Mortal Kombat II (2026) — "Come with us, Mr. Cage, and discover the man you were meant to be."

Weird weir. Muscle combat is upon us. Get over here, Johnny Case because she was you. To fight well crazy, all right, I'm an actor. I can't do this.

It's time to become the hero you were meant to be Mortal Kombat Too. Who you doing? Hello everyone, and welcome to the Culture Cast and also the Projection move I am your host Chris Dashu, and I am joined by the Ube cyboch. Oh, sorry, I am joining. I was hoping you would do your name backwards.

I guess you know what Nube Sibot is, right, it's the creators of the games names backwards. No. I never knew that Yeh ed Boone and John Tobias were the creators of Mortal Kombat. So Nube Saibot is just their last names backwards. Oh how toasty.

Yeah, Jesus Jesus Christ, this guy he's already. Oh my god. On this episode of the Culture Cast in the Projection Booth, we're taking a look at twenty twenty six is sequel to twenty twenty one's Mortal Kombat. This film is aptly titled no follow Me here, Folks. Mortal Too Annihilation.

God damn it, I wish I wish, I wish, I wish I saw an article that was like Annihilation stumbled so Mortal Kombat two could run. I'm like, no, I don't know. Annihilation's fucking bad. Like Annihilation was talked about as one of the worst videoka movies ever made for the longest time. So yeah, no, it's aamously bad special effects.

Yeah, it fucking face planted like it's yeah. But yeah, on this episode, we're gonna be talking a little bit about twenty twenty six is Mortal Kombat. We will be spoiling the film if that is a thing you care about. Uh, before we talk spoilers in the film specifically, Mike, would you suggest people go check this out in theaters because right now that's the only place you could see it. If you like silly movies, this is a good one.

Do not think that this is high art by any stretch of the imagination. I had a fun time watching this, but I also was prepped for exactly what I got is Does that mean you took an before you went No, No, I was prepped and ready. I was fucking My wife was having to hold me down in the seat, and I was pacing out in the theater. Ah, I mean I would agree. I would say, for me, if you watched the first movie from twenty twenty one and you thought to yourself, man, this movie is really serious for something as Look, I love Mortal Komba.

It's my favorite fighting game series period. It is the one that my parents took away when I was a child. It's the one that I still play as an adult more regularly than anything else. It's the one whose characters I think, other than maybe Techan and a little bit of street Fighter, are like etched in my psyche. If you didn't like how serious the first one was, this one I think addresses what dumb fun Mortal Kombat is, because Mortal Kombat is not a serious franchise by any stretch of the imagination, and the video games have tried to make it a little bit more serious.

In the storylines in the video game I think are more serious than the movies are. But I think even in the video games they're kind of still fun adjacent, if not still fun depending on the game we're talking about. Uh So, I would suggest if you're a fan of Mortal Kombat, go watch it. I like Mike said, if you're a fan of dumb action movies. I would suggest watching it, you know, if you're a fan of Carl Urban, I would say go watch it because there were very few movies that he's the fucking lead in.

Uh well, one of my first questions maybe not. I mean, yeah, he's as much the lead in this movie as he is and a lot of the other things. He's the lead or one of the lead characters in Star Trek, Dread. Yeah, guess he's the main character in Dread more. Than he's definitely the main character in Dred.

Yeah. I would think this is more akin to like this is about as much screen time as he gets in like Thor Ragnock. You would think from the trailer that this is purely a Johnny Cage movie. And I was there for it. I love Carl Urban.

You know, you just named off quite a few of the films, you know, the franchises, the films that I love that he's in. I don't know how many times I've seen Judge Dread, probably eighty or ninety times. I'm not exaggerating, And yeah it's it's Star Trek, Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings, one of my favorites, Doom and No I'm not kidding. He's actually one of the better parts of that move a movie that is really talk about, a movie that looks like it's going to be The Rocks movie, and it's actually Karl Urbans.

He really is so much fun to watch. And as soon as I saw that first trailer for Mortal Kometu, and that was a long time ago, because let's not forget that this was delayed for quite a little bit, which is never a good sign. But when I saw that first trailer and it was set up to be basically, this is a Johnny Cage thing, and he was just the star of the whole trailer, talked about like his career, and they had the whole model Taje that we see in here, where it's like look at all these movie season and all this and him stuck at this convention and stuff. I'm like, yes, yes, this is I am so here for this. This is gonna be great.

And then when I learned there were other characters in the movie, I'm like, oh, okay, And really, I would say Kitana is probably our main character. Though in a movie like this, it's so hard to tell because there's I'll say it, there's too many characters, too many fucking characters. They pay so much service to that mythology, and I don't give a shit about the mythology of Mortal Kombat. I'm sorry. Like I never I played Mortal Kombat when it was at I.

Was gonna ask you, what is your exposure to Mortal Kombat really. Just basically Pinball Pietez just playing it on a machine, Like I did not have the game. I don't remember that because it was the whole thing of like was it street Fighter two was SMEs and then what Mortal Kombat was? Sega? Does that right?

It was? It was so Mortal Kombat was was it was green Blood on Super Nintendo and on Sega they allowed it to have the red blood because what the issue was, so that kind of like censored the game on. I did not play it very much at all when it came to just like I would literally just pay quarters for it. So I never was sitting at home or sitting in my college dorm room, sitting in my college house with my friends. I was there playing Street Fighter too.

I was you know, I was being Blanca, I was being chun Lee. I was being e Honda, Edmund Honda all those kind of things, And I didn't you know, like that the the amount of mythology that you got in the SNS booklet of like oh Edmund Honda was raised in Japan and blah blah blah, like Chun Lee's father was killed. That's as much mythology as I need. I don't need all this stuff, So you know, I will say kind of going back to do I recommend this should you see it in the movie theater, those kind of things. If you liked the original Mortal Kombat as in the Paul W.

S Anderson film, this is more akin to that. This is that type of fun. The special effects are decent. I would say the special effects are probably better than the twenty twenty one film. Some of those are real fucking rough.

I think that Goro looks better in the Paul W. S Anderson film than he does in the Simon mcquad film. Yeah, that's like, and that's the problem. Like I went and rewatched the twenty twenty one film over the weekend before I watched this the sequel, and one of my close friends who he and I like, Mortal Kombat is one of like our things, like our kind of like points of reference. Like, we love Mortal Kombat collectively, it's one of the things we talk about.

It's one of the things we bitch about because of the way they've treated the franchise in the last couple decades since the last movies came out. The first movies came out. And one of the things I said to him that really triggered him was when I rewatched the first movie, I didn't hate the Cole Young character as much as the first time I watched it, because it in the the immediacy of him being inserted into this world, character had already gone away and I had accepted it and whatever. It's fine, like, and this movie, boy, well, this movie really says good night to that fucking character. Uh.

That first movie was so self serious, and it's because of that character. It's because they created a new character and he's the eyes of the audience. Why didn't you just make that first movie, the Johnny Cage movie. I don't understand, Like, I don't understand why you would make this movie after having made that movie when this movie is a sequel to that movie, and this movie is doing what that movie did, and this movie sidelines the character from that first movie. I know nobody was a fan of the character in the first movie, but then they should have just not made him.

They should have just they had a fucking guy from Earth realm. They even had a woman from Earth Realm that they could have used as the fish out of Water character, and instead they were like, let's just make somebody up, Like, but why. That made no sense to me? Yeah, and like I even as a not I'm not gonna say a non fan because it makes it sound like I don't like it. Like there are a lot of things about Moral Kombat that I love.

I mean, you know, I made the little toasty. Reference me talking about this movie with me. If you didn't like Moral Kombat, you wouldn't have gone to the fucking theaters and seen it. Like let's exactly get in front of anybody who's like you guys just don't like it. Like, trust me, my bank account and the money I spent to fucking see it and the amount of money I've spent on the Mortal Kombat games is reason enough to believe I like Mortal Kombat.

