Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge gets off to a very promising start. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to call the first 10 minutes a blood orgy – I mean, a waterfall ends up literally flowing red with the blood of the dead. This is all great stuff, brutal and uncompromising. Unfortunately, it’s also the best part of the film, after which it doesn’t take long for things to go downhill.
The plot goes in autopilot, following a very familiar path – and, as they say, familiarity breeds contempt. For starters, we have all the usual suspects; Liu Kang (Jordan Rodrigues), Sonya Blade (Jennifer Carpenter), and Johnny Cage (Joel McHale). The latter is the designated comedic character, at which he fails miserably – though the only laugh to be had here does have a little to do with him (or, rather, with a poster for one of his fictional films).
Once the inevitable Tournament begins, the movie gives up completely and becomes an animated remake of the 1995 Mortal Kombat – and, I guess, an animated prequel or something to the 2021 version. Scorpion's Revenge is without a doubt the best looking of the three films; it’s also the closest to the game, and while that’s good in terms of gore, it’s not so good in terms of storyline.
It’s just one fight after another, with little to distinguish each from the one before or the one after, and the characters are just as one-dimensional as their video game counterparts: Sonya is constantly trying to prove herself as good or better than the men, Cage is a buffoon who persists beyond the limits of reason in believing that the MK Tournament is his latest movie, and Liu Kang's dialogue consists almost entirely of Buddhist pseudo-koans. Furthermore, the script has a plothole so big a giant stalagmite could pass through it – and literally does.
