Flawed Victory

Mortal Kombat needs no introduction as the long running franchise has been a hit since the 90’s and revamped to become even more popular in 2011 when Mortal Kombat 9 was released on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC by NeatherRealm. WB Animation has now added to the ongoing franchise with Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge that was released April 14th, 2020 and this fun but flawed movie is worth a sit through.

The Good

WB Animation has a long standing of beautiful animated movies with the DC Animated Universe, Scooby-Doo and so many others and nothing has changed. The animation is on point and looks slick with great character design and when the fighting kicks up it just shines. Each character like Lord Raiden, Shang Tsung and Liu Kang look exactly like their video game counterpart with Goro and Scorpion easily stealing the movie with their looks. One of the recent staples in the Mortal Kombat franchise is the x-ray vision of the bones breaking after a big hit or muscles being ripped apart and we get quite a few of those awesome visuals that add to this fun movie.

One of the biggest things that can take away from any animated movie is the voice acting. Leading the way is Patrick Seitz (Naruto, My Hero Academia) who plays Scorpion, Jordan Rodrigues (The Fosters) as Liu Kang, Joel McHale (Ted) as Johnny Cage and Jennifer Carpenter (Quarantine) as Sonya Blade. All four do a fantastic job at carrying the movie from beginning to end and with the humor of Joel you have some of the best voice acting that WB Animation has had in some time. As Scorpion is the focal point of this entire movie I really have to give credit to Patrick who brings a lot of life into this famous character. 

Let’s face it, Mortal Kombat is all about the action and in this movie there’s no short supply of it. The movie opens up to Hanzo and his son returning home from the wild but quickly finding out that his tribe has been killed and tries to survive their attack and from there it just doesn’t stop. Every few minutes there’s another fun fight between our legendary cast of characters. I don’t want to spoil much but I particularly love the Scorpion vs Sub-Zero fight as both display their signature fighting styles and then have an ultimate and satisfying end. 

The Bad

The one thing Mortal Kombat hasn’t been the best at is their storytelling. Though NeatherRealm has brought a lot of life into this category with their video games the same can’t really be said about this animation film. The movie goes on for 80 minutes and tries to cram a lot into it in a short amount of time which is one of the biggest weaknesses that usually plagues WB Animation movies such as this. The opening act does a great job in setting what could have been a great revenge story but it does get lost in the Mortal Kombat tournament. Maybe 10 more minutes to pace it better could have gone a long way and really added to this movie overall but once again Mortal Kombat was never a big story driven title.

The Fun 

Mortal Kombat has always been a fun franchise to not only play but to watch as well. WB Animation does a stellar job with making this a fun watch for any longtime fan like myself. The action is top of the line and easily the best that WB Animation has done thus far. Having Scorpion be the main protagonist was an interesting choice but I think it was a nice change of pace even though the story does suffer throughout.

The Judgement

Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge is worth the price of admission and fans should definitely check this one out if you haven’t already. It has its flaws but it’s still a victory either way!