MORTAL KOMBAT: REBIRTH and LEGACY: (Almost) Flawless Victory

Mortal Kombat: Legacy (2011) – Directed by Ken Tancharoen – Starring Michael Jai White, Jeri Ryan, Lateef Crowder, Darren Shahlavi, Tahmoh Penikett, Matt Mullins, Sam Tjhia, Jolene Tran, Ryan Robbins, Ian Anthony Dale, Kevan Ohtsji, Shane Warren Jones, Peter Shinkoda, Kirby Morrow, Erica Cerra, and Tracy Spiridakos.

Conceived by Ken Tancharoen, MORTAL KOMBAT: REBIRTH is an 8-minute short produced in the hopes of getting Warner Brothers to greenlight a new MORTAL KOMBAT movie. Instead of a movie, Time Warner approved a new web series, MORTAL KOMBAT: LEGACY, a series of nine webisodes telling six stand-alone stories.

It’s phenomenal.

I’m glad I didn’t get around to watching either the movie or the series until now, because the second season of LEGACY will air in a few months and a feature film is reportedly in the offing for sometime in this calendar year, too. I can’t wait.

REBIRTH takes the MORTAL KOMBAT franchise and grounds it as a gritty, realistic (more or less), contemporary drama. Jackson Briggs (Michael Jai White) and Sonya Blade (Jeri Ryan) work in the Deacon City Police Department. The world of Deacon City is not-quite-apocalyptic but things are bad. There are killers running around by the names of Baraka (Lateef Crowder) and Reptile (Richard Dorton), physical oddities who are monstrous in deed as well as appearance.ni

I love the storytelling technique in REBIRTH. The entire 8 minutes promo is controlled by Jacks (not Jax, apparently). Sitting in an interrogation room, he lays out the status quo to a prisoner who’s face is kept in shadow the entire time. Jacks tells this shadowed figure about Reptile and Baraka, the latter responsible for the death of Johnny Cage (Matt Mullins), an ex-actor who’s been working undercover for the cops after his career went in the toilet.

I love this reinterpretation of the franchise, but Tancharoen went a bit too far with the gore and grotesque for my personal tastes. I will say, however, that even though I didn’t need to see Reptile munching on the flesh of decapitated heads he keeps in his refrigerator, it’s useful to clearly mark REBIRTH as something new. The video games are rather violent, of course, and this mini-film isn’t shying away that violence.

After Sonya joins Jacks in the interrogation room, the identity of their captive is revealed: Scorpion (Ian Anthony Dale). Jacks and Sonya want to release Scorpion so he can join some bad-ass martial arts tournament featuring the baddest of the bad. Given that he used to be the best assassin, they figure simply releasing him will get him an invite. Befitting the violent tone of the film, Jacks and Sonya want him to kill everyone at the tournament. They believe killing all of the Reptiles and Barakas is the only way to save the city.

The success of REBIRTH led to the creation of LEGACY, which is even better. There’s a few continuity changes – Johnny Cage isn’t dead and the supernatural element has been folded back in, and they are both positive changes. There are six stories told over the nine episodes and they’re all largely stand-alone. LEGACY doesn’t tell a story as much as it sets up a future story. In effect, it’s just REBIRTH done longer and better.

This isn’t a huge complaint because most of the stories work wonderfully and you can understand why a Michael Jai White or Jeri Ryan wouldn’t want to stick around for 9 webisodes, and that the studio might not want to pay them to stick around, either. Not knowing this, it was a bit disappointing to see them dominate the first and second episodes and then vanish from the narrative. I was also a bit disappointed that each episode reset itself – meaning that after every short film, I had to sit through a credit sequence and then a new introductory sequence that – if it were a part 2two – recapped what I had just seen.

This is a huge pet peeve of mine, and I fully admit that this is a #firstworldproblem. But when I’m watching a series on Netflix, why do I have to watch the same intro and credit sequences over and over again? There should be a “skip intro” button.

So, I was annoyed, but that’s because I didn’t understand we were getting nine shorts instead of a full film.

