Mortal Kombat (1995) User Reviews

54%

[thomastobutt · 5/10 · 12 April 2021]

PROS:

• To be fair to this movie it stays faithful to the video games, it delivers nice fan service on that front.

• Depending on the mindset you have going into this movie, it can be a fun watch.

CONS:

• The action looks very staged and therefore the choreography is quite poor.

• The special effects are awful, especially with the actors having no idea what is happening in front of them. They didn't have the resources to pull off the amount of CGI things they attempted successfully.

• It is very campy and cheesy.

• As it has a PG-13 rating, there is nowhere near as much violence as the games contain.

Not as good as the game obviously

[impressivesgirl-37857 · 5/10 · 24 April 2021]

Honestly I thought the 2021 one is pretty bad but then I played this one and it is definitely a lot worse than I remember it. I used to like this one but the execution is just bad. No back story, no explanation, no consistency, bad costumes. The characters are lacking depth and their general vibe from the game is completely absent - they are not menacing (except for Shan) and interesting enough as it was in the games. Wtf were these ridiculous fight scenes?! And what happened to Kitana's hot outfit? At least I absolutely love the bad ass theme song - reminds me of the childhood.

Mortal Kombat 1995 Review

[chandean-69762 · 5/10 · 20 April 2021]

"The essence of Mortal Kombat is not about death ... but life." Mortal Kombat is filled to the brim with bad acting, terrible dialogue, and horrendous CGi.

But outside of that, what we have here is a film that cares for its source material and is not afraid of showing it. Whether it be Scorpions fire-spitting skull head, or Johnny Cage doing his splits nut-punch, it shows the creator knew and cared about Mortal Kombats origins and ridiculousness.

It doesn't shy away from having a lot of fights too. Although not as bloody and gruesome as you'd expect, they still feel impactful enough to get the point across.

Mortal Kombat pleasantly surprised me with how it stayed with its source material unlike most video game film adaptations. It had a pretty decent story and lots of good fights, but it does suffer from some poor acting and dialogue along with some of the worst CGi i've seen. The Goro animatronic was impressive though!

EDIT: Reptile is my all time favorite Mortal Kombat character so seeing his HORRENDOUS appearance kind of upset me. But then thankfully redeemed it in the end.

Street Fighter Correction

[jaywolfenstien · 22 September 2003]

Following up the spectacular disaster of competing fighting game turned movie, Mortal Kombat succeeded where Street Fighter failed. Not a fantastic movie nor one that goes in my top ten, but Mortal Kombat (without a doubt) is one of the better game-based-films.

MK wisely avoids inventing plot in unwelcomed places and sticks to the game as frequently as it can get away with. Actually the biggest contradiction that comes to mind is Scorpion and Sub-zero on the same team. Die hard fans will call the screenwriter on this, the rest of us won't care.

All the mistakes Street Fighter made, MK avoided. Instead of colorful campy cameo-fest, Mortal Kombat comes across as a dark tale about a handful of martial artists shot with an exaggerated epic style with humorous undertones to provide comic relief every now and again. Then again, it is ironic that Street Fighter would feel cartoony and Mortal Kombat more concrete when looking at the style of the games (drawn sprites versus live actors). MK is a little silly when reproducing game effects and trademark moves, though now more and more films are moving in that direction (Matrix, anyone?)

The movie's premise is the first Mortal Kombat arcade game featuring a few plot hints (journey to Outworld) and a few characters from Mortal Kombat 2 (Kitana, Jax, a youthful Shang Tsung.)

Christopher Lambert and Cary-Hiroyuki Takawa make the most memorable impact as Thunder God Rayden and Shape-shifting Sorcerer Shang Tsung. Both ham up their performances just enough to remind us that we're watching a live-action video game, but they don't go overboard into Street Fighter's territory. The rest of the cast plays their part straight forward and makes their characters believable.

It's a quick and slick film, gets to the action and gets over with before you can ask too many questions. It's a pretty decent martial arts film, and an outstanding ‘video game' film. And in 1995, it was the best game-inspired film you could find. Today it's still in the top five.

