MORON KOMBAT

MORTAL KOMBAT (1995)
dir: Paul Anderson

MORON KOMBAT
Cracked #303, November 1995
w: Andy Simmons
a: John Severin

Moron Kombat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The director's not Paul Thomas Anderson who did Magnolia and There Will Be Blood. That would be interesting if it was, though.

This seems to assume we're familiar with the game it's based on. I know nothing about video games past the old school arcade games of my youth, so I tried to follow as best as I could. Something to do with three of the greatest fighters on Earth summoned to another world to fight beings there in order to save the fate of the world.

Raiden (Christopher Lambert) has chosen three people to fight members of Outerworld in order to win the tenth tournament to the death, and prevent them from conquering the Earth. The three members of Earth are movie star Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby), Shaolin monk Liu Kang (Robin Shou), and military special forces officer Sonya Blade (Brigitte Wilson). Among those they must fight are Sub-Zero (François Petit).

They are sent to the island owned by Shang Tsung (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) to compete. Sonya is accidentally referred to here by her real name.

Ater a brief bout with Princess Kitana (Talisa Soto), she advises Liu to use the force of life for his upcoming battle with Sub-Zero.

In one of the prelimary fights of the tournament, warriors are defeated by Prince Goro (Kevin Michael Richardson), who has killed Art Lean (Kenneth Edwars) and Shang Tsung has sucked out his soul.

Johnny has defeated Goro through surprise and Tsung retaliates by kidnapping Sonya.

Kitana reveals to Johnny and Liu that Outerworld was once a paradise until the previous battles, another reason this one must be won. Liu and Johnny find Sonya and Liu duels Shang under Shang's terms. Shang attempts to play to Liu's emotions by transforming into his dead brother.

In the actual movie Liu defeats Shang, releasing all the souls he has taken and a parade in the Orient is held in their honor. Here Shang transforms into the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and Liu morphs into a Transformer. The souls that come out of Shang Tsung are the Ghostly Trio from Casper.

Here was the cover to the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous based on the third version of the video game, which had nine sequels, and I guess has more voilence than allowed in the movie.