Okay, oh yeah, so does Mike like I. I mean, god, did you know the whole finish him? Uh? Wallless Victory all that kind of stuff, And it's so funny when you like, I kept waiting during this film, and I'm not getting into spoiler territory, but I kept waiting for like, a is there gonna be like a finish him or a get over here, those kind of things like that is so jammed into that first film, Like there's the character with the hat and sorry, guys, I don't know. Yes, when he kills someone in the first movie, he like stops and like close up flawless victory and I'm like, so crimp, yeah, yeah, it.

Makes my skin crawl like it. And what's funny is it's the same director from the first movie, but not the same writer. That's the thing. And Jeremy Slater, like, I have to give Jeremy Slater actually a fair amount of credit here for this film's success because. He's written so much shit.

I know it's just absolute, but but but but he has co written Coyote versus Acme, which looks interesting, and Kong ex Godzilla is probably the least offensive of the things he's written. I agree, And I've that's another one liked. You're talking about my boife's favorite movie. When you're talking about Dread calling ex Godzilla. I mean, you see the stats when when you watch these movies on your plexover you see how many times, like she was watching plaques off as somebody else's server, and he was like, is there something wrong You're you watched Dread sixty times last month?

And I'm like, no, no, that's that's right. That's about right. So that's why I knew that I wasn't, you know, lying when I said I've probably have seen it eighty times. So I'd like to point out as much as Jeremy Slater maybe hasn't worked on things that don't spark joy for you. I don't know if you've seen the Exorcis TV show, it was really good.

He was the I think he's the creator of the show even quite good it. I think you should watch it. It's yeah, like the first season, if I remember correctly, as Geena Davis in it, she's great. Like he created it, he wrote somebody like wrote the first episode in a couple other episodes. I mean, yeah, his other track record may be not great, but I would say of the things that I've seen of his this is probably the best thing in terms of movies.

I'm really only holding against him Moonnight, just because I had such an unpleasant experience with Moonnight. Some people love it, not even watched it, haven't even approached It doesn't seem to have any bearing on anything, so why would I. I don't care if it's true to the character or not. I just didn't need to see the whole split personality thing. And oh, is that there's there a third personality?

I'm like, I don't give a shit. I did enjoy the Umbrella Academy, though granted I didn't see the last season. I don't know if that holds up. And yeah, like, why did we have a remake of Death Note? I haven't watched it, so maybe it's fucking fantastic.

But I saw the original Japanese movies. Spoilers, it's it's not you're good, and the only thing that's good about it is Willem Dafoe's okay. Yeah, well, and then the original has fucking Chairman Kaga as one of the characters. I don't need anything else other than Chairmankaga there, so thank you. It's it's not.

It's not great, But Willem Dafoe is not bad. I don't remember this. No, he's not no, no, he's he's never bad. He'd be great in movie. Put Willmo Mortal Komba, and the thing about the first Mortal Kombat that kind of did the same bait and switch when it comes to the marketing of it where I believe now tell me if I'm wrong, But I remember seeing the fight between Scorpion and Sub Zero months and months before the movie came out, and just being like, Wow, this looks really cool, like old school Samurai kind of stuff, and the shots of that cool weapon that Scorpion has, and I'm just like, oh man, this is gonna be great.

Yeah, And the movie starts with that whole sequence and I'm just like, oh my god, this is gonna be fantastic. And then you come to and I apologize because I'm sure that your mothers and fathers love you a lot, but you come to a group of absolute nothing actors that have no charisma whatsoever. I mean, Jessica McNamee might be one of the nicest people in the world, but Sonia Blade has nothing like. She's just a blank like Jack's nothing like and those ridiculous chicken arms that he has, Like through the you know, like a third of the movie like just so much of this and the only person that seems to have any personality in the movie is Kano, and then he's just an annoying dickhead. So it's like I just did not like any of the characters when I watched the original one, and so when when they had Carl Urban as Johnny Cage, I'm like, Okay, whatever Urban is in, sign me up.

I'm here for it. I'm more of a fan of Carl's earl as opposed to Carl's Urban. Is that right? No, I don't know. I just like his name is Urban, get it?

Yeah, yeah, get it? Get it? Or or they will say Urban if you're Howaine. Yes, I'd like to And okay, so I think we need to. I think it's time to transition to spoilers.

Okay, can I say something without people turning this off? Carl Urban I think is kind of miscast in. Oh absolutely, he is way no offense. Carl Urban, way too old for that's absolutely. I wouldn't even go that far.

Like what's funny is? And I know you're not a super big into wrestling guy. Do you know who Mike the miz Mizannin is no so he's from your kind of neck of the woods. He's from Ohio. He's a pretty well known wrestler.

He actually like campaigned to be Johnny Cage in the movie. And I think he would have worked better just on paper, because his whole personality is that, like Johnny Cage before he falls on hard times, and if he were to fall on hard times, you could believe that he'd play a character who'd be sitting at that table, you know, with the fifteen dollars to sign a photo type shit, because like there are wrestlers that do that in real life. They go to conventions and do that. Like Carl Urbin just isn't known if he's too good of an actor. But he stands out like a sore thumb because he is too good of an actor.

Yes he is. I mean he's too charismatic, he's too good, and he just doesn't play Johnny Cage the right way. And I don't know if it's his fault. I don't think it's his well, I don't even think it's the writing. I don't know what it is.

It's maybe a combination of the two. But this is like it's so far afield from Johnny Cage. He's not enough of a dickhead, Like he's not even a dickhead enough, Like Johnny Cage is kind of an unrepented asshole. Well even when he gets married to Sony and Blade and they have a daughter, he's still an asshole. And it mellows him a little bit because now he's a dad, but he's still a fucking dick.

That's the point. I never would play as Johnny Cage, you know. Yeah, he was just like the pretty boy guy. And now let me clarify real cook and I said that Carl Urban is too old for the role. He's too old to play young Johnny Cage, like the Johnny Cage that I've seen in the other films, opposite all these young people.

Absolutely now he if he was the protagonist of this film, and it was much more of his journey of being an unrepented asshole, somebody who is completely spoiled, who really is slumming it by being like sitting at that convention table in the super sad state of Affairs, gets thrust into Mortal Kombat, blows his chance, fucks it up, has you know, just as I wanted him to not take things seriously and just be like, you know, making fun of every single but like give him more of the Kano role, almost like Johnny Cage, the hot shot turns into Kano the asshole kind of guy who just doesn't take anything fucking seriously and then has to have Oh my God, forgive me for saying this a character arc because then he like finally comes to know like, oh, this is really serious shit and like, you know, people's lives are on the line, and look at how horrible.

There's not Shao Khan, who's the big bad of this. Shao Khan. Okay, sorry, I get him mixed up with Luke Sung Shang song. Thank you yes, And I'm just like, okay, yeah, like give me that arc. Like he has an arc, but it's way too quick.

It just happens very quickly, like that fight with Baraka just like turns some around very fast. And I'm like, oh, okay, like great, but like I said, Kitana is probably the real protagonist of this, and then I know it sounds like I'm bagging on this movie. I still I had a lot of fun, but they all through the whole thing, with Kitana and Jade and Shao Khan. All I could think of was Danos Gomora and Nebula Nebula? Yeah.

Yeah. All I could think of was that I was like, Okay, well, Jade's is a Nebula, and get Gamora is a Kitana and Danos is Shao Khan and like the whole relationship of them and everything is just for me. It was completely that I was waiting for him to hand her a little dagger and talk about how perfectly balanced it is. Doesn't this movie feel a little emcuvi like, doesn't it? It does feel a little emcy like.

It feels a little like, oh, we got this jumblow kooky characters and we're gonna throw them all together and see what happens. The MCU has done better, and the mc has done more interestingly, I think is kind of the way I look at it, Like I think the MCU is a more interesting cast of characters. And that's not to say this isn't. I just don't think that they're they're not interested in mining that so much, and for whatever reason, whenever they kind of start approaching it, they shy away from it, like give us something interesting to chew on, Like I don't see what the problem is, Like, are we afraid to have a character with a little bit of baggage or a little bit of emotional like steaks in the thing, like the opening with Katana and her dad getting fucking murdered King Jared, Like that's about as much emotional kind of like resonance as we get with this movie, genuinely.

