There is no shortage of video game adaptations, but the good ones are sadly few and far between. Unfortunately for the Mortal Kombat films, they didn’t escape the notice of Screen Junkies’ Honest Trailers series, and they were both called out as being among the ones that “suck” in the latest video.
The Honest Trailers narrator brought the action flicks into the ring, only to pepper them with enough high punches and low kicks to leave both Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation bloodied. The mock trailer comes out swinging, opening with, “Before Assassin’s Creed tries to shake off the stink of all the video game movies that came before, two films will challenge the rule that game adaptations suck — and more or less confirm it.”
There is no letting up, either. The trailer calls out everything from the exposition contained in the script to the use of dragons — or, as the narrator calls them, “some animator’s bad CGI demon fetish.” The Mortal Kombat actors, including those who appeared only in the sequel, get extra attention; they’re described as “fighters who can’t act, actors who can’t fight, and people who can’t really do either.” In fact, the biggest compliment for protagonist Liu Kang (played by Robin Shou) is for his “luscious mullet.”
The games were all about the action, but Honest Trailer concludes that on this score as well, neither of the films measured up. Instead, they featured “generic martial arts battles” and an absurd amount of rules the characters have to fight and live by. Plus, the narrator points out unnecessary added elements that just don’t work, like the “underground hamster ball.”
Needless to say, this round — and the entire tournament — goes to Honest Trailers.
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