MORTAL KOMBAT!

I don't think I'm inside my own mind today... bum bum bum bum, ba ba, bum bum bum bum, ba ba, bum bum bum bum, ba ba MORTAL KOMBAT!

We all have been there...

TEST YOUR MIGHT

FLAWLESS VICTORY

FATALITY

JOHNNY CAGE... WINS

Mortal Kombat is an INSTITUTION. It defined my childhood in ways that certain other exploits simply could not compare to. I remember being young, when Mortal Kombat first came out in the early ninties... I would have been like seven or eight years old when that game came out and I remember first playing it fondly. It's gory game play and gritty graphics was so different than the sports games I was used to playing.  (Yes, even at that age I was addicted to sports games.) Something about that game scared the shit out of me. I literally had nightmares about it. Despite that, I couldn't get enough!

Had my mother known I was playing those kinds of video games, I'm sure she would have taken my Sega Genesis away and banned me from ever playing video games again desperately altering the course my life would ultimately take. Be that as it may, I can say with certainty that Mortal Kombat shaped me in some fashion. It's as cherished a 'childhood relic' if you will as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sonic The Hedgehog or maybe even Batman (though not nearly as monumental)

Mortal Kombat was one of the first movies I ever saw in the theater. My father, the great man that he was took me to saw this movie and I loved him ever more for it. Mortal Kombat was awesome, it had the attitude of the game plus it was kind of campy and awesome in a way that would've totally appealed to my age demographic at that time without being too cringe worthy for the parents. Even today, I love the Mortal Kombat movie, THE FIRST ONE.

When I think of the second one... well. I can't spoil it for you because it's that, ahem, memorable. But if you haven't seen it, or don't remember and are curious (in a way that only a TRUE Mortal Kombat fan would be) then check it out. The ending of the movie will certainly surprise you for one reason or another. If you are not curious to see the movie but still wonder about the ending, just check it out on You Tube and you won't have to suffer through one of the more truly awful movies that has ever been made. Truly awful ending... like, wow awful.

Anyway. Mortal Kombat remained in one way or another relevant as I grew up. It kind of lost its focus as video game technology grew. Mortal Kombat kind of lost itself in the glitz and glamor of 'next gen' systems, at the time the N64/Playstation era and never really recovered as gaming grew into the PS2/Xbox era. Still, fans like me loved the series enough to allow it to continue to produce up to the most recent offering of Mortal Kombat, after Warner Bros. bought the rights to Mortal Kombat and made MK vs DC Universe. It was an ultimately un-inspired game that threw the 'heroes' of the Mortal Kombat universe (if they could even be called that?) against the iconic heroes and villains of DC's comic book universe.

There's just something satisfying about being able to shoot Batman in the head as The Joker that you can't really put a price on, but I digress.

Mortal Kombat has completely failed to be relevant for a long time, and it's been hardcore fans like me that have kept its memory alive. Right around the time that I graduated high school, back in 2005. There was some legitimately strong rumblings, and a rather large internet petition, that a third Mortal Kombat movie was in the works, they were lining it up and unlike false prophecies of the past this felt like it was truly going to be something. That of course, ceased to come to fruition.

A bitterness has always lived on because I have wanted that, I know they can do better and I know that Mortal Kombat is awesome enough to be made into something better than Annihilation had to offer. Then, on Thursday, June 10th... THIS happened.



When I first watched this, as a Mortal Kombat fan and I say this with modest pretention, a TRUE Mortal Kombat fan, I felt genuine glee hit my system.

The problem with Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is that it was TOO much like the video games. The first movie had a rather grounded (for the 90's...) to reality feel to it but it also delved rather fearlessly into the mythology of the video game and in the mid-90's it was a recipe of success, at least in my opinion. Annihilation failed because its attempt to legitimize the video game by replicating it at every possible foray pretty much, ahem, annihilated the movie and the video game simultaneously.

THIS though, feels different. For todays standards it has a rather 'typically' dark and grounded feel that one would expect to see in a "2010" movie, and it is also suitably gory. Mortal Kombat was so 'out there' for its time because of the gore. By todays standards, gore is pretty popular with todays movie going audience, this would be a great opportunity for a savvy filmmaker to do Mortal Kombat some amicable justice while thinking outside the box, and this trailer, even if you're a fan of it or not (Penny Arcade made their feelings clear) you can't argue this has certainly taken an outside the box approach to the material.

The man who directed that short is a director by the name of Kevin Tancharoen, he directed the movie Fame that came out in 2009. Upon learning this I kind of raised an eye brow but this was apparently something he had been wanting to do for a while. With $7500 out of his own pocket. Actors Michael Jai White (Spawn, Black Dynamite) and Jeri Ryan (7 of 9 from Star Trek Voyager) donated their time to help Tancharoen produce the short with his 'vision' of what a new Mortal Kombat film could be.

Michael Jai White is no stranger to viral marketing, producing his own short trailer for Black Dynamite which eventually lead to enough buzz being generated for the full feature to be produced. White, who played Jax in the short was in the running to play Jax in Annihilation before being cast as Spawn, spoke positively about his experience playing in the short and is also a fan of the game as well. (You can read more about his experience in some MTV interview I found...)

http://www.collider.com/2010/06/09/kevin-tancharoen-interview-mortal-kombat-rebirth-feature-film/ Tancharoen goes into some detail about his fondness for the franchise and how this has been something he has been musing over for a while, as well as some of the details for his 'vision' of a feature film and the process of making the short. Give it a read if you're curious, it certainly piqued my interest.

This feels so much stronger than previous rumblings of a new Mortal Kombat film and that's why I can't help but get excited for this. The short really felt genuine and it felt fresh. There's a lot of room to play with that and grow it into something that would be really entertaining and still do the "Mortal Kombat" justice. He has a pretty strong vision for what he wants to do and that's something that so few movies really seem to have lately. You could incorporate the gore aspects of the Kombat, the more supernatural aspects to some of the characters (since he talks of focusing on the Scorpion/Sub-Zero rivalry) and really some of the more, I suppose, 'true' aspects of the Mortal Kombat realm.

They don't need to dive into the multiple realms of the MK universe or anything like that. Have the tournament, have some awesome martial arts fights. Dive into the Scorpion/Sub-Zero relationship. Show Jaxx and Sonya Blade kicking some ass. Throw in some cool characters the fans would like to see but like he talks about in that interview, don't overdo it or it just gets to be too much. (X-Men 3, anyone?) I'd love to see Michael Jai White get the metal arms and kick some ass kung-fu style like BLACK DYNAMITE. (Hell let's just get Black Dynamite in there and fighting in Mortal Kombat.) Get some good gore in there too with some awesome fatalities and really, to me, that's a recipe for a fucking cool movie and a great REBIRTH to Mortal Kombat!