And it's like in the first five minutes. And I'm not asking for much, but I am asking for a movie to understand, like, if you're gonna tell a film version of the video game story, people are gonna expect a little bit more character depth, a little bit more. I get more character depth out of the video games story. I know Johnny Cage in the video game is a much more well defined character. And I'm not saying it's hard.

I'm not saying it's easy or hard to do that here. I just don't think they're really engaged or interested in doing that. No, I totally agree, Yeah, And I really did want more, Like even before the movie starts, like when when we're introduced to Johnny Cage, like we get the one scene from the film, I would have liked to have seen like more of stuff. And I think even in that again, going back to that trailer. It was like, you know, the star of Cool Hand Cage and Far To Cage and all this stuff, and I'm like, okay, so he's kind of basically Steven Seagal kung you know mime.

I think he's one of the ones in the video game he's kung fu mime. So it's like, yeah, like this is the character, like a Jean Claude van dam adjacent character, Like yeah, he's like Kasagall van Damn. But they just don't lean into it hard enough, Like no, they they they don't lean into it at all. Really, like one scene is not enough. No, no, it really should have been, like because like him going back to his car and putting the unsigned unsold posters down and putting his shit in his trunk and stuff, I'm like, yeah, this is I want to see this.

I want to see I mean that kind of reminded me of Galaxy Quest, where it was just like okay, yeah, this is the sad life of these stars all these years later going to these conventions like it kind of reminded me a little bit of the Bruce Campbell movie where he basically played Bruce my name is Bruce. Yeah, kind of reminded me of that, just like sending himself up kind of thing. And I was like, yeah, this is pretty cool, you know, like when I saw him because even sorry I keep talking about the trailer, but the trailer was you know, see Johnny Cage in Uncaged Fury. Like I showed that to Andrea and she's just like, oh, yeah, let's see this. And I go, do you know what this actually is?

And shit, no, no clue. And I'm like, this is a Mortal Kombat movie. She's oh, okay, like she doesn't know Johnny Cage. So I'm like, yeah, no, this is gonna be great, like Carl Urban and a Mortal Kombat movie. That's gonna be great.

But it kind of gets lost in the sauce, like we spend a lot of time with Kaitana, we spend some good amount of time with Kano and with Jacks and all this. I'm like, I don't really Yang, yeah, I don't really care very much about these other people. Just you know, it's like, you know, it's funny because of course before the movie, they showed a trailer for a Street Fighter too, and I'm just like, okay, you know this, this is the exact same problem, like at least with the first one or all of its flaws, but at least with that one. You know, Jean Claude van Dam is the fucking lead of that movie. There's no if ans or butts.

Sometimes he gets lost in that movie a little bit, but it's like, Okay, this is a JCDD movie, no matter what, Like everybody else can just like you know, Pat, go along, go along. And again, I'm like, I do hope we don't get lost in all of the fucking mythology of street Fighter too, because they've had so many versions of it. I'm sure they've built up that mythology so much. I don't need it. I just need fighting.

I need a big green monster with yellow hair that can turn electric power on. Do you know who plays him in that movie? No? Is it Jason Malmala. Oh, jesus.

I also saw the trailer for Supergirl and saw him show up as Lobo in that. I like Mama, I like him enough. I think when they let him just kind of be, he's good. And that's the thing with Carl Urban, Like when they just let him be, he's great. Oh, it's fantastic.

It's almost like they they were forcing Carl Urbin into this, and I mean again, like I can think of at least Mike the Miz would have done better. I just got Carl Urban just what he brings to something is not this energy, and it never has been. And it was always like I was hopeful because it is Carl Urbin and he's such a good actor that like, even though this is against type for him, I still kind of hoped against hope, well, even if it's against type, he'll still be able to like elevate it because he's a great actor. But to your point, like I guess, I didn't also think, well, what happens if he just kind of isn't given anything interesting to do? And that's more or less what happens.

Like you said, the focus of the movie is on actors and characters that aren't nearly as interesting or entertaining. And I know people want to say, like, well this has gotten better than Mortal Kombat Annihilation, Like it actually has the same fucking problem that that movie did, which is too many fucking characters. I will say, at least in this movie, they're not like isn't that right? Sub Zero? Right, isn't that right?

Scorpion? It does feel a little less stunty and stuff because there are a lot of characters in that first one where I'm just like, uh, this must be a character added after I quit playing this, like the woman with the wings and stuff, and. That's like those Combat four or five creation yep. And again, don't give your character wings unless you can actually animate them to look like they are actually flying, because it looks bad. Like well, we're sitting right now in twenty twenty six in the Age of the Punisher and the bad VFX over at Disney, So are we really surprised.

No, No, I'm not. I'm not. I guess I just hold these companies to a higher set of standards that they don't care. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, like the stuff with the you know, the fights with the uh sub zero and Scorpion and stuff like that looked fine, you know, because it was more about the actors and more about the choreography rather than the special effects.

And the special effects were very limited when it came to like the whole chain the spike on the chain kind of thing didn't really mean more than that. And the ice effects I thought looked good. But yeah, it's just kind of strange. I don't know it's but yeah, I it's a very uneven marriage for me of the Katana story and the Johnny Cage story. It really feels like they are two different movies that are really vying for which movie is this?

And somehow they they end up blending, but very roughly. But I again just had a lot of fun, man I I that Baraka fight actually worked for me. I liked Baraka, and yeah, he does feel like he's right out of a James Gunn movie, you know, like this whole thing of the whole village of Baraka's people and stuff. Okay, here's Peter, Where's Peter Quill? Where's he's gonna land on this planet?

Exactly? Well, yeah, I mean basically the stuff that Carl Urban does when he starts doing the Bruce Lee one hundred hand kind of thing, It's like, yeah, this feels very much like Dan's off bro. You know. Well, and I will say it made me laugh at the framing device of the movie is him telling this story. He's recounting the story to the Tarcattans Baraka included Zee.

Those are the parts of the movie with Carl Urban that worked for me. Where he's like interacting with Baraka, and Baraka's is just kind of big, dumb like cotton, which I think is a little unfair to the character of Baraka because in the video games he's a much more interesting, kind of pitiable character, where it's like the people that got that disease were normal people and now they're like mutated and they're like sequestered away like leopards. That's the video game version of that. The movie is a lot more fun. The movie is a lot more upbeat, and nobody's in like pain and hurting.

You know. This version of Baraka is pretty much just drax. Oh yeah, absolutely, this. Is the mcuification of this is like pretty wild to me, even going as far as to not trusting female characters to be the leads of your movie. No, yeah, because it's like, Okay, she should be the leads of this movie.

Maybe, like okay, should it be the Katana story, should it be the Johnny Kage story? Yeah? I guess we can't leave it up, because I mean, really, she's got them more compelling narrative, you know, and her whole question for revenge and all this kind of stuff, and like, you know, I get I get lost as a non Mortal Kombat guy when it's just like, oh, you can bring people back from the dead, like. All the time with Wanton Abandon, characters dying does not matter at all. Throw characters dying in this franchise out the window, like I mean completely, I'm not even kidding.

Like one of the places they go is literally just hell where the characters are hanging out like. Oh yeah, yeah. When they go and find a scorpion and it's like, oh, okay, yeah, all right, but yeah, her mother being dead and everything, I'm like, all right, this is interesting. And they have like that head thing going on because she got her head split open, and I was like, okay, well, when you get brought back from the dead, do you get healed do you not? And I don't know, like it just felt very strange, and this whole thing that, like, well, the.

Idea that. Lord Raydon is a god and they're stealing his power and all this and trying to make shau Kan immortal. I'm just like, Okay, this is interesting. I guess maybe very. Well just explained or defined and it just kind of yeah, yeah, Well, I actually find the scene where Cole and chaucandeby fight to be very funny, because holy shit, Like, I mean, what a repudiation of your first movie, like by oh yeah, why he gets the most brutals death in the entire movie.

