Awake not Woke!

Bloody fun video game action!

Nothing woke (THANK GOODNESS) to write home about here. Just a bloody fun action fighter with some great comedic moments. The fight scenes definitely were a level up above the first movie. Karl Urban was a great addition to the cast and stole the movie for me. Looking forward to the 3rd one with this same cast if all goes well!

Star Wars rip-off with styrofoam costumes.

Well, technically, Masters always was a Conan rip-off. When Milius shot his (Conan) movie, some bone-headed executives ordered some toys to tie in with the movie release. Cause it was for kids, a comic adaptation. In their defense, Marvel did have a Conan comic running, except for a more adult crowd. Anyway, movie comes out, Milius has renounced the skull-headed Tulsa Doom because too expensive, and well, not exactly kid-friendly. A good chunk of money had already been sunk into the toys by then, and they order a rush job of a cartoon tie-in. Hence He-Man. Fighting robotic enemies, so, no blood. There. Kids. This movie is a hot mess. Swords and sandals in current USA (because budget), with Cylons cloned from Darth Vader. Everything looks tragically cheap: sets, costumes, visual effects, even the camera work. The acting is consistently camp, but in a bad way, and ranges from amateurish to 80s ham. I mean, Cox always was cute, but it just is not enough. Same with Lundgren. He's buff, not cute, but same idea. The music sounds 'inspired' by the Superman movies. Except for some Jimi Hendrix. In a nutshell, not even a good watch with the kids.

Undoubtedly competent.

Nothing to say, which is actually praise these days. The movie is surprisingly well shot, with scene appropriate colour grading, ie: not the pervasive teal/orange Hollywood barf I expected, and decent pacing despite the length. Most actors put the work in: Urban, despite not being able to fight, McNamee provides a very decent Sonya, and Lawson's Kano is pure Jovial Evil, Chaotic Evil's funny cousin. Asano and Sanada are wasted in that kind of movies, but they're probably not wealthy enough to easily turn down a Hollywood paycheck. The fights are frequent, well executed, and in the vein of the games (for what little I know). No social commentary, and no race-swapping. Except maybe Jade, I sort of figured she was Brazilian or something. The motion-capture model, not the character. At least she should have some hair. Well, it was all a pixelated mess. Then again, there never was a redhead in MK; that would have been the real test. All in all, not a fantastic movie, but it does Mortal Kombat, and it does it well.

The opening battle scenes sets the tone for the bad writing immediately. A city built literally right into the ocean surf deep enough to allow large ships to sail right up to the walls unimpeded. There are no double walls to repel invaders as was common. Massive breach towers raise up magically out of nowhere on the ships. Next is the laughable baboon gladiator scene. The CG looks terrible and the baboons look like something out of a zombie movie. It's historically inaccurate and baboons are many time stronger than humans, there is no way a shackled person is going to win in a 1 on 1 against an angry baboon. It gets worse when the Rhino riding gladiator shows up. Then the utter nonsense that is the gladiator filled ships battling it out in a shark infested water filled arena. WTF! This is NOT a sequel but a shameless remake and a soulless copy of the original. Pascal is horribly miscast and just not good here. His character is annoyingly pathetic and spends most of the movie looking like he's about to cry. Mescal as the lead is boring and a far cry from the performance put op by Crowe. Washington again is miscast and appears to embrace the stupidity by comically hamming it up most of the time. Everything is so over the top ridiculous and unrealistic it might as well have been marketed as fantasy and throw in some dragons to fight as well. Then there is the woke. DEI everywhere again. Black people were not common in Rome at the time. The Numidian people shown as very diverse with a lot of blacks were not in fact black. Macrinus was North African and not black so casting Washington for a historical character is race swapping. While Rome did incorporate North African people into their empire they were white not sub Saharan as shown here and there were not black people in the Senate. There are also females shown in full legionnaire outfit fighting along side the men. There were no female Legionnaires in Ancient Rome. I've seen people mention female gladiators. I didn't see any but maybe I missed it somehow. Overall unless you are one of those people that like to slow down to stare at a car wreck I would not recommend wasting time on this.