The film is awaited by all fans of the video game license. Warner Bros. has decided to produce a new adaptation of Mortal Kombat. Directed by Simon McQuoid, the feature film will not have a theatrical release, and will have to be content with a VOD distribution from May 12. Focus on a shaky adaptation of a myth:
Mortal Kombat: a myth in video game history
The Mortal Kombat video game saga was created in 1992, with a very first game released on arcades. Since then, fourteen games have emerged over time and on different consoles (11 in the main saga and 3 spin-offs). The latest, Mortal Kombat 11, dates back to 2019. 
On the film side, Paul WS Anderson embarked on an adaptation in 1995. Unfortunately, the film turned out to be a total failure. But thanks to its $122 million box office receipts, New Line Cinema decided to produce a sequel in 1998. Mortal Kombat, Final Destruction, directed by John R. Leonetti, received even more destructive criticism and brought the desire for frankness into oblivion. After a few animated adaptations, Mortal Kombat is back on the front of the stage, with a new film directed by Simon McQuoid. Already available in the US, the film has already grossed more than $62 million at the box office.
A long introduction
Definitely, video game adaptations seem to be simply cursed. American film studios fail to stage a proper video game adaptation. It looks beyond their strength. And Mortal Kombat is no exception to the rule, as Simon McQuoid's film does not live up to expectations. Overall, Mortal Kombat is a lazy blockbuster, which offers nothing really stunning. Warner capitalizes on an introductory film, preferring to keep it under the elbow, which is enough to cause some frustration. 
Mortal Kombat is therefore not a film, but rather a long pilot of a series. Simon McQuoid never goes into details, skims over his plot and offers quick and soulless confrontations, just to complete this introduction quickly, and without taking risks. Thus, the fights are dispatched, and do not leave time for the spectators to appreciate the graphic violence put in place.
An adaptation once again failed
Simon McQuoid therefore preferred to stay very close to the basic material, staging confrontations as short as those of video games. If the fights are rather well choreographed, they are cut with a jigsaw. Simon McQuoid does not manage to make a shot last more than a second, and the cutting of the brawls is epileptic. And it's a shame because the violence of the film is relatively pleasant. Even if Warner doesn't use its R-rating enough, the few graphic flights of violence are worth the detour on their own. But frankly, there is interest in redoubling efforts in the next installments, and justify their ban on under-16s on American soil. 
Thus, in this over-cut atmosphere, Mortal Kombat also highlights terribly bad actors, a hideous aesthetic that sometimes recalls visual turnips like Dragon Ball Evolution, and above all, a staging that is 20 years late. Supported by a soundtrack from the late 1990s, Mortal Kombat feels like a blockbuster released in the early 2000s. Fortunately, the characters are impactful enough, and charismatic enough to give a little punch and soul to it all. In short, overall, Mortal Kombat is a failure in due form, which will eventually satisfy fans of undemanding video games, or viewers looking for a stultifying B series. https://youtu.be/B_SeNjJ5qyk