Oh, the audience in my theater went fucking crazy for that. That's amazing. Yes, I was laughing my ass off and people behind me were cheering. It was really nice. Yeah, they, I mean they they put a character into that first movie that was unnecessary.

I don't understand why they didn't just do Johnny Cage. If you're gonna just do Johnny Cage anyways, why not just do him then? Like you don't have to create a character who's the eyes of the audience when you have a character that acts as the eyes of the audience already, Like he's an earth realmer and he's American, Like no, I don't know, Like it was funny hearing Carl Urban's Australian accent coming through from time to time. Oh in him versus Josh Lawson and I'm just like, now, be very ironic if Josh Launlasson sorry was not Australian, but he is. He's from Queensland, and like when he is over Australian, Oh my god, he is just like Rocky, you know, like putting some shrimp on the barberie kind of thing, going to out back in ordering a bloomin onion.

And then you got Carl Urban just he does a good American accent, but you can tell he was kind of fighting, and I'm just like, man, this guy is the ultimate Australian versus Carl Urban who is just trying to be American higher but Dad bless him and Josh Lawson, like I said before, he seems to have a lot of fun in this movie and he makes it more fun for me. I'm like, oh okay, yeah, Like once he comes on to screen, I was like, this guy's actually pretty funny. Like I don't remember liking him at all in the first movie, and I have to say, like total cards on the table, I barely remember the first movie. I for sure saw it and I remember were loving that first like ten minutes of the movie whatever that Scorpion sub Zero part was.

But after that, I'm just like, wow, this is this feels like really like straight to DVD or street to VHS dreck. That first movie. I just was like really. Screaming my friend it was it was vod especial. Well it was also during the pandemic, right, Yeah.

The joke I was gonna make at the beginning was whether or not people should pay to go see the movie. Pay to go see the movie you undoubtedly watched on HBO Max during the pandemic. Pay to go see the sequel to that movie, because I didn't pay to see the first movie. It was a fucking twenty twenty one, you know, pandemic dump surprise, you know. Fuck Like That's the other thing, Like this movie feels like more of a movie than that movie did.

That movie felt like pandemic entertainment. Like I didn't pay for the first movie, and I've still felt ripped off fair. I mean, that first movie is just so fuck self serious, and I don't I don't understand why, because Mortal Kombat is not a self serious franchise by any stretch of the air. No, not when you've got you know, people ripping out each other's spines and stuff and babacation and Babalitiah and animalities and all. Those rings, ships and everything else.

Yeah, there's too much humor in Mortal Kombat for it to be taken this seriously. And I would go as far as to say this movie is a step in the right direction, but even it is too self serious still even now absolutely to self like having it open with Katana's dad. Yet it's more like nobody fucking cares, like this is not why I'm not here for this, and I do think it is a bit of a bait and switch again because the first movie was sold as Scorpion and sub Zero, in this movie is sold as Johnny Cage. Is like, it's neither of these neither of these movies are neither of these things. And shit, if you really want to get like really like like nitpicky about it, this movie is more of a Johnny Cage movie than the first movie is a sub Zero and Scorpion absolutely, because the sub Zero and Scorpion in that first movie is two fucking scenes and that's it.

Yeah. Yeah, oh you have you have helped me break the curse. I appreciate you. Thank you. Se next movie, yeah, like okay, like I'm I'm sorry that we couldn't get you Hiroyuki Sonada away from Shogun for more than five minutes.

Oh yeah, or West World, I guess season two or three, whichever, the one that's Samurai World he's in as well, so and he's so good. I love it as party fucking movie. Oh yeah, yeah, he is fantastic and yeah, like the only reason I haven't talked about him because he has some fuck all to do in this movie. It's another one of those like like you're saying, like that first movie should have been his movie, Like he is a great fucking actor, and then you give me your Jackson's You're sown your blades all these people, and I'm just like, I give a shit about these will get me back to this guy. He's a real fucking actor.

Well, and I was gonna say, Ludy Lynn as lu Kang is probably the least non charismatic of the main bunch, Like you know, you know, toddanobu Asano is not given much to do as Lord Raydon, Like he's effectively the Leonardo of the group. Lukang should be Leonardo, but he's less so he's kind of interesting from time to time. He is no Christopher Lambert, who is really I know, yeah, I means Christopher Lambert, so that move is he even James remark No, no, he's done not And like you know, he really doesn't have a character like does he find these people amusing? Is he very serious? Yeah?

Like what is his personality? I could sit here for another five hours and have no idea how to describe this character because he just doesn't have a lot going on in the video game. He's much more clearly defined. But even in the video game they have they struggle with what to do with him because of the god aspect of his character. They struggle with what to do with him.

I mean, there was a he had a heel turn in the video game for a while that kind of went nowhere. But he's kind of just a through and through good guy and like some of the I mean, like what's funny is Kano is not really ever a good guy in the video game. He's more or less always a villain. He's like a murk for hire. And I think it speaks to Josh Lawson as an actor that they were like, you know what, you need to be a good guy now in this franchise because you're clearly the part of the movie that people resonated with from the first one, So we need to have you on screen opposite Carl Urbin.

That would be meta funny. Obviously we've talked about the Australian ness of it all. But like Josh Lawson may be the best part of this movie, like absolutely yeah. In terms of the actors that we are subjected to and see with regular frequency in the film, it's probably Josh Lawson by like a large. Marchin absolutely yeah, because again he's funny.

He is light, you know, like once, especially when he has his turn to the like let's kill these fucking gullies or whatever, it's just like, all right, good, Like I really didn't need him back as a as a bad guy. And when he does this pretty immediate turn to being a good guy, I'm like, oh okay. And I'm he even somehow forgives Sonia Blade for killing him originally. But the movie ending like I'm gonna kill you again and he's like okay, all right, yeah sure, yeah. Yeah, and again no offense to the actors.

But just like she doesn't have anything to do, you know, like no, I seem to remember the Sonia Blade from the you know, the Paul W. S Anderson film way better than I remember this one. Yeah, of course you remember Bridget Wilson more, of course. You right, how did how did all the W. S Anderson find the balance of these characters so much better than what we're seeing now, you know, is it like, is it just the fan service, like, well, we have to put this character and we have to put this character in or is it just not knowing how to handle so many characters and not being able to decide who is what's the storyline that we should be following.

I'm fine with abc D storylines obviously, but they really need to be ordered in descending amount of screen time and importance. And you know, it's even okay to switch tones, like you know, you and I are two of the biggest fans of The Lord of the Rings that I know. I mean, once once the fellowship is broken, we are going all over the place with all of these different characters, but it always feels balanced. And to your point about the Marvel movies, I mean, can you imagine if Infinity War and Endgame had been directed by somebody lesser than Some people hate the Russo Brothers, but I thought they did an amazing job and they knew when to cut to these different storylines and when to bring the characters back, because you're dealing with a shit kind of characters, but nobody feels.

Lost to me, and I will say, Simon mccoyd has like no other credits to his name other than. He's a commercial director. I mean, I love them. You know, great, you made this big lead, you play it in the big leagues now. But it's just like, yeah, well, you've got to really work on the whole idea of like moon and balance.

Yeah well, I was gonna say, like applause to him for being able to escape that world of commercial filmmaking, but also to your point, like I think I don't think that this is the best thing to cut your teeth on because there there is so much going on that they look, let's just get this fucking out in the open. This should have been a TV show, Like why totally, why are we doing this anyway? Like I just I failed to see why we're forcing things to be films when they could be much better resolved as an extended like media format of like a TV series or a mini series that then you can you know, limited series. If a limited series goes well, they can turn that into a full on series like Pretty Little Liars was one of those shows a couple of years ago, and HBO was like limited series and it won awards for being a limited series that came back as a second season.

