Before we start, for reasons I’ve long forgotten I felt compelled to start this with some of the items on my Bucket List. Feel free to compare and contrast to your own.

1: Attend a venue with a cloak room and check in an actual cloak
2: Form a shield wall/testudo when exiting a peak hour train. We get out, then you get on. That’s how this functions.
3: Run a LARP in a BBC quarry.
4: Run a LARP that has a cavalry charge with players mounted on hobby horses.
5: Stand at the base of the Eiffel Tower, look up and yell “BYE BYE DUGGAN!”
6: Dramatically entering a room/event to Anvil of Crom OR kicking in a door to the opening of the Funky Gibbon.
7: Do a Ramones based tour of New York City. Visit where CBGB used to be, shed a few tears at Joey Ramone Place and see the wall against which the cover of their first album was shot. I’m not a religious man, but that’s holy ground as far as I’m concerned.

But what have I been doing outside of work, sword and depression? Sure, I’ve been kept busy blocking ads for AI and shitty video game emulators, and continue to contemplate taking one of my LARP swords in to keep behind me at the store on Black Friday. But outside that, I was watching The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare and the idea that it’s basically a stealth prequel/sequel to The Man from UNCLE popped in my head, so it’s film review time! I’m not touching that film yet, as I haven’t finished it, so it’s time to review *90’s electro guitar noises* MORTAL KOMBAT! Oh, and the 90’s Spawn film.

It’s been a bounty of unexpected nostalgia, or unplanned stupidity depending on your take. Either way, choosing to watch the 90’s Mortal Kombat and Spawn films was not a sensible move on my part, though it ended well. Having not seen either since their initial cinema release (I’ve never claimed to have had good taste as a teen*) and seeing them turn up on Netflix. Yes, I know I have a nostalgia problem, thank you for letting me know… I probably shouldn’t be left alone for quite so long when I’m in this state of mind. Anyhow, let’s begin! First off, I’d long forgotten that both films gave Frank ‘Megatron’ Welker a gig, though having the big bad of your film have the voice of Doctor Claw is slightly less than intimidating, and that’s without mentioning the shonky late 90’s CGI. Spawn’s highlight was Nicol ‘Merlin’ Williamson both chewing all the scenery and being oddly restrained at the same time, as least compared to his turn in Excalibur.

Martin Sheen is there solely for the pay cheque, but looks less embarrassed than he does a couple of years later in Babylon 5: River of Souls. I have to give points to John Leguizamo for coping with the clown makeup and costume, though that may have hidden the look of ‘What the fuck am I doing?’ as he delivered his dialogue. As for the lead, Michael Jai White reminds me of Mark Dacascos, in the sense they’re both skilled martial artists and solid actors who deserve better careers, It wants to be all 90’s and grimdark, but it doesn’t have the skill set to get it over the line. I paid to see worse films as a teen (Super Mario Brothers comes to mind), but seeing Jai White trying his best to elevate a mediocre film, it just made me want to watch Black Dynamite again. But let me ask you, how can you not want to watch a film where Richard Nixon pulls out a set of presidential nun-chucks?

As for Mortal Kombat, it’s all about Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa chewing the scenery. About the only thing I recalled outside that was the mystifying even at the time casting of Christopher Lambert as Raiden, but his repeated use of “Heh heh heh” and “I don’t think so” were oddly amusing. I think he, Tagawa and Linden Ashby (Johnny Cage) were the only ones who enjoyed themselves, given how seriously everyone else seems to take things. Or it could just be their acting coaches told them to scowl in place of character development, cause it sure as hell ain’t in the script.

It wants to be all gritty and ultra violent as the games were, but’s hampered by a low budget, limited technology so it’s more of an 80’s ninja movie filled with unnecessary backflips and spandex costumes, but it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. Despite my mockery of it’s CGI, the limited abilities of it’s cast (To be fair to Bridgette Wilson, she was a last minute replacement and didn’t get anywhere near as much fight training) and costumes, the Goro suit was genuinely well done. Clearly that’s where a lot of the budget went. Overall, it’s very much a sign showing the way to the future for Paul WS Anderson’s directorial career, though it’s too early for his ‘this movie was an excuse to show off my wife’ phase of directing, as that began after he married Milla Jovovich. My theory on his 2011 The Three Musketeers was Jovovich had been shooting an audition reel to play Black Widow and things got out of hand. On that note, Blade Trinity is vastly improved by treating it as Ryan Reynolds making an overly elaborate audition tape for Deadpool.

Going further down the rabbit hole, that led me to watch the 2021 Mortal Kombat reboot, and that was a hell of a lot more fun. It’s still not great – the plot is formulaic, the cast are mostly unknown to me with the exception of Hiroyuki Sanada, who I’m always happy to see. I could say it’s a top tier video game adaption, but that’s also a very low bar. In it’s defence, it’s a lot of fun, had solid fight choreography and wasn’t hamstrung by having to tone down it’s violence to appeal to a younger audience. Indeed, it takes great delight in the way people can murder each other, with fists, blades, gardening tools and even a large hat all being put to ferocious blood splattering use. The fight scenes vary, and don’t extend their welcome, something I couldn’t say about certain almost never-ending fights in John Wick 4.

The film’s MVP though, is Kano. Oh fuck yes, you magnificent bastard. Throwing an Australian yobbo into ‘Enter the Dragon with magic’ may not seem like a smart idea on paper, but he’s the film’s highlight and I will die on that hill. (I’m definitely taking notes from his performance for the next time I play the Yowie at Ravenswood) There’s a noted lack of over the top scenery chewing from the bad guys in contrast to the 90’s incarnation, but on the whole it’s a vast improvement. It’s still not what I’d call a good film, but it’s an entertaining one and that’s all I expected from it. I’m actually looking forward to the sequel, and that’s something I didn’t expect.

So, that’s what I’ve been doing with my time of late. Worthwhile or worthless, I leave up to you. Be seeing you…

*To quote the speech I gave at my sister’s wedding, “She had a short lived love of the Spice Girls as a teen. It was the 90’s, I don’t judge. I am yet to grow out of my teenage love of Iron Maiden, and have no plans to do so.”