Mortal Kombat review: A dramatically dull video-game adaptation that feels like homework

Dir: Simon McQuoid. Starring: Lewis Tan, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Tadanobu Asano, Mehcad Brooks, Ludi Lin, Chin Han, Joe Taslim, Hiroyuki Sanada. Cert 15, 110 mins. There's a ghoulish pleasure in adapting Mortal Kombat, the series of fighting games first unleashed in 1992. Here's an opportunity to have someone's spine be ripped right out of their body and call it art. That particular finishing move, arguably the most famous in the game, does not appear in this latest big-screen iteration, although there's still a generous helping of gore to be found. What's more frustrating is how dramatically dull the lengthy spaces in between the blood fountains are.