Like in this day and age, anything can come back again, even if it's a limited series, So why not just do that? I just I don't understand the point of being driven by making films anymore if you're still working in the world of cinema and making things either TV or movies, I don't. I think the line is blurrier now than it's ever been in terms of what is real quality. You know, a show we're gonna be talking about again, Ring of Power, the most fucking expensive thing ever made, and it's a show. It's not a fucking movie, like right, I don't understand why we have to look at the quality of things and say, well, this can't be TV show, this has to be in movies like this would have benefited from an extended narrative where we can have an episode about each character.

I mean, God, Lost was doing it, for fuck's sake, We're kind to do that. If you have to give me an episode with two characters and then at the end they fight, you know, I'm okay, because honestly the fight stuff in this where it's like, oh, there's this contest and we have these five fighters and we have to do this, and we have to do that. It feels, to be honest, that feels kind of shoved in here too, where I'm just like, okay, what are we doing? Are we doing the whole relationship between Jade and Kitana and all this, like, you know, that's a very complicated relationship that they have. I'm like, okay, also some great fight choreography and stuff, and then it's like, okay, here's these five or ten diamonds up in the sky, and I'm just like, this feels really out of place.

And I'm like, this is a Mortal Kombat movie, but the tournament fighting feels out of place. The other thing that felt out of place was just the insistence on you know, going back to Marvel pop culturizing things like all of the lines of like that loss and has as Kano where it's just like, god, I can't remember all of them. Like he makes lord of the Rings Lord of the Rings. I mean he calls somebody gandalf I think I. Know that's that's Johnny Cage called.

And then Johnny Cage also has a line about, uh, doesn't he have like a one ring to rule them all? Kind of thing. Yeah something, Yeah, he's got another reference. But I think Lawson has like a squid game thing, and just like there's all of these like pop culture references and like this is not going to age well can no? Well?

And I was gonna say, like for me, like I don't I feel like they gave all the choice lines to Cano and didn't give anything to Johnny Kate. Yeah. Yeah, it was like once Shash Lawson shows back up in the film, it's just like, Okay, everybody, here's the guy that we're gonna put on screen the most, even though he's a resurrected character from the last movie. Here's yeah. Well and again, like you know, like I said before, Mortal Kombat is as a franchise able to have characters come back with pretty large amounts of frequency.

People rarely stayed dead even if they had their goddamn heads ripped off in Mortal Kombat. One of the jokes for Mortal Kombat for a while there when they had the X ray moves was how the fuck is this Mortal Kombat When people are having their spleens broken inside of their body? That would kill them alone, you know. And and then to go as far as you know, well, you know, finish him and we're gonna leave them be, Like, you know, I don't. I think in Mortal Kombat there shouldn't be any sparing of people.

That was kind of the point. And to then have this movie go, well, you spared one of our people, Like that's not yeah, that's missing the point once again of Mortal and. It goes against the words Mortal Kombat. Right right, like you you kind of just missed it. It's almost like this movie missed it at every chance that it took, but it didn't miss it that far.

Like it's it's you know one, it has standard deviations away, not four. And the last movie I think was like four and it got closer towards the end once it like woke up and really it was a fucking fighting game movie. And this movie there are moments where it remembers what it is, but there are times where this movie is still very much stuck in that thinking of like let's not lean into the inherent silliness of this, Like can you have you watched the Fallout TV show? No? I have not yet.

It's amazing. I mean for fans of Fallout, it might not be the best thing like, and I have some friends who my close friend that's a Mortal Kombat fan also likes fall Out a fair amount, and he does not like the Fallout show because it's very different from the video game. But the thing that the show does is it actually like acknowledges the goofy and silliness of the source material, and it doesn't run away from it like the guys making Game of Thrones did with all the supernatural and like dragons and magic of that franchise, Like, why are we pretending like these things are different than what they are? Like people resonate with them because of the tone as it is. Don't go fucking changing it just because you don't like it, or don't think it's gonna resonate, or you can't write it.

If you can't write to this is, maybe you're not cut out for that job. I don't know, Like I just the tone is just kind of all over the place. It hits it from time to time. It hits it better than that first movie, but it's still a bit of a mess. It is, though, despite all of the negative things that we've just thrown at this movie.

You know what, when a good copy of this comes out that I can download. I know that I'm going to be watching this. I know Andrew's going to be watching this. This is right up her street. She had a great time with this.

I had a great time watching it. Yes, even though while I was watching it, I was like, yeah, it's totally confused. Yeah, I don't really care about this character this one, but whenever Urban's on screen, okay, yeah, I'm here, and even really, like I haven't said, but I did find the Katana stuff to be intriguing and very well done. I just don't it was. It was very Uh it wasn't peanut butter and chocolate.

It was more like peanut butter and banana, while not bananas, peanut butter and pickles or something. It's just like two good tastes that don't necessarily go well together. And it was, like I said, uneven, uneasy marriage when it comes to this stuff. So it's like, right, yeah, but I'll still watch it and maybe at some point a fan editor will go through and make the Katana film and make the Johnny Cage film and never the Twain shall meet. But as it is now, I'm like, yeah, it's a rocky marriage, but it's it's fun to watch.

It's definitely better than watching, you know, couples fighting. Well, I was going to say the other thing that this movie, you know, to the Carl Urban of it all, when he's on screen, he's great, shocking, said no one, it's Karl Urban. He's always exactly right. And there are other moments. I think the Katana storyline is serviceable.

I mean again, you know, like you said before, but like I don't give a shit about the mythology, Like that's one of the things of the mythology is just like this kind of stuff like that's oh yeah, hard lean into the mythology. I mean, there's there's another character in the movie that's such a hard lean into the mythology. I'm surprised you have mentioned him. Damon Harriman as Kwan Chie, which mind blowing to me that he's in this He's a character from the video games that is at the level of Shao Khan and Shank Song in terms of like ability to do harm and damage to the characters, the hero characters. But Damon Harriman was in the last movie as Cabal.

He did the voice for Cabal, and in this movie they have him in some of the most hilariously bad makeup I've ever seen, Like, I what God's name, like what he looks hilarious? Okay, it took guyliner and the lines over his head like wow. Yeah, they talk about it. It looks like somebody's nutsack or something. So at one point I think calls him or Carl Irvin calls him.

He kind of reminded me of this character from the Old Buck Rogers TV show who had like not necessarily this same makeup, but yes, similar makeup and yeah, totally. Useless character, Like he's not in the video game. He helped him and Shang Sung murder lu Kang in the video game together. Oh yeah, that's the deadly alliance of the video games is them together. It's very funny to trivialize his character the way that they did.

See when you talk about the video games, so like my frame of reference for the video games is you go in, you pick your fighter, your fighters fight, you kill one another, or you know, one wins, one loses. That's it. So like you know, like I have no frame of reference what you're talking about in the video game. This happens in the video game, that happens, like this must be like much more like modern video games where like there are scenes and things. So that's the thing.

There was mythology in Mortal Kombat one and two. If you played through the story on the cabinet, if you played arcade mode on the cabinet and beat every person on that tower and got to the end, they gave your character an ending, and there was a character description screen that had you know, lu Kang and it said a thing about him, you know who he was, and then the end day gave a similar thing. Like there was the barest amounts of mythology in the video game for the longest time. And then when sub when Mortal Kombat Mythologies sub zero came out, when it transitioned to home consoles and away from the arcade you know experience, that's when they could start having a story mode or you know, a single player mode where you can examine the the mythology as where the original movie as a fair amount of mythology too.

I mean, you know they talk about Earth realm and Nether realm in the world like it's still there. I think unfortunately living in the MCU times like they got to over explain everything now and it's just like things can be just left up to like this is just the way it is. We don't need to have everything explained, and I prefer when things aren't explained to death at this point in my life, any right. Yeah, but no, Kwanchi is completely the useless because you have Shangsun there and Chin hand bless him, he can play a dickhead like nobody's business. I just see his face.

