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This series is almost over. If you've missed my other posts, be sure to check them out:

Ace Attorney Anime

Legend of Zelda Manga Books 

Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie

Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva

Castlevania Netflix Series

Detective Pikachu Movie

Released in 2020, this movie is the story of the first Mortal Kombat game with a stronger focus on Scorpion. With excellent characters, a good story, great animation, and tons of blood, this is possibly the best Mortal Kombat movie yet. I’ve seen that MK fans are mostly pleased with the movie, although there are some flaws. 

First of all, the focus of the story is about Scorpion. We see Hanzo and his young son spend some time together, but upon returning to the village, they see dead bodies everyone. The Lin Kuei clan has massacred their village. We watch in horror as Hanzo’s son is killed too. This causes Hanzo to go insane with rage and brutally kill the ninjas that remain. This is an excellent opening as we sympathize with Hanzo and understand why he would want revenge. He quickly becomes Scorpion, but we see that he’s not some heartless villain. 

The other main characters here are Liu Kang, Sonya Blade, and Johnny Cage. Sonya is a hardened military girl who is at first no-nonsense, but she slowly warms up to Johnny. Johnny is hilarious here, jesting with Liu Kang and hitting on Sonya. He thinks the MK tournament is a huge movie set for the longest time. He has great chemistry with the others. Liu Kang is the weakest, as he doesn’t have much character and there’s no depth to him—he’s simply “the chosen one.” (Raiden is also here to mostly explain to the characters about the tournament, but he doesn't do much beyond that). Their interactions with Scorpion are quite interesting as they realize that they’re all on the same side. 

The movie goes all-out on the blood and gore in the fight scenes, which is commendable. MK’s identity has always been the violence. What’s great here is the detail. During a fight, when a character does damage to another, sometimes we will see an x-ray image of a skull or bone and get a bone-crunching sound in order to see exactly what was broken. It’s brutal, but it makes the fights far more interesting than just generic battles. This movie is not for kids! Blood and gore is everywhere. This works far better in an animated movie as opposed to a live action one. The most recent live action MK movie is decent, but some of the blood and gore in that movie comes off as cheesy, whereas none of that comes off as cheesy here. You might be wincing a bit as you witness some of the kills. 

The animation here is very strong. Character designs are very good as each of the main characters look unique and resemble their game counterparts well. The voice acting is also top-notch, the standouts being Patrick Seitz (who brings gravitas to Scorpion), Jennifer Carpenter (the no-nonsense Sonya), and Joel McHale (the hilarious and likable Johnny Cage). MK fans will also recognize a slew of villains here, including Quan Chi, Kano, Shinnock, Kitana, Goro, Shao Kahn, and Sub-Zero. Unfortunately, many of these villains are under-utilized in the movie (it's esepcially disappointing how Sub-Zero is handled). 

While the movie is excellent, diehard MK fans aren’t happy that the tournament is downplayed in favor of Scorpion’s story. We get to see the tournament here, but it’s very brief and some of the match-ups are disappointing. However, the tournament is a much greater focus in the sequel, Battle of the Realms, which is not as good as this movie, but still a lot of fun. Despite its flaws, Scorpion’s Revenge is an excellent movie, and a must-watch for any MK fan.

Purchase Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge here