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.
Sure, and I appreciate the technical detail those guys go into. They obviously know a lot more than me about movies and the industry, but they are still operating under the impression that these terrible movies are a mistake and that clouds their judgement. They want the studios to make good movies again so they get their hopes up whenever there's the smallest hint that a movie isn't actually going to take a dump in their popcorn.
The same people are getting cast by the studios, which are still run by the same people. If a movie seems "based", it's only because they're trying to be subtle about it.
Yep, agreed