Karl Urban's Johnny Cage dominated all the marketing. Liu Kang is repeatedly declared, throughout the film, to be "the best fighter we've got". So who defeats the big bad Shao Kahn in 1v1 combat and wins the day?
Kitana, of course! Who else? Get subverted, expectations!
Classic girl bossing aside, Mortal Kombat 2 was one of the dumbest movies I've ever seen. My personal highlight was Liu Kang exiting the film like fucking Poochie from the Simpsons. I've never seen a lazier or more convoluted character extraction in my life. I highly recommend you seek out and watch his final scene. It's hilarious.
Anyways, MK2 inexplicably got a pass from all the usual anti-woke content creators. This just keeps happening. Someone like The Critical Drinker will give his stamp of approval to some new media, I'll take a chance on it, only to discover it has many of the same woke elements found in every other mainstream offering. I guess all these "based" YouTube reviewers got one-shot by Buffy when they were teenagers because none of them seem to mind a girl boss.
So two thumbs way down for the new Mortal Kombat movie.
I think MK2 gets a pass because magic and source material.
Sub-zero isn't a strong character because he's a man, but because he can freeze people solid. A baby that could freeze people would be formidable.
The games had female characters that were on par with the men, so it's true to the source.
For these reasons I'd look at the proportion and how they fight. Three out of 12? fighters being women is a little much but not really bad. Half and half would be totally ridiculous.
As for fighting, in the original MK Sonya Blade gets in a few hits that are possible, but basically it's just strongman Kano smacks her in the head once and she's down like John Stossel, kicks her in the ribs and it looks fucking brutal - she's done. He could win at that point but he's playing with her. Then she gets a lucky one-hit kill that's justified by her better skills. In original MK Kano would win 99/100 fights with Sonya and that's why it works.
In modern girl boss she'll get clocked by a 300 lb muscle man and just shake it off like it was nothing. It's strength vs strength when it should be strength vs ability because that's the only way a female fighter could win.
Sure, but we all know that that's not why they would have written it this way in the movie.
Zero tolerance for this shit.
Also, Bridgette Wilson had zero physical presence, due to her complete lack of a shred of physical ability. And they put her in a leather bustier at the end of the movie.
Also Goro looked like a rubber suit instead of a real Goro.
Why? You just said magic exists, so someone with powers would be formidable no matter their stature, gender, age, whatever.
Not all the fighters have magic and magic doesn't trump everything else.
Without magic there should be zero women in any real championship.
She's over 10,000 years old and can teleport. Not all fighters have magic, but she certainly does. Magic may not always trump everything else, but it clearly does in some fights.
Cool. Not really relevant here, because in this world, there is magic. There are superhuman beings with overwhelming ability, strength, and pain tolerance. Some of them are women, and have powers that can defeat even the strongest fighters. It's why even if you pick Baraka, a massive mutant with blades coming out of his forearms, you still might lose to Cassie Cage, a normal human that can create forcefields.
It sounds like you're agreeing with everything I said.
If you agree there's a physical component to the battles, which obviously there is, then it shouldn't be 1:1 ratio.