MORTAL KOMBAT and animation have had…a rocky relationship, to say the least. First, to coincide with the release of the first film, there was the shoddy MORTAL KOMBAT: THE JOURNEY BEGINS tie-in VHS with animation and fighting that looked like a collection of cutscenes from the doomed Philips CDI system.
And, for some reason, there was even an animated Saturday morning cartoon aimed at kids, which is about as weird as a RAMBO or ROBOCOP Saturday morning cartoon (which also existed):
But now, at least, it looks like MORTAL KOMBAT is finally getting the awesome animated film it deserves – and unlike any previous animated adaptation to date it's actually rated R! And even crazier is it's the first feature-length MORTAL KOMBAT film to be rated R as well (as the James Wan-produced reboot still hasn't been released, and the LEGACY webseries wasn't a film by design). Especially since MORTAL KOMBAT is best known for being so bloody and gory that it got the government involved.
Anyway, even though the film is ostensibly about Scorpion specifically, the above clip showcases the main trio from the series, as the stoic Shaolin monk Liu Kang (Jordan Rodrigues) is being introduced to the brooding military officer Sonya Blade (Jennifer Carpenter) and preening prima donna Johnny Cage (Joel McHale) by the thunder god and protector of Earth, Raiden (Dave B. Mitchell). It's a fun, if familiar clip (especially if you've seen the awesome 1995 original film), but it adds enough of a spin to it to make it its own – and also like Peter Parker being bitten by a spider or Kal-El as a baby in a rocket ship escaping an exploding Krypton – it's one of those scenes that kind of has to happen if you're doing a story about the first MORTAL KOMBAT tournament.
Either way, if you wanted to watch the rest of the film (and see more of the titular Scorpion), it's out now on DVD/Blu-Ray and VOD right now (BUY IT HERE)!