The two officers are viewing Sonya's surveillance video and Jax is pushing Stryker and his men to go and give support to Sonya Blade ASAP. Stryker is more level headed and strongly suggests caution, but Jax barrels out to find Sonya and stop Kano. As the door swings shut, Stryker realizes that the mission is already compromised due to Jax's impulsiveness and he tells his men to follow Jax's brash lead.

"You wanna know how I got these scars???"

Meanwhile, Sonya Blade is chained, beaten and suspended by her arms in a basement. Kano appears and he mocks Sonya, telling her that the surveillance video was intercepted before it was transmitted, and, now that he's had time to prepare for the eventual police raid, he released the video to Jax and Stryker. Sonya spits on Kano and Kano headbutts her, then threatens to cut her heart out with his knife. Sonya survives the encounter because Kano gets word that the police have arrived, and he moves out to spring his trap on Jax and Stryker.

Ambiance and Setting

The atmosphere of Mortal Kombat: Rebirth is present. It's not as oppressive and dreary as in the trailer, and there are no homicidal freaks as of yet, but the look and feel is as realistic as you can get (for a video game webseries). However, Episode 1 of Mortal Kombat: Legacy plays more like a (GOOD) Schwarzenegger movie: Lots of explosions, tons of run and gun gameplay, and a few slow-motion scenes that (while tastefully done in comparison to Zach Snyder's Hollywood schlock) still fall into the cliché action movie bin. However, when the gloves come off and Jax ( Michael Jai White) and Kano (Darren Shahlavi) exchange blows, I actually got into it. Kevin Tancharoen knows his fight scenes, and they're executed well.

And Now, For a Taste of Things to Come
(sorry, had to do it)

I love Sonya's new Apple iSpy wireless headset

Special effects are minimal but are visually stunning. When I first saw Sonya Blade (Jeri Ryan) use her high-tech surveillance headgear I was already making my Christmas List for the year 2025. However, use of special effects are brief. Very brief. And because we live in a world where Hollywood uses CGI as a crutch, it's always refreshing to see films that use CGI as enhancements, not the blood and guts of an entire action film. Perhaps this sparing use of special effects foreshadows Tancharoen's wanting of supernatural elements to be used minimally and tastefully, as he had promised in his audio interview with Collider.com? I can only hope.

However, despite my Mortal Kombat fanboyism, a reviewer's cynicism must be exercised, but never exorcised.

FOCUS!

One thing that got old fast was the out-of-focus shots where Character A would be hit, stunned, or tortured and an out of focus FPS shot would slowly adjust to reveal Character B. I could see this being effective during the Sonya and Kano scene, but using it three (?) times during a 12 minute episode made the technique lose its appeal and potency.

Lost in the Details

Mortal Kombat: Legacy feels rushed.

Yes, I know that you are thinking, "It's a web series and you can only have up to 15 minutes of time per episode on YouTube." While that may be true, it doesn't excuse the fact that I'm not seeing the character development that I require to give it a standing ovation. For instance, since this episode revolves around Jax, Sonya, and Kano, I would have liked more of an explanation of their cops-and-robber relationship instead of Kano just telling Sonya that he would "cut out her heart like he did her partner". The one thing that the Original Mortal Kombat movie had going for it was that Sonya's hatred for Kano was VENOMOUS, it was an obsession by which she let dominate her very existence. Yet in Mortal Kombat: Legacy, that maddening, self-destructive hatred is all but completely missing. As for the relationship between Jax and Sonya? Well, I guess we have to wait until Episode 2 to determine whether or not they are just casual acquaintances, or whether their relationship runs deeper via either trust and loyalty, or possibly romantically.

Hey, Jax and Sonya getting together could happen…

This is Kurtis Stryker. He was in Mortal Kombat 3.
That MK3 character sucked so bad that he's not even mentioned by name in Mortal Kombat Legacy

Another unfortunate example of the series being rushed through production is that the character Stryker (Tamoh Pennikett) isn't even introduced by name in Episode 1. If it wasn't for the buzz on the internet saying that Tamoh Pennikett was playing Stryker, he could simply have been credited as "The Commissioner" or "Head of Police Department" and it would have gone completely unnoticed.

