Speaker 1: Weird weir. Muscle combat is upon us.
Speaker 2: Get over here, Johnny Case because she was you.
Speaker 1: To fight well crazy, all right, I'm an actor. I
Speaker 1: can't do this.
Speaker 2: It's time to become the hero you were meant to
Speaker 2: be Mortal Kombat Too. Who you doing?
Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to the Culture Cast and also
Speaker 1: the Projection move I am your host Chris Dashu, and
Speaker 1: I am joined by the Ube cyboch. Oh, sorry, I
Speaker 1: am joining. I was hoping you would do your name backwards.
Speaker 1: I guess you know what Nube Sibot is, right, it's
Speaker 1: the creators of the games names backwards.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: I never knew that Yeh ed Boone and John Tobias
Speaker 1: were the creators of Mortal Kombat. So Nube Saibot is
Speaker 1: just their last names backwards.
Speaker 2: Oh how toasty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jesus Jesus Christ, this guy he's already. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: On this episode of the Culture Cast in the Projection Booth,
Speaker 1: we're taking a look at twenty twenty six is sequel
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty one's Mortal Kombat. This film is aptly
Speaker 1: titled no follow Me here, Folks.
Speaker 2: Mortal Too Annihilation.
Speaker 1: God damn it, I wish I wish, I wish, I
Speaker 1: wish I saw an article that was like Annihilation stumbled
Speaker 1: so Mortal Kombat two could run. I'm like, no, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Annihilation's fucking bad. Like Annihilation was talked about
Speaker 1: as one of the worst videoka movies ever made for
Speaker 1: the longest time.
Speaker 2: So yeah, no, it's aamously bad special effects.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it fucking face planted like it's yeah. But yeah,
Speaker 1: on this episode, we're gonna be talking a little bit
Speaker 1: about twenty twenty six is Mortal Kombat. We will be
Speaker 1: spoiling the film if that is a thing you care about. Uh,
Speaker 1: before we talk spoilers in the film specifically, Mike, would
Speaker 1: you suggest people go check this out in theaters because
Speaker 1: right now that's the only place you could see it.
Speaker 2: If you like silly movies, this is a good one.
Speaker 2: Do not think that this is high art by any
Speaker 2: stretch of the imagination. I had a fun time watching this,
Speaker 2: but I also was prepped for exactly what I got
Speaker 2: is Does that mean you took an before you went No, No,
Speaker 2: I was prepped and ready.
Speaker 1: I was fucking My wife was having to hold me
Speaker 1: down in the seat, and I was pacing out in
Speaker 1: the theater. Ah, I mean I would agree. I would say,
Speaker 1: for me, if you watched the first movie from twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one and you thought to yourself, man, this movie
Speaker 1: is really serious for something as Look, I love Mortal Komba.
Speaker 1: It's my favorite fighting game series period. It is the
Speaker 1: one that my parents took away when I was a child.
Speaker 1: It's the one that I still play as an adult
Speaker 1: more regularly than anything else. It's the one whose characters
Speaker 1: I think, other than maybe Techan and a little bit
Speaker 1: of street Fighter, are like etched in my psyche. If
Speaker 1: you didn't like how serious the first one was, this
Speaker 1: one I think addresses what dumb fun Mortal Kombat is,
Speaker 1: because Mortal Kombat is not a serious franchise by any
Speaker 1: stretch of the imagination, and the video games have tried
Speaker 1: to make it a little bit more serious. In the
Speaker 1: storylines in the video game I think are more serious
Speaker 1: than the movies are. But I think even in the
Speaker 1: video games they're kind of still fun adjacent, if not
Speaker 1: still fun depending on the game we're talking about. Uh So,
Speaker 1: I would suggest if you're a fan of Mortal Kombat,
Speaker 1: go watch it. I like Mike said, if you're a
Speaker 1: fan of dumb action movies. I would suggest watching it,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're a fan of Carl Urban, I
Speaker 1: would say go watch it because there were very few
Speaker 1: movies that he's the fucking lead in.
Speaker 2: Uh well, one of my first questions maybe not.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, he's as much the lead in this
Speaker 1: movie as he is and a lot of the other things.
Speaker 1: He's the lead or one of the lead characters in
Speaker 1: Star Trek, Dread. Yeah, guess he's the main character in
Speaker 1: Dread more.
