Movie Talk - Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins

After over a decade and a small webseries, we’re finally getting a new Mortal Kombat movie. This is one I’ve been curious about for some time now. I almost forgot it was being released until I started to see promos for it. The trailer for the movie looked pretty cool, but I am noticing the lack of Cage, man. Maybe this Cole Young character will liven things up, I’m not sure. One thing the new movie brought to mind was a previous “gem” from the past. It would be Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins, an animated unofficial tie-in to the live-action movie that was also released in 1995. As YouTuber Phelous called it, “It’s the worst of 2D and 3D animation.”

I actually owned this thing back in the day. I talked my mom into getting it. She didn’t mind since I had already played some of the games at the time. You can thank my uncle for that. I vaguely remember seeing the video a few times. I also remember the trailer to the live action movie being included as well as a 20-minute behind-the-scenes look at the movie. Since then, I’ve seen the feature online as well as some hilarious reviews of it. I remember Phelous looked at it, and another reviewer from the old Channel Awesome days (Benzai?) reviewed it.

Yay... I'll take the snippet of the two fighting in Annihilation over this.

Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins is basically a cheap version of the live-action movie’s first act. We find our main Kombatants (Liu Kang, Sonya Blade, and Johnny Cage) on the boat to the tournament. After a run-in with Shang Tsung and the ninjas, Raiden shows up to protect them (sort of, the dude bounces later on). After that, Raiden goes into story mode with the three during their trip to the island and on the island. We learn about Shang Tsung’s time in the tournament, the rivalry of Scorpion and Sub-Zero, the ascension of Goro to being the main prince, and the death of the original Kung Lao. After all that crappy 3D animation, we get a really hilarious fight as the three take on a legion of Takartan Warriors. After that, the thing abruptly ends.

Wow... it looks even better when in motion...yes, this is sarcasm!

 OPINION

So, its safe to say that this thing sucks. I know this was made in the days of early 3D animation, but oof. When your 2D animation looks like crap, you might have some problems. Let me go on and throw the positives out of the way first since there are probably only three good things. The voice acting is okay. We have some recognizable voices like Jim Cummings and Jennifer Hale. The character designs are fine with everyone sporting their MK1 look. The movie’s pretty short topping in at about 40 minutes. Finally, it’s unintentionally funny. Seriously, that final fight is literally like five snippets looped into about 3 minutes of time. It is truly hilarious.

Yes, we see Johnny's hilarious moves for 3 minutes!

As for the bad, where do I begin? The animation looks like crap all around. It’s like they tried to blend in the 2D animation with 3D backgrounds at points and it looks dreadful. You can tell this was made on the cheap side. The music is pretty lame but memorable. You do get some lame dialogue here and there too. The fact that it’s basically info dump is a problem too. You probably won’t care too much about the monk who Shang Tsung killed nor Goro’s twin brother. The movie also ends like crap too. We cut right off as the tournament officially begins. We don’t even get other combatants like Kano or Kitana here. We get our regulars as well as Lame Chuck Norris, Turtleneck Man, and refugees from a Rob Liefeld comic.

Ha... they're all gonna die...

………………………………………..

In the end, this was pretty bad. Even the good things I said above don’t save this. At least it did the job in hyping my younger self for the better movie. You might get some entertainment out of it being “so bad, it’s good.” Also, the behind-the-scenes snippets at the end make it worth seeing more of how the live-action movie came about. It’s on YouTube, and if you somehow find a VHS of this, good luck! Anyway, I’m outta here. Peace, God Bless, and be careful out there. Also, if some old dude in a Chinese hat tells you to get on an old boat to go save the world… I say do it. What’s the worst that can happen?