Probably a very nice man, but I see his face. I just want to punch him right in the face because he just always plays such a prick every single time I see him. Like, of course I'm mostly thinking of the Dark Night, but like there are other things I've seen him where I's just like, this guy's a piece of shit. It probably is a wonderful man, loves his kids, all that kind of stuff, but he plays dickheads so well. Yeah, I would say if there's another crime of this movie, it's that Shang Sung kind of gets lost in the shuffle.

A lot of characters just get lost in the shuffle. Like you could probably make two or three movies off of what this movie is doing. Like there's a lot going on here. You know, we didn't even really talk about him, but Martin ford is show con is a relatively physically imposing presence. He's yeah, he's amazing, and I kept wondering is he a wrestler?

Turns out that he is. I had no idea, and then I kept wondering, like, is that his voice? So they're getting somebody else to do his voice or not? Is that really his voice? I haven't seen him in anything else, so I don't know.

It sure sounds like it was kind of monstered up, because shau Khan is not really a human. He's when they obviously, when they take his mask off, he's he's a little bit more of kind of a monster. So you know that, I think that's I would assume they kind of monstered his voice up a little bit. Mm hm oh God, that's right. I see chin Haan all the time The True Confessions of Mike's Wife.

She watches bad movies a lot. He's also in Ghost in the Shell, so I have thus seen Ghosts in the Shell a bunch. He is not a dickhead in that one. He's kind of a nice guy in that. But yeah, he's what's impressed.

What a fucking movie to pull? Bro, What God's name? Ghost in the Shell, the movie, the movie that was so all over the place. It took Rupert Sanders another seven years to make another movie that was also all over the place, That fucking Crow movie. Dude, my lord, oh boy, is that is your wife watched that one?

No, we've never actually seen that. Independence Day Resurgence. Nope, Nope. I haven't seen that one either, So I actually, you know what, I think I have seen that, but I just kind of blocked it out of my head because it was just a fucking. Bad I thought you were gonna say that your wife likes to watch Skyscrape.

You know. I don't know if we've ever seen that one. That's the one with the rock and the fake leg, right. And he like jumps from the crane onto the Oh yeah, yeah. That seems like we should have seen that, just because.

That's like I mean, I always say this, like you and your wife and my folks would get along so well. They love the bee keeper and the leg and the meg too, all this shit. I'm just like, this is the same stuff that. We saw a trailer for a new Stathum film, and we're like, yep, we're gonna go see this one too. He's gonna be in the new season of Jack Reacher apparently, like you really go figure so oh raw, yeah, yeah, that's the state.

The state of preview was so bad. I was just like, is this a this a parody? Like I couldn't tell yeah, oh yeah, and its. Just again the one where he's killing people on the island. No, he's on a boat on this one.

Great, Yeah, we know what you mean there, Jason. Shelter. No, no, no, the Shelter is the one where he's on the island killing the people. Okay, what I'm trying to look at, not killing sharks. It is mutiny.

It was mutiny. It is the name of it one word titles too, and it kind of it reminded me of the beginning of The Meg two where he's on that boat with all the containers and he's, you know, he's fighting the good fight at that point. So guess what his character's name is in Mutiny? Oh? Read, wasn't he in?

Was he? Was he in a remake of one of those Michael Caine movies or was that Sylvester Stallone? That was Sylvester Stallone and get Carter. He was in the remake of a mechanic which I actually really liked. You know what, could we recast this movie with real actors?

Like would real actors ever touch this with a ten foot pole? Would they have touched it with a ten foot pull if it had been a TV show? Like what do we have to do to get a Pedro Pascal to be part of Mortal Kombat? But it'd still be fun, you know what I mean? Or even fucking Jason Stathum.

But I'd be like, why not cast Jason Stathum as Cato. He's fucking balld like I don't know, and he's an ass, Like he could play an ass pretty well, Like I don't know if he is an Australian accent, but that's as a British guy. Yeah, that's his character in The Fast. And the Furious movies or another movie that we've seen too many times, which is that fucking Fast and if you're a spinoff? You know, I'm still waiting for another one of those team.

Ups with the rock that he oh Hobbs and Shaw Hobbs. And Shaw Baby. I still want to know why Ryan Reynolds was doing both the Handler character but also his voice is the voice of the bad guy in the movie that we don't see, like, why on earth is he doing both of these roles? And then fucking Idris Elba is the black Superman. I mean that line brought down the house.

Does Idriselba have a allergic reaction to being in good movies? Well, hey, he was in Pacific Rim, So. Does Idraselva have an allergic reaction to being in good movies? I fucking love that first Pacific Room. Yeah.

I cannot abide any of those movies. Maybe if I were to rewatch him now in my older, more mellowed out age, I wouldn't hate it so much. I bet you. He's really good in Beasts of No Nation. Uh that's the one where he plays one of those like African drug lords.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, And he was in I haven't seen the Mandela movie that he was in. I'm much more about his stuff, like his role in four or his role in The Losers with his fellow Marvel cast member Chris Evans. So I love him from Atheus like I love him in pro I love I don't care, does defend. I have an allergy?

Good movie for Methus is a great movie. You're right, It's not a good movie. It's a great movie. He's really good in the Zootopia movies. So oh right, yeah, I really cut in those, you know what, and I think the conversation needs to end.

He's not going to be James Bond. We've we've missed the boat so far. It's going to be some little pithy wipe bitch. Probably we'll be lucky if it's not Timothy Shallomy. I feel like ninety pounds soaking wet.

Yeah, you know, to defend elbaw Like talking about James Gunn. He was really good in the Suicide Squad, basically picking up doing the almost exact same thing that Will Smith was doing, but probably for less money and less pain in the ass on set. And well compared to him. Yeah, oh god, how about disinterested it? At first?

I was disinterested as an audience member. I was gonna say, like, where is the version of this movie where we got like big name actors to be this, Like I don't understand why this isn't treated the same way as like Last of Us or other video game properties, like this is a legacy video game property, Like why is this not? I means, I guess maybe because it is a movie that is the extent of it being treated as such. But to have a bunch of TV actors and then a random smattering of a ton of Australian actors as well. Uh, it doesn't.

It doesn't live up to the promise of Mortal Kombat. And there's not even enough like blood being spilled. Can you imagine like a movie that is more ricky oh in terms of like the bloodshed, Like that's oh, yeah, that's kind of what I want from a Mortal Kombat movie. Like they basically do. Yeah, they totally do a ricky oh like, especially in that first movie when I think is a Jacks that smacks his hands together brushes the guy's skull.

That's that's the thing that you want in these movies. And was this PG thirteen, I I hope not. That guy getting caught in half could not have been PEG. I'm assuming it's R because that guy the when Kano or when Shao Kan has his head split into pieces, like, that's got it. That's gotta be R.

And if you're doing R, then go all the way, baby. This is should be dropping f bombs and doing all kinds of shit. Oh, make it fun. And that's the thing, like this movie feels This video game movie feels caught in the like the before not the before times the video game movies, but a antiquated way of making video game movies that video game movies have moved past, like Fallout, Last of Us as TV shows, even that Super Mario Brothers movie showed us like, you can be fun in the universe that's already been created. You don't have to like, don't assume nobody knows what the fuck this is, Like it's fucking Mortal Kombat, like the Street Fighter movie.

The trailer for it makes it like it knows what it is. This movie, I don't think on that first Mortal Kombat movie felt like it didn't want to be perceived as a video game movie, and this movie once again feels like it's having a hard time being perceived as a video game movie when it fucking is, like, just lean more into it, just like heavily lean into it. Have fun, commit to the pit, have as much fun as Carl Urban and Josh Lawson seem. To be having so because they seem to be the only ones. Yeah yeah, they're having a great time.

Yeah yeah, genuine and like nobody else is really having as good of a time as they are. Yeah, and I had a great time watching it. So despite all of that, I mean, god, people just accuse us of hating any new movie that comes out, But I found this. Did you just see The Bride? Mike?

Yeah? I did see The Bride? Yeah, I sure did. Was this more fun than The Bride was? As?

Absolutely? Yeah? Well yes, this is something that I will be watching a second, third, fourth, fifth time. So definitely not that I. Would agree, you know, for as much as we kind of had our things to say about it.