Speaker 2: Than he's definitely the main character in Dred. Yeah. I
Speaker 2: would think this is more akin to like this is
Speaker 2: about as much screen time as he gets in like
Speaker 2: Thor Ragnock. You would think from the trailer that this
Speaker 2: is purely a Johnny Cage movie. And I was there
Speaker 2: for it. I love Carl Urban. You know, you just
Speaker 2: named off quite a few of the films, you know,
Speaker 2: the franchises, the films that I love that he's in.
Speaker 2: I don't know how many times I've seen Judge Dread,
Speaker 2: probably eighty or ninety times. I'm not exaggerating, And yeah
Speaker 2: it's it's Star Trek, Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings, one of my favorites, Doom and
Speaker 1: No I'm not kidding. He's actually one of the better
Speaker 1: parts of that move a movie that is really talk about,
Speaker 1: a movie that looks like it's going to be The
Speaker 1: Rocks movie, and it's actually Karl Urbans.
Speaker 2: He really is so much fun to watch. And as
Speaker 2: soon as I saw that first trailer for Mortal Kometu,
Speaker 2: and that was a long time ago, because let's not
Speaker 2: forget that this was delayed for quite a little bit,
Speaker 2: which is never a good sign. But when I saw
Speaker 2: that first trailer and it was set up to be basically,
Speaker 2: this is a Johnny Cage thing, and he was just
Speaker 2: the star of the whole trailer, talked about like his career,
Speaker 2: and they had the whole model Taje that we see
Speaker 2: in here, where it's like look at all these movie
Speaker 2: season and all this and him stuck at this convention
Speaker 2: and stuff. I'm like, yes, yes, this is I am
Speaker 2: so here for this. This is gonna be great. And
Speaker 2: then when I learned there were other characters in the movie,
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, okay, And really, I would say Kitana
Speaker 2: is probably our main character. Though in a movie like this,
Speaker 2: it's so hard to tell because there's I'll say it,
Speaker 2: there's too many characters, too many fucking characters. They pay
Speaker 2: so much service to that mythology, and I don't give
Speaker 2: a shit about the mythology of Mortal Kombat. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: Like I never I played Mortal Kombat when it was
Speaker 2: at I.
Speaker 1: Was gonna ask you, what is your exposure to Mortal
Speaker 1: Kombat really.
Speaker 2: Just basically Pinball Pietez just playing it on a machine,
Speaker 2: Like I did not have the game. I don't remember
Speaker 2: that because it was the whole thing of like was
Speaker 2: it street Fighter two was SMEs and then what Mortal
Speaker 2: Kombat was? Sega?
Speaker 1: Does that right? It was? It was so Mortal Kombat
Speaker 1: was was it was green Blood on Super Nintendo and
Speaker 1: on Sega they allowed it to have the red blood
Speaker 1: because what the issue was, so that kind of like
Speaker 1: censored the game on.
Speaker 2: I did not play it very much at all when
Speaker 2: it came to just like I would literally just pay
Speaker 2: quarters for it. So I never was sitting at home
Speaker 2: or sitting in my college dorm room, sitting in my
Speaker 2: college house with my friends. I was there playing Street
Speaker 2: Fighter too. I was you know, I was being Blanca,
Speaker 2: I was being chun Lee. I was being e Honda,
Speaker 2: Edmund Honda all those kind of things, And I didn't
Speaker 2: you know, like that the the amount of mythology that
Speaker 2: you got in the SNS booklet of like oh Edmund
Speaker 2: Honda was raised in Japan and blah blah blah, like
Speaker 2: Chun Lee's father was killed. That's as much mythology as
Speaker 2: I need. I don't need all this stuff, So you know,
Speaker 2: I will say kind of going back to do I
Speaker 2: recommend this should you see it in the movie theater,
Speaker 2: those kind of things. If you liked the original Mortal
Speaker 2: Kombat as in the Paul W. S Anderson film, this
Speaker 2: is more akin to that. This is that type of fun.
Speaker 2: The special effects are decent. I would say the special
Speaker 2: effects are probably better than the twenty twenty one film.
Speaker 2: Some of those are real fucking rough. I think that
Speaker 2: Goro looks better in the Paul W. S Anderson film
Speaker 2: than he does in the Simon mcquad film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's like, and that's the problem. Like I went
Speaker 1: and rewatched the twenty twenty one film over the weekend
Speaker 1: before I watched this the sequel, and one of my
Speaker 1: close friends who he and I like, Mortal Kombat is
Speaker 1: one of like our things, like our kind of like
Speaker 1: points of reference. Like, we love Mortal Kombat collectively, it's
Speaker 1: one of the things we talk about. It's one of
Speaker 1: the things we bitch about because of the way they've
Speaker 1: treated the franchise in the last couple decades since the
Speaker 1: last movies came out. The first movies came out. And
Speaker 1: one of the things I said to him that really
Speaker 1: triggered him was when I rewatched the first movie, I
Speaker 1: didn't hate the Cole Young character as much as the
Speaker 1: first time I watched it, because it in the the
Speaker 1: immediacy of him being inserted into this world, character had
Speaker 1: already gone away and I had accepted it and whatever.
