Beautiful visuals, but ruined by the unoriginal plot

The movie had excellent visuals. The acting was ok. At times, they correctly seemed to aim for a horror-movie feeling, particularly with the villains. I’ve always felt Mortal Kombat movies needed to capitalize on the horror elements of the franchise.

What killed the movie, in my opinion, is that the plot was undeveloped and unoriginal. Basically, the tournament is starting, the villains are coming for them, and now they have to fight. Any teenager could come up with this plot. Just lazy writing

There was little to no character study or character development. The Scorpion appearance at the end felt random and unsatisfying; we saw that dude die in the opening for a little while, we forget about him, then he appears at end and kills the main villain. I feel we didn’t know this guy enough to pull for him to win at the end. It had to be Cole beating Sub-Zero.

Part of me thinks that, with so many characters, Mortal Kombat might be better off as a series, not a movie. Perhaps 2 hours is not enough.

Lastly - the movie overdid the comedy, especially with Kano. There were also unnecessary one-liners, like when Jax says, “Yeah these things work,” or when Sonya says, “A little parting gift from Kano.” Those one-liner killed the atmosphere