Look, my my bar is relatively low with video game movies even to speak to like The Again, The Last of Us or The Fallout of It All, like those still don't raise the bar that high. They've only raised it higher than like Subterranean, barely, Because for the longest time, video game movies were seen as the worst of the adaptation films, like they were derided and dragged. Uva Bowl made a career odd of directing them. Like we're in a relatively like bucolic period now where video game movies are expected to be better than they used to and it's disappointing when they're not. And this movie is better than pretty much any video game movie that came out for the most part in thirty years prior to like the last five years worth of video game movies, like it still hangs together better than Annihilation or in a lot of ways that first Mortal Kombat movie.

But it's Moratal Kombat. Have some fun with it, seriously, Like, yeah, it should have a sense of fun. Like that fucking song at the end of the movie is so prenetic and energetic that they've been reusing it every time they do one of these things, like ex usually that music as a starting point for the energy that this series needs to have imbued into it, because it really needs to live up to the level of fun that one has by playing the video game. You're talking about those bucolic age of video game movies, and I'm just like, all right, I haven't seen Five Nights of Freddy. Pretty good, pretty good.

Minecraft movie was pretty good. I enjoyed it really well. It was essentially just Jumanji with Jason Momoa. Yeah, no, you're not wrong, You're not mean. You know, like it was retreading old ground, but it wasn't retreading ground that wasn't somewhat fertile ground.

It's not like they went, We're like, we're gonna redo it. We're gonna essentially use the the form and mold that Double Dragon did, like no, no, no, no, no, we're gonna rip off too much is ripping off other things and of itself. So oh yeah, well, and to your point, I mean, speaking of interse Elba, I mean, I haven't seen the Sonic movies, but I hear that they're very fun. They're probably the if we're talking the pinnacle of video game movies. I think it's Sonic, like genuinely Sonic two.

They were just like, hey, Jim, just do your thing again, and and Jim Carrey goes for it in a way that he has not in a very long time, and he really like shows up in a way that that movie needed him to. I think that the character of Sonic is fun, like James Marsden is in those movies and he kind of is just there, like, I don't know, I Sonic. You would like the Sonic movies. They're may be a little aimed for a younger audience, but still pretty good. Yeah, the Minecraft movie is not bad.

Like say what you will about Jack Black showing up in every video game movie, but between border Lands or Minecraft, I know what's one I'm taking, or Super Mario Brothers movie. I would actually take Minecraft over the Super Mario Brothers movies even because like I just it's I don't know Jason. It was the first movie I saw where I was like, oh, Jason Momoa can kind of be fun and things like when given the opportunity to just be a dork, like Jason Momoa, I think can just be a dork. And I found him endearing in that movie in a way that I really hadn't before. Well, he's totally supposed to be like a Billy Mitchell.

Type right in yeah in Minecraft? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was interesting with Minecraft. I downloaded a version of that where the effects weren't complete at all, Like it was wild to see, like you could actually see them standing in front of green screens at times, you could see green coming through their hair when stuff was going on. When it came to the main bad Pig character, her mouth never moved.

It was just a still mouth. They added all that animation of her talking later, so I was just like, this is so weird, what's going on? Why is her mouth not moving? And it was just like her face perfectly still and you hear the voice coming out of it. It was kind of it.

I haven't deleted that just because it was so fun to see how the effects were done. That's wild. Yeah, yeah, And I mean that was kind of same thing with the original Wolverine Origins movie. Remember that one. I had that one on my computer back in the.

I still have that on my computer. I've never watched the real version of it. I only watched that fucked up version with that weird like the animatics of Logan getting hit by that truck and stuff. Yeah, that for me, that's more entertaining than the actual movie itself. That is a funny point of thing that we share here.

I've never seen Origins I either, other than that version, like the version I saw in my college dorm room on my my little like eight to ten inch whatever the fuck it was, black MacBook, sitting there just being like wow, like what the well, that was the first time we ever saw Deadpool, Like you know, that was a oh yeah, I know. You're absolutely right, this is a really good like well, I'm sorry. I was kind of mixing up video games and comic books because I was just to give that Nightcrawler origin story. I mean, Jake Jillen Hall really played the shit out of that role. Funny enough that the wolf for as bad as the Wolverine movie is, the Wolverine game based on the movie is amazing And it's the first time they ever allowed you to rip dudes apart as Wolverine and like the game was rated M so you could cut dude's arms off and jam your claws into their heads and rip their heads off, and it was like, well, if the movie had been that, we might've been out a more fun of a time.

There are moments in that movie that are really good, like him and Sabertooth when they're growing up together and all that. I thought that was really fun. And the whole bone claws and stuff, like all the pre WEAPONEX stuff I thought was actually pretty entertaining. It just like kind of puts you in mind of like, yeah, this guy's hundreds of years old, Like right, he and his brother can't die really because of the regeneration. And what does that actually imply?

We should have had Hugh Jackman as Johnny Kate. That would be fun to I mean, why do you want Australians all the time? You got some Australians. I think Simon mccoyd wants Australian, Like half of the cast of this movie is just Australian. Yeah, I mean he is Australian, right, Yeah, he coiled.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, come on, that name. That name sounds like a dead giveaway, doesn't it. Wow? Yeah? Wow, not the McCoid.

Next thing, you're going to start talking about his accent and you know how big his nose is, those kind of things. Yeah, the gay Oh god, Yeah, you can tell he's Australian by the name. Simon. Yeah, you just yeah what Simon Steen. Yeah.

I would equate this movie in a lot of ways. And I was thinking about this because of just like again, just why you would have the audience being treated stupidly in this day and age about things. This movie reminded me a lot of hell Boy, the way hell Boy two was after hell Boy. It's like, where was that character from the first movie? He is gone now he puocied away?

Like, yes, same thing here, Like, just trust the audience. I think we're in a time now where either trust the audience or stop making things, because I you know, fuck, they trusted the audience enough with Spider man to not give us another another another another origin story. If you just gave us lu Kang and Kung Lau kicking the shit out of people and got people to get on board with that and interested in that, you don't have to like, oh, here's this character from the video game and there's this character, Like, you don't have to do that anymore. Like we're past We're so far past it that this is a convention of a time gone past. This reminded me a lot of ways, like Morbius with comic book movies, like we're past this, we can do we can do better.

So yeah, to your point, still, we've done a lot worse. And I would put this in the top third of video game movies. And to your point, I think from before it's much better than the first one. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, yeah, talk about tonally just sit in the bad that was That was rough man. Yeah, this one I'll watch again.

The first one, No, no, thanks, don't ever need to see. That they meet me either. And you know, if they give us a Johnny Cage spin off, for a Kaitana spinoff, I wouldn't be surprised. I would implore anybody who's a mortal Kombat fan to go watch the cartoons that they have, the feature length cartoon. One is based on Scorpion and one is based on Johnny Cage.

Those are very entertaining. I believe Joel McHale voices Johnny Cage and the cartoon uh one that focuses on his character, which, you know, physically maybe not the right pick, but like. Attitude, attitude. Yeah right, there's a universe where Ryan Reynolds could have played Johnny Cage, like I'm just gonna you know, like that's the character that I kind of expect from Johnny Cage, that conceited asshole. Absolutely.

Yeah, Well, Joel McHale played a great guyle in that Pete Holmes skit. So those Pete Holmes skits of him arranging the travel for the Street Fighter Tournament are great. Not as good though, as him as Professor X firing all of the X men. That's fucking comedy gold, especially him firing what's the creole guy? Oh Gambit, Gambit, him him firing Gambit.

That is so good. Well, I could throw him a sandwich. How could you forget Channing Tatum's great return as Gambit? Oh God, that fucking accent man well, I'm all stuck on Wolverine Origins. I forget that there is in another gambit we o oh.

Oh right, oh man, oh yeah, like core memory on Luckman, we should do a podcast in Wolverine Origins at some point. What a weird ass movie that just like got made existed? They referenced it in Deadpool two? Do they reference it in Deadpool too? Is that where they referenced it?

