Mortal Kombat has jumped from the video game screen back onto movie screens with its newest adaptation to thrill audiences with the franchise.

With a modest runtime of one hour and 50-minutes, the veteran fighting game has come to theaters and HBO Max for a limited time. Covid has brought the arrival of many different premiers to the streaming giant.

What makes this attempt at making a video game movie crossover different is the unheard-of director Simon Mcquoid doesn’t give it too much of a feeling of relief. It’s missing that big director name that draws in a specific audience to give this movie a chance, relying solely on the core fan base of the franchise and anyone who has HBO Max. The addition of the original character Cole Young who was created for the movie is a betrayal to all the Mortal Kombat fans who have stuck around for over 30 years. It’s not as if the series doesn’t already have a long list of characters throughout its storied history.

There is something there though for long-time fans of Mortal Kombat; style, gore and blood that comes with the famous tournament of martial arts. It is a movie filled with well-choreographed fighting and state-of-the-art cinema that you should expect from a movie made in 2021.

Outside of the core fanbase is there anyone else this film was made for? It’s not held up by its cheesy dialogue and machismo to win it an Oscar. This isn’t a movie you’re going to take that special someone on that first date but a movie to watch with friends to kill time and to talk about what you just watched together. Maybe that one scene when one guy punches his hand through his enemy’s chest.

This isn’t a good or bad movie, but it is a movie you turn on with an open mind though don’t expect to think about your place in the world or any deep thoughts. It’s a movie made to distract you with cool fighting visuals and blood and to be impressed with the athletic capabilities of the actors in it plus some supernatural aspects to show these guys can do the impossible as well like breathing fire. This movie earns 2 and a half stars.