60
Metascore
13 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 75Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerChristian Science MonitorPeter RainerIt is one continuous fight sequence from opening scene to final credits, but lacks the blood, profanity, and gore that would have merited a more adult rating.
- 70The New York TimesStephen HoldenThe New York TimesStephen HoldenThe movie's extensive martial arts sequences, in which combatants bounce off each other doing triple handsprings, suggest a slightly more earthbound version of the aerial ballets in Hong Kong action-adventure films.
- 70VarietyLeonard KladyVarietyLeonard KladyBut where others have sunk in the mire of imitation, director Paul Anderson and writer Kevin Droney effect a viable balance between exquisitely choreographed action and ironic visual and verbal counterpoint.
- 63TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineExpect lots of earsplitting music, garish visuals and badly staged martial arts action.
- 60Washington PostRichard HarringtonWashington PostRichard HarringtonA mix of martial-arts and special-effects magic, the film serves its nonstop confrontations either straight up or with a twist (as when they involve Kombatants with special powers, like Sub-Zero, Reptile and Scorpion).
- 60EmpireKim NewmanEmpireKim NewmanThe filmmakers try to solve the problem of turning an experience which merely consists of a series of fights into a story by... ignoring it, presenting a film which merely consists of a series of fights.
- 58Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumEntertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumAnd although director Paul Anderson treats the story with appropriate deadpan respect, there are enough sparks of humor (particularly generated by Linden Ashby as a shallow martial-arts actor who worries that he's a fake, with good reason) to amuse the adults accompanying the 10-year-old boys in the audience.
- 50Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovAustin ChronicleMarc SavlovIt is, in essence, the video game transferred part and parcel to the screen, and very well at that.
- 50San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco ChronicleMortal Kombat the movie has everything a teenage boy could want: snakes that jut out of a villain's palms, acrobatic kung- fu fighting and a couple of battling babes. Everything, that is, but an interesting plot, decent dialogue and compelling acting
- 50The New YorkerThe New YorkerBut soon the movie falls flat under an uninspired good-versus-evil plot and pathetically simpleminded dialogue.