Warner Bros. PicturesWhen Mortal Kombat arrived on the scene in 1992, gift-wrapped in an arcade cabinet that served up pixelated carnage to players far too young to witness it, it was practically an overnight success. Its eclectic cast of thunder gods, multicolored ninjas, and even a cheeky parody of action star Jean-Claude Van Damme, its introduction of “juggling” into fighting game conventions, and its iconic, increasingly brutal fatalities earned it a well-deserved spot on the Mount Rushmore of fighting games, a place it has maintained through a rough transition into 3D and into the franchise’s modern reboot era.Conversely, when the first Mortal Kombat movie arrived three years later, it was criticized for being hokey and thin on plot, not to mention the stiff acting and PG-13 violence. Despite its flaws, it was a commercial success that managed to replicate the absurd, action-figure-smashing energy of the games remarkably well, largely by not taking itself too seriously. Three decades later, however, we’re in an age where Hollywood takes everything seriously. Released five years ago today, 2021’s Mortal Kombat reboot is a fascinating reflection of what happens when the pendulum swings too far in the opposite direction.Despite director Simon McQuoid’s best efforts, the MK reboot can’t help but feel like a movie from a bygone era of both video game adaptations and mainstream studio blockbusters, and that’s because it kind of is. A new cinematic interpretation of the franchise had been in the works as early as 2011, initially developed by Kevin Tancharoen, who worked on the fan-favorite Mortal Kombat: Rebirth short film and the resulting MK: Legacy webseries. You can practically feel the time the film spent languishing in development hell, because, in many ways, it’s the last relic of a very 2010s approach to video game adaptations.On the surface, Mortal Kombat straightforwardly brings the premise of the games to life: pop culture’s second favorite God of Thunder, Raiden (Tadanobu Asano), must assemble a team of virtuous warriors from across Earthrealm to compete in the 10th Mortal Kombat tournament, a lethal interdimensional martial arts competition that occurs every 50 years to decide whether the despotic realm of Outworld gets to invade Earth (although the reboot takes place entirely before the tournament, a bewildering decision that evokes the ever-applicable Surf Dracula meme). The setup of the original game is such a ridiculous, threadbare justification to toss a bunch of martial arts movie cliches into the ring together that the immense self-seriousness of the 2021 film is so noticeable in contrast — just like 2008’s Max Payne or the 2005 Doom, it feels like the result of a studio underestimating how accessible the source material is and compensating by trying to “ground” the premise.You’d think Raiden would’ve developed a more fruitful strategy after losing nine tournaments in a row. | Warner Bros PicturesOne of the most grating ways the film does this is through the new character of Cole Young (Lewis Tan), a washed-up MMA fighter who serves as the audience surrogate. But this role could have easily been filled by Liu Kang, Sonya Blade, or Johnny Cage (which seems to be the direction of the sequel). Not only is he a generic archetypal “fighter” in a game filled with some of the most unique, larger-than-life fighting game characters ever created, but the movie also invented a convoluted lineage to connect him to MK co-creator Ed Boon’s favorite character, Hanzo Hasashi/Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada), a decision that makes him feel like a fan-fiction OC.The movie’s obsession with grounding the premise extends to something as simple as the game’s approach to magic and special abilities. What exists as inherent skills in the games, such as Kano’s eye laser or Sonya Blade’s wrist blasters, are instead presented as an ironically much cheesier magic system in which combatants have to “train” their “arcana.” The arcana training montage carries the sense that it was born of a studio note from a hapless executive confused as to why Liu Kang can shoot fireballs without explanation, despite the fact that characters having random superpowers is part of the franchise’s Saturday morning cartoon by way of Hong Kong action cinema appeal.The presence of Cole Young was a major source of criticism from fans. | Warner Bros. PicturesBut what’s really frustrating about Mortal Kombat is that the movie gets so much right. There are more than a few bone-crunching, gruesome action setpieces; the opening duel between Scorpion and Bi-Han/Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim) is a fanboy’s dream, an elegantly choreographed dance that sees a pre-undead Hanzo slaughter a small army of ninjas before taking on his bitter rival. The fatalities are also where the film leans into the franchise’s inherent ridiculousness, and there should be way more moments like Kung Lao splitting a vampire assassin in half on his razor-bladed hat before announcing his “Flawless Victory” to no one.Surprisingly enough, another area where the film thrives is in the camaraderie between characters, especially the Earthrealm heroes. There’s not nearly enough meaningful interaction and banter, but when it does happen, it’s very welcome. It feels like the movie is afraid of being interpreted as “silly” the same way the 1995 film was, but the silliness of seeing a Special Forces operative interacting with a Shaolin monk and an Australian gang assassin is part of why the series has been a beloved fighting game staple for over 30 years now.Hiroyuki Sanada’s performance as gaming’s favorite undead revenant is one of the movie’s best parts. | Warner Bros PicturesIn the attempts to wash the franchise of the perceived stink of the original film and its widely panned sequel, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, Warner Bros. lost some of the inherent ‘90s-era ridiculousness that’s crucial to Mortal Kombat. It was the last gasp of an approach to video game adaptations that’s largely died off, and hopefully the upcoming Mortal Kombat 2 recognizes that it’s okay to be a little unserious in the franchise that introduced Babalities to the world.Mortal Kombat is streaming on HBO Max.