Best video game movie to date

[K-Mac017 · 7/10 · 5 September 2005]

And that really says a lot about how the not-so-current trend of games-to-movies are received among critics. But this one was easily the best of all of them. This is easily in a league higher than the likes of Super Mario Brothers, Double Dragon, Street Fighter, Wing Commander, the Tomb Raider movies, Resident Evils 1 and 2, House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark, not to mention that this was one of the few that actually stayed true to the game, from the costumes to the tourney fights, from the characters to the plot lines, everything was done right, and it makes for one hell of a fight-'em-to-the-finish type movie.

But heed my warning: AVOID THE SEQUEL AT ALL COST! Just stick with the original. You won't be disappointed (well, maybe you will, just maybe).

fatality..

[ChristianBach_DK · 2/10 · 4 November 2003]

A real good friend of mine with an equally bad taste in movies has made me sit down and watch this more than once. This movie is the absolute pits! The scenography is terrible, the acting is absolutely horrible (Christopher Lambert does it again. He REALLY should have quit after the first Highlander), the effects are mind numbingly bad, and the plot is even worse. My recommendation is that only the ones who absolutely loved the videogames and whom suffer from insomnia should see this if it was on cable and they were strapped down in the couch out of reach from the remote control. However, I give it one point for the entertainment value of copying a bit of the spirit from the games ("fatality!") Otherwise it has no redeeming qualities. 2 out of 10.

Better than Street Fighter easily

[peternaulls · 7/10 · 29 August 2020]

A much bettwr movie with decent fx and choreography. Granted the story is cheesy and this is no Enter the Dragon but, not as bad as has been made out. If you are a fannof the game you should share some appreciation to this.

a 90s movie

[shrm4-1 · 3/10 · 20 November 2005]

OK, so this wasn't the best movie, but it will always be a memory for me going to see this with my dad and seeing the reaction on his face like "OMG, this is what you kids call entertainment?" In a way it was an ideal movie for generation X teens- lots of gore, lots of martial arts, cool looking graphics (for the mid-90s this was awesome), and 8-armed creatures that barely speak English. When goro first came on screen, my dads face was in shock, like "What did I waste my 10 bucks on" and I was like "this is awesome". The techno soundtrack could have been replaced with mid-90s alt-rock (Filter, foo Fighters, Alice In Chains) for better effect, but i guess the opening theme is a winner. So pretty much, this is just an awesomely bad 90s movie.

Love It

[JoelChamp85 · 9/10 · 16 August 2021]

This is how you make a MK video game into a film. The sets looked straight out of the game, the characters had proper appeal to them, and it didn't waste time on unnecessary story. The lighting and camera work looked awesome, even with some of the cheesy matte paintings and early cgi it still destroys the 2021 version. The corniness just makes this film great.

Test your might

[Smells_Like_Cheese · 7/10 · 30 November 2003]

"Mortal Kombat" in my opinion is just an awesome movie. I think because I was such a fan of the video games, the days when Sega was the "thang". LOL, way before Playstation there was Sega! But, I really just loved the characters and this story just always appealed to me. I think because also my friends and I enjoyed acting the movie and video game out. No, we didn't kill each other, we just loved the characters.

Yes, despite this being a typical video game movie, I still think it was cool to watch, still to this day I don't mind watching. It has an awesome soundtrack, excellent moves, and a great look and feel to the movie itself. Just let go and have fun with it, if you enjoyed the video games, I think you should enjoy "Mortal Kombat". It's just cool to watch and keeps you on the edge of your seat in excitement!

7/10

Rather poor

[lowth2000 · 1/10 · 16 March 2002]

Although I did not have high hopes for this film since it was a conversion from a computer game it still must be said that the film was of a bad standard. It is probably not the worst film ever, but it does not impress in any way. As has been said many times previously the plot is indeed whimsical and lame but this alone should not make an action film so poor. The greatest let down for any fan of the martial arts/ action film genre must be that the fight scenes are abjectly unsatisfying and fail to excite it any way.

