I remember when I first watched this film, I was about 10 years old. Now into my mid-twenties, I had a chance to watch the film again, and it is still very enjoyable.
What Video game adaptations seem to be doing wrong these days (especially fighting game/manga adaptations like DOA, SF: Legend of Chun Li, and Dragonball Evolution) is that much much respect is given to its source material - often the story is twisted some other way or the actors' acting is just hilariously bad.
This movie got most of the factors right in making a good video game adaptation:
1. Sticking to the story. This film, while directly taking the story ofMK1, incorporates the elements of MK2, and it works great. The viewer goes through on a journey into the tournament with the hero Liu Kang, as he battles several fighters such as Subzero, Reptile, ShangTsung and other unknowns. Sticking to the story of the first game is one of the biggest credits I would give to this movie. Sure the director did make some liberties (such as Scorpion and Subzero on the same side, Johnny Cage fighting Goro when in game Liu Kang defeated him etc), but the overall flow of the story still remains intact.
2. Fighting is top-notch. The fights are also the highlights of this movie. In movies such as Dragonball Evolution or Legend of Chun Li, we were treated with almost no fight at all, or even if there were fights, they were below expected quality (poor). The best fights that I would pick are Johnny Cage vs Scorpion and Liu Kang vs Reptile. Other fights were okay, except I was maybe disappointed a bit with Liu Kang vs Subzero, and Liu Kang vs ShangTsung, cause I wanted those fights to be longer, and could have been choreographed better to be more epic. Another point to add to the fighting is that we see various special abilities of the characters such as Scorpion's spear with the taunt "Get over here!", Subzero's ice beam, Shang Tsung's soul drain, Liu Kang's bicycle kick etc. It just makes me reminiscence about the games.
3. Acting is passable. Acting is done great from Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa,he has done many villain roles in many films, but the most memorable character he played (till now) is still his ShangTsung from the MK film. Other characters' acting is passable - though I could have wished for some characters to not use cheesy lines or one-liners, but heck, this is a video game film after all, and those lines weren't that bad.
The only thing which pulls this movie from being great is that cgi is a bit dated now (its been released 15 years ago!), but considering the advancement in cg technology, it is understandable.
Many people still consider this film to be one of the best video game film adaptations, and I definitely agree (even with its cg setbacks/cheesy lines/some fights which could have been improved).
It stands the test of time pretty well - sure it's no Oscar material, but it sets out to deliver what fans really want and whole lot more). It's such a shame that the sequel annihilation was so horrible that it took 13 years to reboot the franchise(with upcoming MK film by Warners, that is if they can get past this legal dispute with Threshold)
However, the first MK film still comes on top as best video game adaptation along with Silent Hill film.*
*I guess this will be tested by the new Prince of Persia film, Tekken film, King of Fighters film coming out - whether these films would be better adaptations than the first MK film
What Video game adaptations seem to be doing wrong these days (especially fighting game/manga adaptations like DOA, SF: Legend of Chun Li, and Dragonball Evolution) is that much much respect is given to its source material - often the story is twisted some other way or the actors' acting is just hilariously bad.
This movie got most of the factors right in making a good video game adaptation:
1. Sticking to the story. This film, while directly taking the story ofMK1, incorporates the elements of MK2, and it works great. The viewer goes through on a journey into the tournament with the hero Liu Kang, as he battles several fighters such as Subzero, Reptile, ShangTsung and other unknowns. Sticking to the story of the first game is one of the biggest credits I would give to this movie. Sure the director did make some liberties (such as Scorpion and Subzero on the same side, Johnny Cage fighting Goro when in game Liu Kang defeated him etc), but the overall flow of the story still remains intact.
2. Fighting is top-notch. The fights are also the highlights of this movie. In movies such as Dragonball Evolution or Legend of Chun Li, we were treated with almost no fight at all, or even if there were fights, they were below expected quality (poor). The best fights that I would pick are Johnny Cage vs Scorpion and Liu Kang vs Reptile. Other fights were okay, except I was maybe disappointed a bit with Liu Kang vs Subzero, and Liu Kang vs ShangTsung, cause I wanted those fights to be longer, and could have been choreographed better to be more epic. Another point to add to the fighting is that we see various special abilities of the characters such as Scorpion's spear with the taunt "Get over here!", Subzero's ice beam, Shang Tsung's soul drain, Liu Kang's bicycle kick etc. It just makes me reminiscence about the games.
3. Acting is passable. Acting is done great from Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa,he has done many villain roles in many films, but the most memorable character he played (till now) is still his ShangTsung from the MK film. Other characters' acting is passable - though I could have wished for some characters to not use cheesy lines or one-liners, but heck, this is a video game film after all, and those lines weren't that bad.
The only thing which pulls this movie from being great is that cgi is a bit dated now (its been released 15 years ago!), but considering the advancement in cg technology, it is understandable.
Many people still consider this film to be one of the best video game film adaptations, and I definitely agree (even with its cg setbacks/cheesy lines/some fights which could have been improved).
It stands the test of time pretty well - sure it's no Oscar material, but it sets out to deliver what fans really want and whole lot more). It's such a shame that the sequel annihilation was so horrible that it took 13 years to reboot the franchise(with upcoming MK film by Warners, that is if they can get past this legal dispute with Threshold)
However, the first MK film still comes on top as best video game adaptation along with Silent Hill film.*
*I guess this will be tested by the new Prince of Persia film, Tekken film, King of Fighters film coming out - whether these films would be better adaptations than the first MK film