The original Mortal Kombat movie from 1995 holds a special place in every fan’s heart. As cheesy as it may be, it delivered a passable story with some great PG-13 action, and a hugely catchy theme song that still stands the test of time. The movie’s success granted a follow-up with Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, which turned out to be downright terrible and essentially killed any future plans. Now, almost 30 years since the very first game launched, a new Mortal Kombat movie has arrived to reboot the film franchise, complete with an R rating so it can finally bring to the big screen the gruesome violence and classic fatalities the brand is known for, albeit with a less catchy theme song.

Written by Greg Russo and Dave Callaham, who are both clearly fans of the source material, Mortal Kombat features a lot of showdowns among fan-favorites like Sub-Zero and Scorpion, but also digs further down the game’s vast number of characters to bring to life the likes of Kabal and Reiko. The script also dives deeper into the lore to give more background into some of them, especially the blood feud between Scorpion and Sub-Zero. Opening with a flashback to 17th-century Japan, Lin Kuei assassins led by Bi-Han/Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim) ambush the Shirai Ryu clan, killing Hanzo Hasashi (Hiroyuki Sanada) and his family. The choreography of this fight sequence is strong and clear, without the shaky-cam presentation that’s widely used in modern action. This first fight scene also sets the stage of what you can expect next – brutal and intense combat.

Flash forward to the present where we are introduced to Cole Young (Lewis Tan), an MMA fighter making ends meet. He’s a new character made for this movie, and serves as a lightning rod for the Earthrealm warriors to come together. Cole and his family are attacked by Sub-Zero, and learns from Jax (Mehcad Brooks) that it’s because of his dragon birthmark – a mark that destines its bearer to fight in a deadly inter-realm tournament called Mortal Kombat. Cole escapes and is told to find Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), who he meets along with a captured Kano (Josh Lawson). Soon the Earthrealm “kombatants” are completed by Liu Kang (Ludi Lin) and Kung Lao (Max Huang) in a desert cave where they are to train for Mortal Kombat. A long training montage ensues that’s basically a tutorial mode for beginners, where our fighters must awaken their powers.

The thing is, however, it is revealed early on that Outworld has won nine out of ten tournaments in Mortal Kombat, and Shang Tsung (Chin Han) plans to cheat his way out of participating in the tenth one for an easy victory. Yes, you’ve read that right. The main story of a movie called Mortal Kombat is trying to prevent Mortal Kombat from happening. As a result, the movie languishes for a while until it realizes that these characters must fight the villains at some point. But with the tournament as a platform, it just rushes to throw these random duels on screen. Director Simon McQuoid allows some self-indulgence in these fight scenes, giving us some violent and brutal showdowns that finally live up to the game. Each character gets plenty of fan-service moments to do their signature moves and fatalities that will even make the hardcore fans wince.

While these fight scenes are a hell of a good time to watch, Mortal Kombat ultimately suffers from the treatment of modern Hollywood when they get their hands on big franchises like this – it spends too much time setting up the next movies rather than coming up with complete one that can stand on its own. The movie can only get so much out of the action, not to mention that it ends with a whimper; the last fight scene feels more like a middle battle than a final boss deathmatch. Nonetheless, Mortal Kombat is a good watch for fans of the series, if only just to watch your favorites duke it out to the death, and surprisingly, witness Kano roasting everyone.

Rating: ★★½