It could well be said that the reasons why the fight scenes left the viewer indifferent were because the plot did not encourage you to care about the characters. This is true, the characterisation was slipshod at best, however, again, action can be interesting and amusing without reasonable characterisation sometimes. Perhaps then it is the fault of the script writers. The script was horrendously bad, marked chiefly by dialogue that simply did not fit in with the action taking place visually, and of course, sometimes contradicting the story. I am not sure if they really did employ script writers on this movie, or perhaps they were foreign and something was lost in the translation, but again action can be interesting even if the script is poor. The special effects were equally dismal with the 'Goro' character looking laughably silly waddling around, 'Kane's' head looking like it was stolen on trick or treat night and sundry other bizarre blunders. The whole film did have a distinctly tacky and silly look. The designs were pathetic, the film itself had an atmosphere of cheapness, and the enemies all looked uninnovative and unimpressive. The direction was bad with the main characters, and villain being shown in an amiable comic style. The action was unimpressive because when all of these deficiencies are taken into account there is nothing positive to say. The directing was particularly woeful, but the script writers too must accept a large amount of the blame for this waste of film. The acting did come over as being of a very poor standard as well, but I would refrain from criticising that since with that script, that plot, and that director, they never stood a chance.

Way more fun than the 2021-version

[paultenhout-140-413150 · 10/10 · 20 June 2021]

After watching the 2021-version of Mortal Kombat, I couldn't believe that the original movie got a lower rating. The cast for the characters is spot on, it's got the right humor and a plot that matches with the game. The 2021 does not have all of this. Ofcourse, you can see that the 1995 version had a way lower budget and special effects are 25 years better now....but the 1995 movie is more fun to watch. Is it a 10? No, but compared to the 2021 version it is.

Paul Anderson's only good movie.

[CuriosityKilledShawn · 6/10 · 31 October 2000]

I've always believed that video-games will never make good movies. But Warner don't seem to understand what a goldmine they're sitting on when it comes to Mortal Kombat. The franchise has so many characters, complex back-stories, and mythology that it honestly dwarfs the X-Men. There is a huge amount of potential in Mortal Kombat. This juvenile 1995 effort only scratches the surface of that potential, but still manages to be an enjoyable no-brainer.

I remember when this was released back in October 1995. It had been No. 1 at the US box office for three straight weeks. The audience did actually manage to go along with the silly, tongue-in-cheek hokum, and it worked. By modern standards this film is laughably awful. The CGI effects look like they were rendered on a Commodore 64, even when the technology to make much better was readily available at the time. I feel so old thinking about how dated and retro Mortal Kombat is.

A bunch of muscular tough-guys are called to an exotic island to take part in a fighting tournament that could decide the fate of the planet. The Outworld Emperor wants Earth as his new dominion and is one tournament away from victory. His mortal, demonic minions, led by the brilliantly over-the-top Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa as dark sorcerer Shang Tsung, must fight Earth's toughest warriors. All but three are expendable: Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, and Sonya Blade. The film follows them as they fight their way through many colorful environments.

It looks and feels very much like an old-fashioned kung-fu movie. The production design is frequently wonderful, and there's hardly any unlikeable characters. Even 4-armed Prince Goro (brought to life by lovely puppetry) is fun to watch. The story however is paper-thin. Like I said, it could be so much more but the talent or motivation to make such a film in 1995 just wasn't there.

I've never been a fan of Paul Anderson (as a matter-of-fact, he's one of the worst filmmakers currently working), but his US debut is a fun, little pot-boiler with some funky 90s techno.

A movie to get you out in the fresh air!

[kewlster-306-251823 · 1/10 · 8 March 2012]

I'll apologize upfront for keeping the details short in this review. I just couldn't elaborate further, due to only lasting a very short time before fleeing from this tripe. I can honestly say that the acting was nothing short of atrocious.

If you want to get your friends or family out into the fresh air or perhaps participating in healthier activities than sitting in front of the box, put this on.

Maybe it's just me, but I lasted all of 11 minutes before fleeing! I had to walk away and go play with the cat! Thankfully, I have a cat, a computer, a good book and umpteen other channels to watch ... anything but this!

for 1995, super. and for me now.

[moscow-29155 · 7/10 · 6 October 2021]

For many centuries there has been a deadly battle between different planets, different civilizations. In the first part, Lord Raiden and his team defeated the treacherous Shao Kahn from another civilization, but he violated the sacred law and invaded the Earth again. Lord Raiden, who possesses immortality and incredible strength, with his team - Lou, Princess Kitana, Sonya and Major Jax - challenge another civilization.