It kills him where Deadpool shows up and shoots him in the fucking head? Like, oh wow, I just saw what you were talking about. I had no idea what you meant about the unassure being bad CGI. Holy shit, it just came up on my Reddit just like, this is the CGI they actually used. I am stunned by this.

In the Sopranos, it is not this looks like it's fucking like Wolverine Origins was better CGI. Holy shit, I've seen better CGI in video games. Wow, speaking, how did they let this go out? It's the TV show, Mike, that's why. Oh it's a one shot.

Who cares, right, nobody's gonna watch it that closely? Euble. Wow. I mean they were complaining about those effects in thor Love and thunder. This is worse.

Man, it's bad. Wow, is the whole movie like this. I'm just watching the scene of the Punisher falling on like a container or something. Yeah. I don't know if it's all like that, but that's the worst part for sure.

Wow. Yeah, yeah, I uh, you know, there's no excuse anymore when these big budget studios came put out good CGI, Like what what are you Are you working them too hard? Are you not giving them enough time? Are you not paying them enough? Like?

What are we doing here? Like it's it. I'm not saying it should be embarrassing, but I don't I don't know how else to interpret it. Like if you're trying to make something that looks realistic, you failed, So that's a failure. Like you know, there's a moment in this movie where Johnny Cage does a flip and it's clearly just like a guy with Carl Urban's head like cgi'ed on it.

I'm like, man, that doesn't look right like and they showed it in the trailer even and I was like, this doesn't look good, Like what are we doing here? Like why are we not like pay these people some money? You guys make enough money off these goddamn movies. Like, you know, I don't know if this movie's gonna be a rounding air for Warner Brothers or not, but it might be you know, five million off the books whatever, ten million off the books whatever. We're getting a third one, no, mic, that's for certain.

Yeah, no, I mean this kind of ruled the box office. So I guess we're. Gonna be talking about Mortal Kombat three in what's how many years that this movie took to be made plus two more to be delayed again? Right right? Yeah?

Yeah, Well what's really frustrating for me, Chris, is I'll just kind of pull back the curtain a little bit, since this is a shared episode between us. I was reached out to by a PR guy. Oh gosh, when was the first time. I mean, I'll sorry to do quick math here, but the first time I heard from this PR guy was August twenty fifth, twenty twenty five, reaching out to you about upcoming film Wortal Combat. The film stars Carl Urban playing Hollywood has been Johnny cage a ton et cetera, et cetera.

Yep, Martin Ford, and it's like, okay, we're you know, we're still firming up our New York LA screening schedule, but please let us know if you're interested in taking a look. And when I was like, Hey, I'm not in New York or LA, but I would love to interview some folks, he was like, oh cool, who do you want to interview? And I said this like long list of all these people, and yeah, I'm going down to like fucking I'm like, I'll talk to anybody about this because I know we're going to talk about this, like no matter what I want to talk about. Right, Well, you've heard all of the interviews that we played during the break on this episode, and so yeah, I'm glad that this really ate off very well. And I'm glad that that they did such a stellar job of blicicity quoting this film Jesus christ Man.

So I reached out to the guy again like a month ago, and I was like, hey, dude, like after he had to tell me like, this movie's being delayed, but we don't know where it's coming out. October twenty four, twenty twenty five is when it was supposed to come. Out, right, So okay, Oh god, damn, that's almost eight months ago now, yes, yes. So okay, cut to like two months ago. Hey, dude, like, let's rekindle this.

I would love to know who I could talk to. I want to do this episode, you know, all this kind of stuff. And it's like, okay, great, yeah, we're working on it. And then I reached out to him again two weeks ago, maybe three, three weeks ago. He's like, oh great, I'm turning you over to this other team because this is my last week here.

So I'm like, oh my god, it's us. I'm like, is it your last week here because you've done such a piss for job or is it your last week here because the rest of the company is doing such a fucked up job and you're going over to better pastures. I hope it's the latter one. Like, if so, more power to you, buddy. They screwed the pooch when it came to this, And I don't even understand some of the marketing of this.

Obviously we talked about the Johnny caged ness of it, but like I was watching an Instagram reel and they're talking about it was this this kid with these sunglasses and he's like, these are my grandfather's sunglasses or something like Carl Urban takes them. It just obviously blatantly breaks them and is like, oh, I'd give you mine, but the prescription. And I'm like, is this supposed to be funny, because this is not funny at all, and this is so staged, Like this is just really stupid. I didn't know what they're doing with this. So despite the marketing of this film, I still had a good time.

Yeah, the marketing for this movie did it no favors. I did not see a lot of marketing for the film. I did not see Carl Urban on hot ones with Sean Evans eating chicken wings, like, I didn't see any of that, Like. You, bloody son of a bit. I know, I was waiting for it, and you know what, I get the distinct feeling street Fighter is probably gonna do all of it.

And street Fighter has a leg up because and that was the other thing. Street Fighter knows its audience because it has not one but two and who knows, possibly even three, there might be more. And I just am forgetting wrestlers from the WWWE in their film. So they have automatic like advertising, like Cody Rhodes is playing Gyle, like, yes, he's one of the biggest superstars in the w W, and he's one of the main characters in that movie ostensibly like free advertising, free eyes on the product, like. And I only know him as the bartender from Naked Gun.

Well, the funny thing is his scene in Street Fighter looks like it was filmed in the same club from Naked Gun. So the lighting looks fucking identical. I mean, they really went insane with his hair too. That's the That's the thing I'm afraid of. And I'm gonna put this out in the universe right now.

I'm afraid that this is all going to be the Ken and Ryu story. And I never played Ken or Ryu. I could not care about those characters whatsoever. I did find it funny that Ken is beating up a car in the trailer. I'm like, okay, yeah, it looks like a publicity stunt.

I'm like, yeah, yeah, that makes it. It makes us much sense as when they had to beat up a car in the game. So what I like that again, it seems just visually that the Street Fighter movie understands the source material like exactly. And maybe I'm wrong, and I'm putting this out into the universe myself, like I hope that the Street Fighter movie understands the tone of the source material and that it is wacky and weird and it is not self serious. Loez.

Yeah, and just line about and Chunley's thighs in the trailer. I was like, okay, good, I'm glad you were bringing that up, right. Like I want that so badly, and I hope, you know, maybe that won't be it, maybe it'll flop harder than this movie, but fingers crossed, you know, I just don't know. It's it's wild that Mortal Combat and Street Fighter both having films coming out in the same year. It once again adds further fuel to the fire of these two franchises.

But I mean, I'm sure we're gonna cover Street Fighter. If we weren't going to before, we are going to now obviously. And I hope when we're done with that episode we are having had a better time tonally with that movie than we did with this movie. But I to your point, like, I'll rewatch this movie and I'll probably rewatch it again in the next week, like you know, Carl Urb And thank god for you as an actor, my friend. Seriously, absolutely, yeah, yeah, you made what could have been a pretty shitty movie into something really enjoyable.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he one of the few things the film really has going for it. So so yeah, until I guess we do another one of these crossover episodes. You can find me over at wordingwaymedia dot com, where this show and all the other shows I work on can be found, other than Ranking on Bond, which is coming to a close very quickly at the beginning of June, but we will be transitioning to a non Patreon exclusive show after that. It will be on Patreon a month early ad free, but the next show that we are doing will be a show that is not on Patreon. So yeah, that's where you can find all the things that I work on.

What about you, Mike. Ironically, it's the same thing all the way down the line, Weirdingwaymedia dot com Patreon exclusive, just a different Patreon address. But everybody who's listening to this should hopefully know you go to patreon dot com slash Projection Booth or patreon dot com slash culturecast, give us your heart in cash, give us your heart earned cash, and yeah, enjoy some some free entertainment. Yeah, and as always, like rate and review the show wherever you get it. If you get my Show on iTunes or Spotify, or Mike Show on iTunes or Spotify.

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