Last year saw two major films based on video games, 'Street Fighter' and 'Mortal Kombat'. While I found 'Street Fighter' a poor attempt and ultimately a waste of Raul Julia and even Jean-Claude Van Damme's talent, 'Mortal Kombat' avoids most of the other's failings by putting its resources into the myriad special effects and elaborate sets thus creating a world more fantastic, yet more believable, than the cartoonish 'Street Fighter' .
The story of 'Mortal Kombat' is simple enough. Mortal champions from Earth must meet the minions of the evil Emperor, led by the demon scorcerer, Shang Tsung, in a life and death tournament held once every generation. If the mortals lose ten "Mortal Kombats" in a row, the Emperor will gain dominion over the Earth. The mortals have lost nine and the time has come for the tenth. The fate of the Earth falls into the hands of a trio of disparate, but talented martial artists, each with his or her own personal demons to overcome. Liu Kang, the Chosen One of the Chinese Temple of Light, whose brother was killed by Shang Tsung and now bears the guilt of his death. Johnny Cage, a true martial artist and movie star labeled a fake by the media and contantly feeling the need to prove himself because of it. And Sonya Blade, a tough female cop who trusts no one but must learn to trust if she is to survive "Mortal Kombat". Coaching the mortals in any way he can is the great scorcerer, Rayden, god of thunder and lightning. Brimming with terrific special effects and elaborate sets, 'Mortal Kombat' sets a fast pace with as much martial arts action as its "PG-13" rating would allow and an occasional dash of humor to help keep things light.
The transfer of 'Mortal Kombat' for laser disc is something of a mixed bag. Colors are nicely saturated and the image is mostly sharp with good detail, except for some darker scenes, or others lit with intense red or orange light that tend to disolve in a haze of chroma noise. This artifact is more prevalent than I have seen in a while but, though unfortunate, still not bad enough to seriously detract from the movie. The transfer has been matted to about 1.85:1 and the framing looks well balanced.
The soundtrack of 'Mortal Kombat' is, in a word, loud. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, just that the high energy score is often used at levels that obscure (probably intentionally) other effects or dialog. The mix takes what I call the "wall of sound" approach. High levels of sound bombard the viewer from all the channels beating you into submission. So much for subtlty. This one is more like a sledge hammer. Not that that's
necessarily a bad thing.... The disc also includes AC-3 audio.'Mortal Kombat' has a stated runing time of 101 minutes but don't let that fool you. This sucker has to go down as having the longest end credits ever. Ten minutes (10!) of end credits. That gives you and hour and a half of the good stuff. The side break is very well placed. The disc is generously chapter encoded with 28 markers for the feature followed by the theatrical trailer and three TV trailers, all full screen. But, hey, that's not all. The remaining analog track (those of you with analog-only disc players are SOL) contains running commentary by the film's producer, Lawrence Kasanoff, and the visual effects supervisor, Alison Savitch. With a list price of $39.95, 'Mortal Kombat' is a lot of bang for the buck.
This review is copyright, and may not be reproduced without the written consent of the author.