My favorite of the nine episodes was the Scorpion and Sub-Zero entry, which takes the time to establish Hanzo Hasashi as a good father and husband before he becomes the assassin Scorpion, but the Raiden entry is equally strong. In that single-episode story, Raiden (Ryan Robbins) is teleported into an insane asylum and captured. He spends the rest of the episode dealing with a disbelieving, lobotomy happy staff. He convinces a fellow patient (played by Revolution’s Tracy Spiridakos) to kill him, which allows him to reappear in a new location. Raiden’s story is the most tightly told, and really crackles (heh) with a narrative intensity at seeing the god of thunder locked away in an insane asylum and at the mercy of merciless doctors.

It’s rare that I make recommendations for readers to go out and buy or watch a movie, but if you like action movies or MORTAL KOMBAT, I definitely recommend picking LEGACY out of the bargain bin and giving it a watch. Much like the Thomas Jane-starring Punisher “fan movie” released earlier this year was the best Punisher film we’ve seen, LEGACY is far and away the best MORTAL KOMBAT film and an excellent web series compared to anything else, too.

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And if you like good sci-fi action stories with strong female leads, please check out my 2011 novel,HARPSICHORD AND THE WORMHOLE WITCHES.

Harpsichord & the Wormhole Witches. The First Novel of the Deep. Now Available at Amazon.com in Paperback. From Atomic Anxiety Press.

THE DARK KNIGHT: Some Men Just Want to Watch the World Burn

The Dark Knight (2008) – Directed by Christopher Nolan – Starring Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Morgan Freeman, Eric Roberts, Michael Jai White, Tiny Lister, Chin Han, Nestor Carbonell, William Fichtner, and Cillian Murphy.

THE DARK KNIGHT is a big, complicated, extremely well made, grown up movie. This is not likely the first time you’ve heard that, and not only have I talked about THE DARK KNIGHT repeatedly over the past four years, everyone has repeatedly talked about this movie over the past four years. Here’s what we know: THE DARK KNIGHT is a brilliant movie with brilliant performances and brilliant directing. Chris Nolan does a fantastic job stuffing KNIGHT (and BATMAN BEGINS and maybe DARK KNIGHT RISES – I’ll know later today) full of ideas.

Here’s what I’m not going to do: I’m not going to walk you through the plot. Given the length of some of my reviews for new movies, I shudder to think how many words I would have churned out had I reviewed KNIGHT when it was released instead of after four years of the world obsessing over the film. To be honest, if I wasn’t planning on seeing DARK KNIGHT RISES tomorrow (actually, now, later today), I’d have watched Man-Thing over DARK KNIGHT. It’s not that Man-Thing is likely to be a better film, but it’s a film I haven’t seen and a film I haven’t spent any time talking about with people who have seen it.

So, in summation: DARK KNIGHT is brilliant and lots and lots and lots of people on the internet have written about it ad nauseum, so I’m going to focus on the three areas that strike me as most relevant.

I: PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

It’s hard not to watch the Nolan Batman films in the wake of the Aurora shootings, but DARK KNIGHT is all about the responsibility an individual bears for the actions of others. Bruce wanted to become a symbol in BATMAN BEGINS and here we see the unintended consequence of achieving that goal. Initially, we see the intended consequence, that some criminals are curbing their behavior because they fear his presence, but immediately after this we see the unintended consequence of becoming an inspiration, and that’s how others will try to walk in your shoes. There are men across Gotham who are dressing up as Batman and going out and fighting crime.

Bruce (Christian Bale) is not amused, arresting them alongside the Scarecrow’s (Cillian Murphy) crew. “What’s the difference between you and us?” one of the Pretend Batmen asks, to which Bats replies, “I don’t wear hockey pads.” For Bruce, of course, the problem is that he now sees another layer of Gothamites that need his protection – the wannabes. But it also stresses the Chaos vs. Order idea represented in the film with the Joker (Heath Ledger) vs. Batman. It’s nice that Bruce feels protective, but the individual still has to bear the responsibility for their own actions.

