nettripper
Molten Core Raider
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Mortal Kombat II (2025)
- Thread starter Lanx
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Rajaah
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This movie was dumb as shit.
People went to it to see Johnny Cage, the audience clearly loved Johnny Cage, though the crowd reactions to him got a bit muted by halfway through the movie because the movie spent so much time making him look like a total fucking loser and by extension mocking the audience for getting behind him. The entire movie exists as a vehicle to put Kitana over and push Kitana. Not sure how interesting or tense a Kitana-led sequel will be when she never takes any damage or shows any vulnerability, to the point that I can't even imagine her actually losing a fight or having a hard time with anybody.
It reminded me of when WWE pushed Roman Reigns while their audience liked Daniel Bryan. Back in 2014 or so when Roman wasn't cool at all yet. People liked him fine as a character, but not as the all-conquering main character. They showed up to see Daniel Bryan instead, who only got pushed insofar as to draw fans to the shows, only to see him get shat on regularly by the company while Roman was portrayed as the unbeatable superbadass.
Well that's what MK2 is, with a dollop of DEI on top. And I say this as a big fan of Kitana in the games. I like her character. She could be a lead character in a game, especially post-Shao when she rules Outworld and has to fend off challenges from Mileena.
However, this movie was Johnny's movie, the movie was promoted around Johnny, the audience showed up to see Johnny. Only to have him get dumped on a lot while Kitana got to be the cool badass instead. The overall story arc of the movie was pretty fucking stupid, as well. Soulless movie that I'll probably forget about, like the 2021 movie. At least it's better than MK Annihilation, and is a kind of "Annihilation done right" in that it throws in a lot of characters. It makes room for them by killing a lot of them off really fast, solving that organizational dilemma.
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nettripper
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It just felt awkward as others said
one of those movies where you look away and “oh we are somewhere else now” “oh another fight is happening”
it’s like when you get to a movie late and try to find your seat
but then its just the movie as is and I don’t care about you or you or you
it’s not like the actors from the first movie have done anything to build up their cred since so seeing Sonya blade or Jax or liu kang people again just jumping straight to them turns into “oh ya ya that’s the people from the first movie “
some king guy dies ….”oh no! ….king mckingy! Why you kill him ?!”
They went too we want to be taken seriously and authentically portraying most the people as realistic and Asian people authentic
Street fighter is doing it right
It’s the same as X-men black leather outfits vs Wolverine blue and yellow
Rajaah
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MK 2021: "White men can eat shit and die!"
MK 2026: "Alright here's Johnny Cage and he's the main dude! Hell yeah!" (then they job him out for most of the movie and make him Kitana's bitch in the first fight)
They burned through Noob in this movie. Quan-Chi and revenants shouldn't have even been a thing yet.
Guessing MK3 will be the Invasion of Earth storyline, then MK4 will be...MK10, the Shinnok story and the new generation with the kids. Or maybe they're going right to Shinnok for 3 and Shao Kahn is actually dead.
Yeah that's basically what happened, Kitana just made him a joke immediately.
I didn't mind Kitana being the one to defeat Shao Kahn at the end. Her being an unstoppable bad-ass was a bit much (I don't think she's any more powerful than most of the others) but I can buy that too if done right. However, her neutering the fan-favorite, lead-according-to-the-marketing character right off the bat was unnecessary.
It might not seem like a big deal, but I'll say this. I've had the past couple of weeks off, so I've been catching up on a lot of stuff. Especially superhero movies. And they ALL fuckin' do this "have a strong fan-favorite male lead get totally neutered every time they fight a female character" thing. Even if on paper the male character is the better fighter, he'll get his ass handed to him. Shang-Chi does this to both the hero AND the villain, they both fight female characters early in the movie and get their asses handed to them. So you've neutered your debuting new hero, and you've neutered the threat level of the villain, for...what exactly? X-Men Apocalypse did this quite a bit, no women showed any vulnerability whatsoever for the entire movie.
Dark Phoenix (terrible movie) was probably the worst of the bunch. Magneto (the character the audience actually likes and can get behind in that movie) gets completely fucking destroyed in seconds every time he fights either of the two main females in the movie (the protagonist and the antagonist both). One of the coolest scenes in the movie is when Magneto summons a bunch of machine guns to open fire on the antagonist, only to have her just walk through the bullets and then defeat him with a flick of the wrist. It was a dismissive flick, too, a real humiliation ritual of a moment. That knocked out the guy the audience was rooting for for the rest of the movie.
