Haley Ebbrecht

The special effects, fight scenes, and gore are there to satisfy the action of the movie. The character development was incredibly rushed and left you a little disengaged from their stories. It seemed as if the plot started immediately with little explanation. Like our introduction to Sonya Blade. Cole just shows up to her house, she accepts him and just immediately takes him to a cheesy room of investigative work littered on the walls. He sees this and is hardly phased or impressed, just immediately along for the ride. Then conveniently kano is there? I wish the cast selection was better. The portrayal of Cole was lack luster and needed more intensity. I think if there was a stronger lead the story would be more impactful. I also felt Kano was delivering way too much banter. We know his character is slightly humorous but they went overboard with it and spend chunks of time showing that instead of giving us more character development or back stories. Not every movie needs to be funny, especially when the plot is so serious. I wish there was more time spent on their actual training. We were given only a couple of scenes. It makes their transformations a small payoff and it seemed inauthentic and honestly unachievable with the time frame. Cole was apparently a washed up MMA fighter and was unimpressive in training, then all of a sudden he’s a great fighter? There was a lot missing in this movie for me but it is still worth watching. The fight scenes are entertaining and of high quality, giving you that mortal kombat nostalgia we grew up on. I just saw a lot of missed opportunities. I hope in the next film they dive deeper into the story and characters and the actors give us a little more intensity.