Speaker 1: It's fine, like, and this movie, boy, well, this movie
Speaker 1: really says good night to that fucking character. Uh. That
Speaker 1: first movie was so self serious, and it's because of
Speaker 1: that character. It's because they created a new character and
Speaker 1: he's the eyes of the audience. Why didn't you just
Speaker 1: make that first movie, the Johnny Cage movie. I don't understand, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't understand why you would make this movie after
Speaker 1: having made that movie when this movie is a sequel
Speaker 1: to that movie, and this movie is doing what that
Speaker 1: movie did, and this movie sidelines the character from that
Speaker 1: first movie. I know nobody was a fan of the
Speaker 1: character in the first movie, but then they should have
Speaker 1: just not made him. They should have just they had
Speaker 1: a fucking guy from Earth realm. They even had a
Speaker 1: woman from Earth Realm that they could have used as
Speaker 1: the fish out of Water character, and instead they were like,
Speaker 1: let's just make somebody up, Like, but why.
Speaker 2: That made no sense to me? Yeah, and like I
Speaker 2: even as a not I'm not gonna say a non
Speaker 2: fan because it makes it sound like I don't like it.
Speaker 2: Like there are a lot of things about Moral Kombat
Speaker 2: that I love. I mean, you know, I made the
Speaker 2: little toasty.
Speaker 1: Reference me talking about this movie with me. If you
Speaker 1: didn't like Moral Kombat, you wouldn't have gone to the
Speaker 1: fucking theaters and seen it. Like let's exactly get in
Speaker 1: front of anybody who's like you guys just don't like it. Like,
Speaker 1: trust me, my bank account and the money I spent
Speaker 1: to fucking see it and the amount of money I've
Speaker 1: spent on the Mortal Kombat games is reason enough to
Speaker 1: believe I like Mortal Kombat. Okay, oh yeah, so does
Speaker 1: Mike like I.
Speaker 2: I mean, god, did you know the whole finish him?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 2: Wallless Victory all that kind of stuff, And it's so
Speaker 2: funny when you like, I kept waiting during this film,
Speaker 2: and I'm not getting into spoiler territory, but I kept
Speaker 2: waiting for like, a is there gonna be like a
Speaker 2: finish him or a get over here, those kind of
Speaker 2: things like that is so jammed into that first film,
Speaker 2: Like there's the character with the hat and sorry, guys,
Speaker 2: I don't know. Yes, when he kills someone in the
Speaker 2: first movie, he like stops and like close up flawless
Speaker 2: victory and I'm like, so crimp, yeah, yeah, it.
Speaker 1: Makes my skin crawl like it. And what's funny is
Speaker 1: it's the same director from the first movie, but not
Speaker 1: the same writer. That's the thing. And Jeremy Slater, like,
Speaker 1: I have to give Jeremy Slater actually a fair amount
Speaker 1: of credit here for this film's success because.
Speaker 2: He's written so much shit.
Speaker 1: I know it's just absolute, but but but but he
Speaker 1: has co written Coyote versus Acme, which looks interesting, and
Speaker 1: Kong ex Godzilla is probably the least offensive of the
Speaker 1: things he's written.
Speaker 2: I agree, And I've that's another one liked. You're talking
Speaker 2: about my boife's favorite movie. When you're talking about Dread
Speaker 2: calling ex Godzilla. I mean, you see the stats when
Speaker 2: when you watch these movies on your plexover you see
Speaker 2: how many times, like she was watching plaques off as
Speaker 2: somebody else's server, and he was like, is there something
Speaker 2: wrong You're you watched Dread sixty times last month? And
Speaker 2: I'm like, no, no, that's that's right. That's about right.
Speaker 2: So that's why I knew that I wasn't, you know,
Speaker 2: lying when I said I've probably have seen it eighty times.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to point out as much as Jeremy
Speaker 1: Slater maybe hasn't worked on things that don't spark joy
Speaker 1: for you. I don't know if you've seen the Exorcis
Speaker 1: TV show, it was really good. He was the I
Speaker 1: think he's the creator of the show even quite good it.
