{"id":35518,"date":"2021-07-20T13:12:02","date_gmt":"2021-07-20T17:12:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=35518"},"modified":"2021-07-20T13:12:02","modified_gmt":"2021-07-20T17:12:02","slug":"mortal-kombat-2021-blu-ray-digital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2021\/07\/20\/mortal-kombat-2021-blu-ray-digital\/","title":{"rendered":"Mortal Kombat (2021) [Blu-Ray\/Digital]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Despite being one of the most violent games ever released (of its time), in the nineties studios worked hard to water down the series for a younger audience. With that, they effectively killed off any cinematic prospects for over twenty years after 1997\u2019s embarrassing \u201cMortal Kombat: Annihilation.\u201d Now in 2021, Director Simon McQuoid brings us a new vision for \u201cMortal Kombat<\/a>\u201d that\u2019s faithful in many respects, and embraces the gore and grue of the original games. It\u2019s not a perfect movie by any stretch, but it\u2019s a damn good martial arts fantasy when all is said and done.<\/p>\n

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MMA fighter\u00a0Cole Young<\/strong>, accustomed to taking a beating for money, is unaware of his heritage\u2014or why Outworld\u2019s Emperor\u00a0Shang Tsung<\/strong>\u00a0has sent his best warrior,\u00a0Sub-Zero<\/strong>, an otherworldly Cryomancer, to hunt Cole down. Cole goes in search of\u00a0Sonya Blade<\/strong>\u00a0at the direction of\u00a0Jax<\/strong>, a Special Forces Major who bears the same strange dragon marking Cole was born with. Soon, he finds himself at the temple of\u00a0Lord Raiden<\/strong>, an Elder God and the protector of Earthrealm. Cole trains with experienced warriors\u00a0Liu Kang,\u00a0Kung Lao<\/strong>, as he prepares to stand with Earth\u2019s greatest champions against the enemies of Outworld. Will Cole be able to stop Outworld once and for all?<\/p>\n

Admittedly, Paul WS Anderson\u2019s 1995 cinematic adaptation<\/a> still has its charms, but it misses a lot of the more interesting beats of the game including the lore, and character focus. McQuoid\u2019s reboot tries to compensate by offering up a ton of character focus and exploration of the lore of the video games, while also fully embracing the graphic violence. \u201cMortal Kombat\u201d has a ton of fun establishing the universe of the original series, with establishing of the ages old rivalry between iconic characters Sub-Zero and Scorpion, and then rolls with the classic hero\u2019s journey, following hero (and avatar for the audience), and original character Cole Young.<\/p>\n

Young is a man who is thrust in to the world of \u201cMortal Kombat\u201d and has to overcome some brutal foes, all the while trying to reach down deep and find his weapon for combat. The shadow of the vicious rivalry between Sub-Zero and Scorpion lingers over the narrative, and McQuoid handles all of the sub-plots and narrative threads well. While not as dark as I would have liked it, McQuoid\u2019s film is focused on entertainment and blood soaked action first and foremost. It would be great if the follow up is a bit sterner in tone, especially as there\u2019s the promise of an actual tournament unfolding. In either case, \u201cMortal Kombat\u201d was a treat for 2021. I had a blast, and it definitely holds large rewatch value.<\/p>\n

Along with the digital copy for consumers, the Blu-Ray release comes with four Deleted\/Extended Scenes which includes “Extended Cole Nightmare and Longer Kano Plane Story”, “Sea of Spikes”, “Kung Lao and Liu Kang Meet with Raiden in Chinese Garden”, and “Sub-Zero Confronts Shang Tsung”. These are presented in more or less finished form with occasional text inserts; the color grading isn’t finalized and the audio is limited to Dolby Digital 2.0. The twenty one minutes From Game to Screen: The Making of Moral Kombat is a mid-length featurette offering an enjoyable overview of the franchise’s transition to the big screen over the years.<\/p>\n

Key members of the cast and crew (including actors Lewis Tan, Jessica McNamee, Joe Taslim, Mehcad Brooks, Matilda Kimber, and more) also share their personal memories of MK video games, from the original cabinet to modern home console sequels. The sixteen minutes Mortal Kombat: Fan Favorite Characters includes 11 mini-featurettes exploring the film\u2019s characters including Cole Young, Sonya Blade, Kano, Sub-Zero, Jax, Lord Raiden, Scorpion, Shang Tsung, Liu Kang, Kung Lao, and Mileena. Oddly missing are Goro, Reiko and Kabal. Fight Koreography is a nine minutes look at the fight scenes and stunt work seen during some of the film’s most intense moments, featuring fight choreographer Chan Griffin, and others.<\/p>\n

Into the Krypt: Easter Eggs of Mortal Kombat features Director Simon McQuoid taking us through each and every Easter egg and other neat little details that die-hard fans should enjoy. Finally, there\u2019s the twelve minutes Anatomy of a Scene a collection of 7 short featurettes offers a quick overview of how several key scenes were developed, filmed, and finished in post-production. This includes Hanzo Hasashi vs. Bi-Han, and Scorpion vs. Sub-Zero just to name a few.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite being one of the most violent games ever released (of its time), in the nineties studios worked hard to water down the series for a younger audience. With that, they effectively killed off any cinematic prospects for over twenty years after 1997\u2019s embarrassing \u201cMortal Kombat: Annihilation.\u201d Now in 2021, Director Simon McQuoid brings us […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[58,64,71,349,631,678,733,840,1008,1087],"class_list":["post-35518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collectors-den","tag-action","tag-adaptation","tag-adventure","tag-fantasy","tag-martial-arts","tag-monsters","tag-ninjas","tag-revenge","tag-supernatural","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35518"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35520,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35518\/revisions\/35520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}