STORY SPOILERS FOR MORTAL KOMBAT 11 FOLLOW.
It has been *looks at notes* nearly twenty-two years since Mortal Kombat Annihilation crapped its way onto our screens and made us want to renounce everything about Midway’s ultra-violent fighter, before forcing us to claw our eyes out to spare the agony of watching one of the worst films ever made.
So yeah, the Mortal Kombat franchise would seem to be in need of a silver screen saviour to finally redress the natural order of things cinematically speaking (original 1995 movie notwithstanding), and isn’t it just typical of 2019 that we’d finally get a great movie, not from Hollywood, but from Mortal Kombat developer Netherrealm Studios.
The story campaign in Mortal Kombat 11 is an absolute belter – not least because it remembers what makes a Mortal Kombat movie enjoyable and jettisons all the crap which doesn’t need to be there. Simply, Mortal Kombat 11 remembers what it’s like to have fun with its storytelling apparatus, where occasionally comical writing and extreme violence go hand in hand in a gleefully cheery marriage.
Though classic villain Goro and to a lesser extent, long-term series tormentor Shao Kahn take a backseat to new big bad Kronika, the time-traveling storyline that Mortal Kombat 11 brings to the table freshens up the status quo tremendously and provides ample creative latitude for the writers to have buckets of fun with.
Nowhere is this sense of fun better enshrined than in the scenarios where our heroes and villains come face to face with versions of themselves from the past. Whether it’s Scorpion’s newly enlightened self trying to educate his masked, old-school persona on the merits of being a good dude, or contemporary dad Johnny Cage schooling his past self on what a raging twatfactory he is, Mortal Kombat 11 smartly leverages its hokey time-travel plot device for laughs in ways that really succeed in eliciting chuckles and laughs on a regular basis.
[Related] Review: Mortal Kombat 11 is a Bloody Great Fighter
This being Mortal Kombat, it also helps that the fight choreography is terrifyingly on point in a way that deftly underscores the ferocity of its combatants, too. In particular, one extended sequence with Cassie Cage stands out as a highlight, and clearly reflects the love of developers for the John Wick movies as she uses her fists, feet, elbows, knees and two handguns in a delicious ballet of violence that Reeves’ own morose anti-hero would surely raise an exaggerated eyebrow at.
Mortal Kombat 11’s story mode is, somewhat predictably, gloriously violent and disgusting too. Whether it’s D’Vorah happily barfing bugs into Kotal Khan’s mouth, Baraka cheerfully disemboweling and decapitating folk or Scorpion bludgeoning some dudes into a paste with a freshly detached spinal cord, the story campaign epitomizes the OTT ultraviolence that the franchise has long been known for.
Then there are the production values of the whole affair. Easily boasting some of the best visuals of any fighting game in this current generation, Mortal Kombat 11 seemingly wrings every last bit of potential out of the crusty Unreal Engine 3, fashioning some of the best facial animation and lip-sync ever seen in a fighting game along with some truly stunning lighting, shadow and effects work to boot.
Elsewhere, the removal of those pesky QTEs from the story campaign has also proven to be a boon – allowing players to sit back and enjoy Mortal Kombat 11’s story mode without the worry of having to fart out the odd button input here and there to keep things moving along.
More than anything, Mortal Kombat 11’s story campaign just feels fresh in a way that has been sorely missing from the franchise as of late. Generously stuffed with enough violence, superbly choreographed fights and freewheeling, trashy premise to satisfy even the most rabid franchise fan, Mortal Kombat 11 doesn’t just set a blueprint for future games in the series to follow, but also one for the movies to learn from too.
Goodness knows they need to.