Speaker 1: I think you should watch it. It's yeah, like the
Speaker 1: first season, if I remember correctly, as Geena Davis in it,
Speaker 1: she's great. Like he created it, he wrote somebody like
Speaker 1: wrote the first episode in a couple other episodes. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: his other track record may be not great, but I
Speaker 1: would say of the things that I've seen of his
Speaker 1: this is probably the best thing in terms of movies.
Speaker 2: I'm really only holding against him Moonnight, just because I
Speaker 2: had such an unpleasant experience with Moonnight.
Speaker 1: Some people love it, not even watched it, haven't even
Speaker 1: approached It doesn't seem to have any bearing on anything,
Speaker 1: so why would I.
Speaker 2: I don't care if it's true to the character or not.
Speaker 2: I just didn't need to see the whole split personality thing.
Speaker 2: And oh, is that there's there a third personality? I'm like,
Speaker 2: I don't give a shit. I did enjoy the Umbrella Academy,
Speaker 2: though granted I didn't see the last season. I don't
Speaker 2: know if that holds up. And yeah, like, why did
Speaker 2: we have a remake of Death Note? I haven't watched it,
Speaker 2: so maybe it's fucking fantastic. But I saw the original
Speaker 2: Japanese movies.
Speaker 1: Spoilers, it's it's not you're good, and the only thing
Speaker 1: that's good about it is Willem Dafoe's okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and then the original has fucking Chairman Kaga
Speaker 2: as one of the characters. I don't need anything else
Speaker 2: other than Chairmankaga there, so thank you.
Speaker 1: It's it's not. It's not great, But Willem Dafoe is
Speaker 1: not bad. I don't remember this. No, he's not no, no,
Speaker 1: he's he's never bad. He'd be great in movie.
Speaker 2: Put Willmo Mortal Komba, and the thing about the first
Speaker 2: Mortal Kombat that kind of did the same bait and
Speaker 2: switch when it comes to the marketing of it where
Speaker 2: I believe now tell me if I'm wrong, But I
Speaker 2: remember seeing the fight between Scorpion and Sub Zero months
Speaker 2: and months before the movie came out, and just being like, Wow,
Speaker 2: this looks really cool, like old school Samurai kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: and the shots of that cool weapon that Scorpion has,
Speaker 2: and I'm just like, oh man, this is gonna be great. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And the movie starts with that whole sequence and I'm
Speaker 2: just like, oh my god, this is gonna be fantastic.
Speaker 2: And then you come to and I apologize because I'm
Speaker 2: sure that your mothers and fathers love you a lot,
Speaker 2: but you come to a group of absolute nothing actors
Speaker 2: that have no charisma whatsoever. I mean, Jessica McNamee might
Speaker 2: be one of the nicest people in the world, but
Speaker 2: Sonia Blade has nothing like. She's just a blank like
Speaker 2: Jack's nothing like and those ridiculous chicken arms that he has,
Speaker 2: Like through the you know, like a third of the
Speaker 2: movie like just so much of this and the only
Speaker 2: person that seems to have any personality in the movie
Speaker 2: is Kano, and then he's just an annoying dickhead. So
Speaker 2: it's like I just did not like any of the
Speaker 2: characters when I watched the original one, and so when
Speaker 2: when they had Carl Urban as Johnny Cage, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 2: whatever Urban is in, sign me up. I'm here for it.
Speaker 1: I'm more of a fan of Carl's earl as opposed
Speaker 1: to Carl's Urban. Is that right? No, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just like his name is Urban, get it? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: get it? Get it?
Speaker 2: Or or they will say Urban if you're Howaine.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'd like to And okay, so I think we
Speaker 1: need to. I think it's time to transition to spoilers. Okay,
Speaker 1: can I say something without people turning this off? Carl
Speaker 1: Urban I think is kind of miscast in.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, he is way no offense. Carl Urban, way
Speaker 2: too old for that's absolutely.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even go that far. Like what's funny is?
Speaker 1: And I know you're not a super big into wrestling guy.
Speaker 1: Do you know who Mike the miz Mizannin is no
Speaker 1: so he's from your kind of neck of the woods.
Speaker 1: He's from Ohio. He's a pretty well known wrestler. He
Speaker 1: actually like campaigned to be Johnny Cage in the movie.