Awesome adaptation!

[MoffatLP · 7/10 · 4 June 2012]

The only way I can review this is the pros, cons, similarities, and differences between the game and the movie.

Similarities:

1. The characters from the game series make appearances. Some of these include Kano, Sonya, Rayden, Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, Kitana, Shang Tsung, Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Reptile, and Goro.

2. Scorpion has his iconic "Get over here!" accompanied by the blades that stick out from his hands.

3. Each character for the most part have relatively similar backgrounds when it comes to the movie and the game.

4. MK theme was present in a few fight scenes. The kick-ass theme song that sticks in your head was used in the opening credits and the closing ones.

5. Three words: Johnny Cage's nutshots.

Differences:

1. Little to no, and I mean NO, fatalities are present in the movie. There is a lot of MK-like action throughout but the one thing that truly made the games awesome is completely left out. To fill you in if you haven't played the games, fatalities are pretty much an attempt (and success) at you being able to brutally murder your opponent in as gruesome style as possible.

2. No blood. I understand that New Line is trying to make the movie more appealing to wide varieties of audiences, but Mortal Kombat without blood isn't Mortal Kombat. This is probably the reason why no fatalities are involved.

Pros:

1. The movie has some damn good action scenes in it. They were simply entertaining to watch and each fight didn't drag out for a long excessive period of time.

2. The acting wasn't mediocre like I believed it would be. Like so many other game-to-movie crossovers the major appeal is to display the perception of how games "should" be made. I put 'should' in quotes because it fails most of the time, but Mortal Kombat managed to put all of that behind it and made a pretty good movie.

3. Paul W.S. Anderson. Again he has managed to do an awesome job with these video game adaptations. Although it was after, his best work I believe was with the Resident Evil movie seven years later. Personally, I think he's best when it comes to adapting, which is a rare cause when it comes to these types of movies. For example: Uwe Boll. Worst director of all time and he always managed to ruin some pretty good games (House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, Far Cry, Postal).

Cons:

1. The CGI. Oh my lord was this film's CGI terrible. I mean it was just simply AWFUL. Goro looked like it was animated by a first grader. The visual scenery is great and all the money probably went towards making that aspect look real but they completely ignored this very one distracting aspect.

2. The costumes weren't bad, but they weren't as good as I would have expected. I like how Reptile was a ninja, but Rayden doesn't look anything like he does in the games. An argument can be made that he was in mortal form during the video games to compete in the tournament so that's why they look so differently, but I object to that because he looks just so ridiculous.

3. Like I stated before, no blood is present. It's understandable that the attempt was made to make it PG-13 and all but if this could be remade with more blood...a lot more blood, then it could be made better. That's not something I would usually say, but hey, it's Mortal Kombat, and Mortal Kombat is all about brutality.

Despite the cons and differences it doesn't make this movie any less enjoyable to watch. It's all around pretty good, could have been better, but I'm still fine by what I received.

Give an F for effort

[bullions27 · 1/10 · 23 November 2001]

Director Anderson pretty much ripped off the whole Enter the Dragon plot since it shares so much with the actual game to make this movie. No need to work the brain over with that. I had absolutely no expectations for the movie being it is a game so I guess that is what is keeping me from giving this a zero.

There is no ingenius plot. There are no classic acting. The fight scenes are like a Power Rangers-gimmick in a way and nothing spectacular. It is way better than previous game to movie attempts like the recent horrific Wing Commander, but by no means is it a good film on its own.

Flawless Victory!

[worldsworstwryter · 10/10 · 20 January 2022]

I just played the Mortal Kombat games for the first time ever this week, so I've been dying to rewatch the film!

I'm pleased to say I still love it as much as the first time. The actors are all perfect in their roles, but Raiden and Shang Tsung are particular stand outs. The fights are great (Johnny Cage vs Scorpion & Liu Kang vs Reptile!!!), the story is fun and gets right to the point, there's some beautiful cinematography, the set design is absolutely stunning, and the soundtrack is legendary.