Was wondering what would happen when the two women inevitably fought, since neither of them ever showed any weakness or took any damage for the whole movie. What would the writers do? Surely they couldn't have a woman actually show any vulnerability or lose a fight, right? Yeah, I called it, the "final battle" was the two of them embracing like they were going to kiss, spinning around in the air, and then the villain just sort of disintegrates.
There's a huge background agenda in superhero movies to portray women as physically superior to men and generally untouchable by them in a fight. Is this why so many people think it's okay for men to compete in women's boxing? We're all equally powerful after all. We should get rid of weight classes too.
I don't remember them really addressing it. Kano just sort of came back from the dead like "hey I'm back lol". I'm guessing Kung Lao will get revived in the next one. This one ended with Kitana saying they were gonna find a way to revive their fallen allies, so yeah, death is gonna end up meaning nothing once they just bring everyone back. That said, Cole won't be back, they made it a point to atomize his body so there's nothing to use to revive him.
Liu Kang vs Kung Lao is the single best thing in the movie. The movie was great when it let characters the audience liked fight it out and do their things. Liu Kang vs Kung Lao, Johnny vs Baraka, Jax vs Jade were all decent times. Movie was good when it focused on characters people like and wasn't tied up trying to get Kitana over.
This was the "get Kitana over" movie. I'd rather Sonya if we're doing a female-led one but whatever. They really sold this as a Cage movie but it's a Kitana movie.
I'm not that familiar with series lore, but I figured they held off on Mileena because she'd be a solid main antagonist for Kitana in another movie, now that we know that Kitana is the actual main character. She'll have to defend Outworld from Mileena's attempt to overthrow it and take over.
For 3 I'd like to see the bad guys be a more compact group: Shao Kahn, Sindel, Motaro, Mileena, Rain, and Smoke, with Shang Tsung and Quan-Chi on the periphery but not really dealt with. Then 4 can be Shinnok, Quan-Chi, Mileena. Then 5 would be the Deadly Alliance, so Shang Tsung and Quan-Chi.
Problem is I have no idea what timeline they're actually doing since the game series has been (stupidly) reset multiple times. The MK9 reset was good, wouldn't mind doing that (basically that timeline is MK1/2/3/10(4)/11). I'd rather do that than the original 1 through 7 timeline actually, as cool as a Deadly Alliance (5) adaptation would be. The MK1(12) reset was idiotic though, hope that isn't what they're doing, of the three timelines.
Having the 3rd be a retelling of MK4 could work but considering this is the Kitana series, they're better off doing a Mileena villain arc.
Urban is the comedy joke character
For me it's more "oh another male character getting neutered", especially after seeing it over and over again in movies lately during my movie catching-up.
I never understood the "falling action" part of that cycle. Most movies have a climax and then a resolution. Some books have falling action after the main threat is over, but for the most part I feel like "falling action" is pretty unnecessary and an odd thing for the cycle to include. You just need the other things. Trying to remember an example of falling action in a movie and I'm drawing a blank. Like Terminator 2 for example, the climax is the factory battle, with the T1000 going into the lava. After that it's resolution. Aliens has a couple of climaxes and then everyone lives happily ever after. Etc
That's what I'd like to see for an MK story, Kitana ruling Outworld and dealing with Mileena and her rebel army.
Another thing I'd like to see, that would have been perfect for the next video game, is a game where Sub-Zero is the main antagonist. At some point he could become Noob Saibot, and then at some point beyond that he could become Ice God Sub-Zero and be able to go toe to toe with Liu Kang for the finale. Resetting the timeline would have allowed this...if they didn't just immediately burn through half the characters, including SZ/Noob. After MK1 set up that Sub-Zero might be the villain of the next one, the Khaos Reigns DLC that followed MK1 pretty much just dispatched him in the first 20 minutes and got him out of the way so it could focus on a guy from MK Deception. So yeah I think Bi-Han is done, not gonna be any Ice God Sub-Zero.
Scott Adkins would have been the perfect Johnny Cage if they needed someone who could go.
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jayrebb
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AMC and Regal already dropped this prior to the weekend.
But there are 1-2 chains and a handful of theaters still showing it up until it's official date Wednesday.
Got tickets for another showing. Couldn't help but look at the reserved seats and imagine it's same people doing the same thing together-- participating in the last theater event for this franchise. It's a part of history seeing this out the door.
But there are 1-2 chains and a handful of theaters still showing it up until it's official date Wednesday.
Got tickets for another showing. Couldn't help but look at the reserved seats and imagine it's same people doing the same thing together-- participating in the last theater event for this franchise. It's a part of history seeing this out the door.