In the Nolan films, Bruce Wayne is always looking for the reasons why things happen; it’s as if he sees himself as the nexus of all bad things in the universe – either he’s looking for the reasons why the bad things have happened to him or he’s fretting over the bad things he’s caused. It’s a crippling emotional state to be in and the truth is, no matter that the message comes from the Joker or the Scarecrow, Bruce really is a guy who could use some therapy – whether that comes in the form of a professional or just a friend.

II: PERSONAL DESIRES VS. PUBLIC GOOD

I really don’t like superhero stories about superheroes who don’t want to be superheroes. There’s a bit of that in DARK KNIGHT when Bruce becomes immobilized by all of the Joker’s killings. The Joker decides he wants to see Bats unmasked and so he says, “If Batman doesn’t unmask himself, I’ll keep killing,” and Bruce says, “Well, I guess I have to shut everything down and turn myself in.”

Here’s a thought – be a detective and find the Joker.

Unfortunately, there’s just not a lot of detective work in Nolan’s films. Well, not a lot from Bruce, who’s always giving Alfred or Lucius the time-consuming tasks.

Bruce is willing to give up being the Batman because he thinks this will get him Rachel (Maggie Gyllenhaal), even though, as she points out, “They won’t let us be together once you do this.” But Bruce is still willing to do this until Dent steps up and tells the world that’s he’s actually the Batman. Dent is counting on Bats to take advantage of the situation to catch the Joker; Dent’s willingness to make himself the bait gets Bruce out of his funk. Bruce’s desperate attachment to Rachel is yet another sign that he’s still more little boy than man, but Rachel’s decision to ultimately choose Harvey over Bruce is a sign that she isn’t.

And Alfred’s decision to hide this information from Bruce after Rachel’s death shows that he knows Bruce is still a little boy, too.

III: SOME MEN JUST WANT TO WATCH THE WORLD BURN

This is Alfred’s big line about explaining the Joker to Bruce when he’s in his quest to make sense of things, but Alfred is wrong – at least when it comes to the Joker, because the Clown Prince is continually trying to make points. He’s not just interested in creating chaos, as he says at one point, but in making grand points: he wants to bring the Batman to his knees and he wants to drag Dent, the city’s “White Knight” down to his level. The Joker seems very interested in making the point that everyone can fall, to give in to their darker nature.

And that’s something you have to pay attention to in DARK KNIGHT because Nolan pulls this trick between dialogue and action. He has people make very dramatic statements that end up being false (such as with Alfred), lies (the Joker), or even meaningless (Bruce’s declarations about quitting).

There are also loads of unnecessary bits in DARK KNIGHT that could have been cut to produce a tighter narrative – such as the big action sequence in Hong Kong or the bits with Bruce getting ready to turn himself in. There are also unnecessary swerves: Bruce’s decision to out himself, which doesn’t happen and Jim Gordon’s (Gary Oldman) death, which turns out to have been faked.

THE DARK KNIGHT is a great film, but I do get the sense that some of this is due to Nolan’s complete confidence in the material he’s presenting. Nolan’s The Prestige is about creating illusions and that’s part of what Nolan does in DARK KNIGHT – by having a character’s words and actions, or their words and the film’s actions, work at cross purposes, Nolan makes his film’s more complicated than they initially appear.

At the end of the film, Bruce learns that if he truly wants to be the symbol that Gotham needs, he needs to take one for the team. Instead of having Harvey Dent take the fall for his crimes, Batman and Gordon conspire to have Batman take the fall. It’s a very Frank Miller-esque twist and it works for me because it works as the penance Bruce needs to pay for all of his sins.

And there’s a lot of them.

All told, however, while there’s lots of little problems with DARK KNIGHT, Nolan’s vision is powerful enough to see it through. There’s great performances throughout the film (especially Ledger) and it definitely keeps me hooked, but I am coming around to the idea that BATMAN BEGINS is actually a better overall film while DARK KNIGHT is a better overall illusion.

But it is a hell of an illusion.