That stuff is all well and good, but this film also has something more, that's hard to put my finger on, that makes it really special to me. It's not nostalgia, as I only watched it for the first time last year, but for some reason this movie just has a special place in my heart.

Overall, upon rewatching, I'm glad to say that this film is still a Flawless Victory!

A nice adaption!

[swedzin · 6/10 · 4 January 2010]

MK 1995 is a fine, just fine adaption. It is pretty often for movies based upon video games to end up crappy as a final product. Well, this one was more than OK. No need to tell anything except a few things... a few good things. The acting crew is great - Robin Shou (Liu Kang), Linden Ashby (Johny Cage) and Bridgette Willson (Sonya Blade) were great in their parts. Robin Shou is not the best actor around, but he proved to be great as Liu Kang and I find him, for now, to be the best who portrayed Kang in live action film. Linden Ashby was an excellent choice for Johny Cage. He was funny, cocky and sarcastic as a character, and I think that Ashby did a great job. Bridgette Willson was OK, but not all that great. Maybe because they give her so little to work with. And when it comes to that, our leading characters are not that much developed. They are just there to win the tournament, but their backgrounds are pretty solid, and that's about it. Too bad that they didn't give them more to their character. Christopher Lambert was fine as Rayden, mysterious and tall. But his acting was a bit wooden. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa was excellent was Shang Tsung, his performance was inspiring and he made Tsung with such unmitigated charisma. So far, he is my favorite Shang Tsung. Talisa Soto (Kitana) was also good, alas just like Sonya, little developed and two dimensional. She was there to increase the plot for Liu Kang. Now, the one I really found most entertaining is none else than Trevor Goddard (Kano), his Kano was very fun! His Australian accent and charm were just through the roof! To mention the fact that most voice actors in video games based their performances on Goddard's. Thanks to him, this Kano is memorized and trademarked forever. Love this Kano! The martial artist that played Reptile (Keith Cooke), Sub Zero (Francois Petit) and Scorpion (Chris Casamassa) were amazing in what they do best - kicking some butt! They really gave a 200% effort and hard work in fight scenes. Fights are excellent, dynamic and well choreographed. The atmosphere in certain scenes is good, in a way, it gives us a decent impressions of "fighting locations." The locations and studio sets were good, CGI, was not that great. But, don't despair. One of the most beautiful things in this film is Goro. Performed by special effects master and student to Stan Winston - Tom Woodruff Jr. Who did an impressive job on Goro. You just can't deny his puppetry and animatronics. All that is pretty well mixed with voice acting of Kevin Michael Richardson who voiced Goro. For the end, Paul WS Anderson is not my favorite director, nor I don't find most of his films good. But, this one is very special and it was one of his early works in Hollywood, so he had to prove it. And he did it. He did a good job. Keep it in mind that this movie offers you only a tiny amount of blood. Whereas the game is extremely violent. This movie, reasonably is not. It's a decent fun! Watch it!

Making a plot vacation into a movie

[sportsfan89 · 1/10 · 28 January 2005]

Only someone on LSD could like this...seriously. This is the stupidest movie ever, during one scene Johnny Cage practically goes to hell but then he defeats the person who took him there and then he starts walking as if he can just walk right back to the island. Secondly, anyone who watches this movie and is above the age of 5 knows that scripts were second to punching & acting & coherency. Anytime i hear a Johnny Cage line I want to rip out my ears and throw them at the t.v. Hopefully the v-chip will protect against such travesties in the future, children shouldn't be subjected to this under any circumstances. Furthermore, the game was pretty good, but this was clearly could measure up to a game which was only killing a slight stabbing. How sad, someone kill me cause I think by writing this I am beginning to un-repress this movie. Good-bye i'm about to stick my head in the microwave on high to rid my brain of Mortal Combat.

Needs a higher rating

[coreyjpier · 10/10 · 26 May 2021]

After watching the 2021 atrocity of a movie, I am pleasantly surprised of how well this movie was done and holds up even to this day. Minus the terrible 90's cgi, this movies story and pace is completely fluent and does its job. The difference between this film and the 21' remake is the heart that was actually put into this 95' version. From the soundtrack, to the fight sequences, prosthetics, and the out world set design, it was completely night and day to the modern one.

