HBO Watch Movie Review: "Mortal Kombat"

Against all odds, first-time feature director Simon McQuoid lives up to the tough task of making a critically reasonable video game movie. You'd have thought perhaps the deck had been stacked against him given the utter churn of the last two decades (*cough* Prince of Persia *cough*), but with more recent franchises like John Wick, and even video game-esque output like Guns Akimbo proving that bloody violence is sheer bliss, Mortal Kombat was always in with a shot on that basis – the basis that it was never, and couldn't possibly have ever been a PG-13 sell which, remarkably considering the source content, both of the 90s efforts were. And, while they have been reassessed and reconsidered over time to be marginally more favorable in retrospect, they remain a largely bloodless bore – the antithesis of what Mortal Kombat represents.