Tag: Mel Jarnson

Cinema Dispatch: Street Fighter

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Street Fighter and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Kitao Sakurai

It’s no secret that both of the recent Mortal Kombat movies were disappointments, but you know what? I was never that much of a Mortal Kombat fan anyway. Okay, I wasn’t much of a Street Fighter fan either as Smash Bros and Tekken were my jam, but Street Fighter definitely has a charm to it that the trailers for this latest adaptation captured beautifully. Will this be a fun and exciting martial arts film that understands the source material, or will this somehow be an even more compromised vision than the Legend of Chun-Li? Let’s find out!!

In the late 1980s, presumably due to the success of The Karate Kid, Martial Arts had become very popular and very competitive. No one knows this better than Ryu (Andrew Koji) who was the winner of the very first World Warrior Tournament, but after a controversial victory over the mighty Sagat and a tragedy that befalls his dojo, he puts himself into exile; leaving his training partner and number one bro Ken Masters (Noah Centineo) as the presumptive champion of the world, much the same way Diesel was technically a world champion at one point. Look it up, kids. Anyway, while Ryu is in hiding and Ken is drinking himself into irrelevance, the mysterious and ruthless M Bison (David Dastmalchian) desires to become the greatest warrior of all time and will do so by hosting the second World Warrior Tournament, for which Ken is brought onboard to try and bring Ryu out of hiding. Even if he’s just a patsy, however, Ken’s determined prove himself in front of the world no matter what it takes and no matter who he has to turn his back on to get there. Can Ken prove to be a better fighter than his old partner Ryu, and is there more to his rival’s strength than either of them wishes to acknowledge? What does M Bison plan to do once he has these warriors in his grasp, and where does the mysterious Chun-Li (Callina Liang) fit into his schemes? Are we gonna have to separate these two before the tournament even begins, because it looks like they have a lot more than just sibling rivalry to work through if either of them want to get out of this without breaking half their bones and losing all their teeth.

“BIG PAPA ZANGIEF WILL PUT YOU TWO IN TIME OUT! NOW WHO WANTS TO APOLOGIZE BEFORE I TAKE THE PHONES AWAY!?”
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Cinema Dispatch: Mortal Kombat

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Mortal Kombat and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros

Directed by Simon McQuoid

Honestly, I was never much of a Mortal Kombat fan.  More of Tekken guy when it came to fighting games, but there’s no denying the cultural impact that the franchise has had and it’s impressive just how long they’ve been going with the series for it to only get better and better as time goes on.  I remember Mortal Kombat 9 being an excellent reboot that got me into the series for a bit, but even at the games’ peak it still can’t touch that AWESOME 1995 movie directed by Paul WS Anderson!  I just rewatched that movie like a year ago and it still holds up as a fantastic martial arts movie that finds the right balance between what fans want from the games and making into a coherent movie.  There have been other attempts since then to get the series off the ground in non-video game forms, but this is the first big step WB has taken with it since acquiring the franchise in 2009.  Does this bring Mortal Kombat to the big screen for a whole new generation of fans in a bold and exciting way, or will we all still be clutching our VHS tapes of the original film by the end of this movie?  Let’s find out!!

As you’d expect from a Mortal Kombat movie, the story is set right before the start of the tenth Mortal Kombat tournament where Earth Realm’s greatest fighters try to overcome the unstoppable warriors of Outworld, and after nine consecutive losses in a row it’s Earth’s last chance to avoid complete and utter devastation as Outworld will finally be able to invade Earth if they win this time!  So who exactly will be participating in this generation’s tournament?  Well we’ve got some of the classic standbys from the franchise like Liu Kang, Jax, and a begrudging Kano (Ludi Lin, Mehcad Brooks, and Josh Lawson), but the real hope for humanity comes in the form of Cole Young (Lewis Tan); a new character for the series and someone with an unexpected history to this tournament that slowly reveals itself as he is recruited by Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) to seek out Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano) and his crew so he can learn the techniques and Mortal Kombat Magic necessary to win this tournament!  All is not as cut and dry however as Outworld’s leader in the tournament Shang Tsung (Chin Han) has his own crew of Mortal Kombat characters and is not waiting for the tournament to begin before sending them out to destroy the fledgling Earth team.  With opponents such as Sub-Zero, Mileena, and Goro (Joe Taslim, Sisi Stringer, and Angus Sampson) hunting them down, do these heroes of Earth even stand a chance of MAKING it to the tournament; let alone becoming strong enough to win it?  What is Cole’s history with this tournament, and will it be the key to Earth finally getting one over on Outworld?  You know, most Fight Camps are AT LEAST eight weeks, so shouldn’t Raiden have gotten these guys together BEFORE the tournament was like a week away?  And we all wonder why Earth Realm lost nine times in a row!

“Look, I’m sorry! I set some time aside to watch The Flash, and then I had to watch Legends of Tomorrow, and it just turned into a big thing! Nobody’s perfect!”
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