Best Mortal Kombat´s film.

[dasa108 · 7/10 · 30 November 2022]

This is the best Mortal Kombat movie and it's not a great movie. It has what last year's aberration does not have: a tournament. The story introduces us to all the beloved characters where there is room to show off and show us their characteristic movements and phrases. Could the choreography have been better? Yes. Could it have been raised in a more dynamic way? Of course. Despite this, it gives us exactly what we want and spares no resources to offer a coherent story that spans the duration of a feature film. Among the movies based on fighting games, this is by far the best. Even today it is an entertaining and decent film.

Never thought i'd get bored of watching fist fights but here it is

[sneakythief-1 · 3/10 · 29 November 2008]

Browsing the reviews on this site i was surprised to see so many, indeed, ANY good reviews of this film. Admittedly I've seen worse films in my opinion but I couldn't really see anything that anybody would like here...

Mortal Kombat is little more than a series or apparently unrelated fights which, whilst well choreographed, add nothing to story, character or... well... anything. The concept of the "tournament" was good but the fact that you couldn't tell which fights were part of the tournament and which occurred just because people wanted to kill each other kind of took away any motivation from the fighting. Also, i watched another action film after this, and I found that once the fist fighting started, I was incredibly sick of just watching people hit each other.

I'm all for dumbed-down entertainment, but there's such a thing as dumbing it down too far, and here is the evidence. There's not really anything good about this film except for the opening music, and that doesn't make up for the following hour and a half.

One of the better video game to movie adaptations.

[Cinemaniac1984 · 7/10 · 9 July 2016]

A lot of the video game to move adaptations have been a much maligned concept and a majority of them have turned out to be box office disasters. One of many of these examples include Super Mario Bros (1993) and Street Fighter (1994) which instantly spring to mind. Mortal Kombat has the distinction of being the few of the better video game to movie adaptations.

Based on the controversial best selling ultra violent video game, the movie centres on Shaolin monk Liu Kang (Robin Shou) out to avenge the death of his brother at the hands of Shang Tsung (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), actor Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby) out to prove that he is not just a pretty face, and special forces officer Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson) who is in hot pursuit of criminal Kano (the late Trevor Goddard). Liu Kang, Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade are handpicked by the god of thunder Raiden (Christopher Lambert) as contenders for the Mortal Kombat tournament to claim triumph over the Outworld to prevent the Emperor Shao Kahn from invading Earth.

Assisted by Princess Kitana and Raiden, the trio must also battle a variety of opponents including Scorpion, Sub Zero, Reptile, Goro and lastly Shang Tsung.

Director Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil, Alien Vs Predator) keeps the plot straightforward and ensures the movie remains faithful to the video game. The acting won't net any awards but all did a fine job. The movie could have been added to the list of box office disasters but audiences, in particular fans of the video game, got a kick out of the movie and consider it to be a flawless victory.

Mortal Kombat is certainly a worthy video game to movie adaptation. It is still a fun movie.

7/10.

Hmmm, 3 stars for the theme song....

[sophiekateelliott · 3/10 · 15 July 2002]

So for several years I've been trying to make myself sit through these kick-butt action movies, because they seem pretty popular. Again I have been disappointed. Maybe its because I don't have enough testosterone in me to enjoy a plot-less movie such as this. Ok, I can hear the three people who actually enjoyed this movie yelling out in protest, but I mean, be honest - what happened to writing a story before you begin fighting, erm, I mean, filming... If you enjoy films with a lot of unexplainable events, C-grade acting, and unquestioned mysterious occurances (cough cough, three normal people see other, erm, 'people' morphing in front of their eyes and no one looks in the least bit surprised, cough cough) then Mortal Kombat is the one for you.

Oh, and by the way, if someone asks you to get on a rusty old boat with a bunch of strangers and no explanation, its likely you'll have to save the world - but don't worry! It's all in the name of bad entertainment!

"A handful of people on a leaky boat are gonna save the world?" "Exactly!"

I gave this film 4 out of 10 stars.

3 stars were for the classic theme song.

1 star was for the princess, who looked miraculously good for her age.