Well, I suppose if you like the game series or the blazing, white-hot star power of… this guy…
… then you have a lot to be excited about.
Personally…
I probably would caution you to reign in that enthusiasm, though.
The screenplay is by Greg Russo and and Oren Uziel; Greg is NOT one of the famous Russo Brothers from Marvel fame… in fact, this is his FIRST writing credit on IMDB and he has top listing as the writer… so… there’s that. Oren Uziel is the guy behind 22 Jump Street and Detective Pikachu 2… so there’s that, too. Oren at least has some Mortal Kombat writing experience under his belt, but it’s nothing I’d brag about.
If all that doesn’t scream, “RED FLAG!”, I’d add that the movie comes out in April of 2021… less than 4 months, and it’s only JUST NOW that we’re actually hearing about or seeing any press.
Most movies… even a lot of the bad ones… usually start trying to hype things up about a year in advance. Granted, a year ago we were in the starting throes of COVID, so I’ll give them that one. Still, with a brand name like Mortal Kombat, you’d hit up the Con circuits and the Geek culture websites as early as possible. Press for this has been terrible, which makes me doubt either the quality of the film or the confidence in it.
Another huge red flag? The director, Simon McQuoid? This is his first major film too.
It used to be common practice to take new directors that showed promise and give them a few warm-up films before a studio would hand them a big project with a lot of expectations.
This film seems to be the opposite: one half of the writing team is a complete unknown, the other half has been writing for 10 years with nothing super solid or memorable, and the director is having his first time at-bat with a major motion picture.
These aren’t good signs.
Mortal Kombat in 1995 was an interesting film…
The game series was riding high, the cast included at least one semi-big name in Christopher Lambert, and the direction from Paul Anderson, (combined with a really great set of performances from actors like Linden Ashby and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) gave the film a bit of gravity and humor that I don’t think anyone was expecting.
It’s a movie I really enjoyed… a LOT… despite thinking I wouldn’t. But it had a lot of good tools working in its favor at the time.
I don’t really know what to expect out of the new Mortal Kombat, but with the promo material they’ve released…
… even if you’re optimistic, I’d stay cautious. It doesn’t look terrible, but we can’t tell a lot when they haven’t released much.
The red flags really revolve around a very new team of very untested writers and directors, and a movie that isn’t loaded with star power to bring in viewers and a game series that isn’t quite as popular as it was in the 90’s. On the surface, this adds together to be a recipe for a film that could fall on its face.
Of course… Good Will Hunting had first time writers and a director who showed promise but had mostly done short films. So… you never know. Right now with the way COVID hit like a truck and the movie industry suffered immensely, I’d be wary.
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