Story is Everything

The problem at the core of Mortal Kombat: Legacy is that the series is making the assumption that everyone automatically knows who Jax, Sonya, Kano, and Stryker already are, when, in fact, anyone who hasn't ever followed a Mortal Kombat game will be left completely in the dark. There are few explanations as to who the characters are and the details of their relationships to each other. Kano is a bad guy; Sonya is Jax's partner and they're trying to catch Kano; Kano killed Sonya's partner.

………. Wait, that's all the explanation we've ever been given in any of the Mortal Kombat games. Oh wow, so Mortal Kombat: Legacy is spot on with the character bios.

But that doesn't make a good movie nor a gripping story. That's like saying "A plumber saves a princess from a dragon" and trying to make an entire movie out of it. The purpose of giving video games life in a movie is to come up with imaginative ways to give depth to characters who are only iconic for ripping out each others' spines by expanding on what has already been established. One of the very appealing things about the Mortal Kombat: Rebirth trailer was the potential to expand on the histories of each of the Kombatants. Baraka was a failed doctor, Reptile was a serial killer with birth defects, and Sonya and Jax were cops in a precinct? Holy crap, that's something new and interesting. Not only that, but it's compelling because there are a lot of cool stories and elements to the characters' pasts that could be explored!

But no, outside of some flashy gunfights, and some cool hand-to-hand combat, I've essentially seen 12 minutes of nothing I didn't already know, and nothing that would bring a non-Mortal Kombat player up to speed.

Where to Go From Here?

The direction of the Mortal Kombat: Legacy series also has me at a loss. I know that this is a pre-Mortal Kombat story, however after the final episode, where does it go? Is there a big block of text that just says: "Play the game!" or if we're lucky we'll see "Watch the new theatrical movie coming in 2013!"? Judging by the Debut Trailer released April 11, 2011, there's going to be a half-dozen or so storylines that span over the course of 10 episodes, but where will it lead? My cynical nature is pointing towards "Thanks for watching" and that will be the end of a series that, even at the end of Episode 1 left me CRAVING more.

But time will tell, and I'm hoping that a longer, more complete Mortal Kombat film that spins off of the Mortal Kombat: Rebirth trailer will be the byproduct of the Mortal Kombat: Legacy webseries.

OVERALL IMPRESSION

Jax vs Kano. Assault with a deadly weapon makes Jax smile.

Mortal Kombat: Legacy is (so far) simply fan service. Where it excells in choreography and most of its cinematography, it is sorely lacking in direction, plot, and character development. Again, most people will scream "It's a web series, for ingrateful bastards like you who have always wanted a GOOD imagining of Mortal Kombat" and I would agree with you. It is a web series, so you can't devote hours of plot and story to over a dozen characters that will be featured during the series' measly 10 episode run (roughly a 120 minute movie by my count); however, that is still no excuse for the lack of proper storytelling. If the end-result of Mortal Kombat: Legacy is 110 minutes of fighting and shooting while detailing individual characters is put to the wayside, I'd say that an opposite extreme was substituted by another.

However, Mortal Kombat has never been a particularly story-driven game series. You have classic rivalries (Jax and Sonya vs Kano, Scorpion vs Sub-Zero, Mileena vs Kitana, etc) and from what I have seen these will be addressed in Mortal Kombat: Legacy. HOWEVER, an element that Mortal Kombat: Rebirth had over any of the previous iterations was that it opened up characters' backstories to breathe them new life, where as Mortal Kombat: Legacy is sticking with the tried-and-true formulas of previous games, movies, and even previous series.

On the opposite side, the fighting and the vision of Kevin T. is still outstanding, the cast is well chosen for their roles, and, despite my rants for more backstory, I believe that we're seeing a promising new series that I will be waiting impatiently to watch weekly for the next two months or so.

But why are you reading this? Go watch it and make up your own damned mind!