Speaker 1: And I think he would have worked better just on paper,
Speaker 1: because his whole personality is that, like Johnny Cage before
Speaker 1: he falls on hard times, and if he were to
Speaker 1: fall on hard times, you could believe that he'd play
Speaker 1: a character who'd be sitting at that table, you know,
Speaker 1: with the fifteen dollars to sign a photo type shit,
Speaker 1: because like there are wrestlers that do that in real life.
Speaker 1: They go to conventions and do that. Like Carl Urbin
Speaker 1: just isn't known if he's too good of an actor.
Speaker 2: But he stands out like a sore thumb because he
Speaker 2: is too good of an actor.
Speaker 1: Yes he is. I mean he's too charismatic, he's too good,
Speaker 1: and he just doesn't play Johnny Cage the right way.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if it's his fault. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's his well, I don't even think it's the writing.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is. It's maybe a combination
Speaker 1: of the two. But this is like it's so far
Speaker 1: afield from Johnny Cage. He's not enough of a dickhead,
Speaker 1: Like he's not even a dickhead enough, Like Johnny Cage
Speaker 1: is kind of an unrepented asshole. Well even when he
Speaker 1: gets married to Sony and Blade and they have a daughter,
Speaker 1: he's still an asshole. And it mellows him a little
Speaker 1: bit because now he's a dad, but he's still a
Speaker 1: fucking dick. That's the point.
Speaker 2: I never would play as Johnny Cage, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he was just like the pretty boy guy. And now
Speaker 2: let me clarify real cook and I said that Carl
Speaker 2: Urban is too old for the role. He's too old
Speaker 2: to play young Johnny Cage, like the Johnny Cage that
Speaker 2: I've seen in the other films, opposite all these young people.
Speaker 2: Absolutely now he if he was the protagonist of this film,
Speaker 2: and it was much more of his journey of being
Speaker 2: an unrepented asshole, somebody who is completely spoiled, who really
Speaker 2: is slumming it by being like sitting at that convention
Speaker 2: table in the super sad state of Affairs, gets thrust
Speaker 2: into Mortal Kombat, blows his chance, fucks it up, has
Speaker 2: you know, just as I wanted him to not take
Speaker 2: things seriously and just be like, you know, making fun
Speaker 2: of every single but like give him more of the
Speaker 2: Kano role, almost like Johnny Cage, the hot shot turns
Speaker 2: into Kano the asshole kind of guy who just doesn't
Speaker 2: take anything fucking seriously and then has to have Oh
Speaker 2: my God, forgive me for saying this a character arc
Speaker 2: because then he like finally comes to know like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is really serious shit and like, you know, people's
Speaker 2: lives are on the line, and look at how horrible.
Speaker 2: There's not Shao Khan, who's the big bad of this.
Speaker 2: Shao Khan. Okay, sorry, I get him mixed up with
Speaker 2: Luke Sung Shang song. Thank you yes, And I'm just like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: like give me that arc. Like he has an arc,
Speaker 2: but it's way too quick. It just happens very quickly,
Speaker 2: like that fight with Baraka just like turns some around
Speaker 2: very fast. And I'm like, oh, okay, like great, but
Speaker 2: like I said, Kitana is probably the real protagonist of this,
Speaker 2: and then I know it sounds like I'm bagging on
Speaker 2: this movie. I still I had a lot of fun,
Speaker 2: but they all through the whole thing, with Kitana and
Speaker 2: Jade and Shao Khan. All I could think of was
Speaker 2: Danos Gomora and Nebula Nebula?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. All I could think of was that I was like, Okay, well,
Speaker 2: Jade's is a Nebula, and get Gamora is a Kitana
Speaker 2: and Danos is Shao Khan and like the whole relationship
Speaker 2: of them and everything is just for me. It was
Speaker 2: completely that I was waiting for him to hand her
Speaker 2: a little dagger and talk about how perfectly balanced it is.
Speaker 1: Doesn't this movie feel a little emcuvi like, doesn't it?
Speaker 1: It does feel a little emcy like. It feels a
Speaker 1: little like, oh, we got this jumblow kooky characters and
Speaker 1: we're gonna throw them all together and see what happens.
Speaker 1: The MCU has done better, and the mc has done
Speaker 1: more interestingly, I think is kind of the way I
Speaker 1: look at it, Like I think the MCU is a
Speaker 1: more interesting cast of characters. And that's not to say
Speaker 1: this isn't. I just don't think that they're they're not
Speaker 1: interested in mining that so much, and for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: whenever they kind of start approaching it, they shy away
Speaker 1: from it, like give us something interesting to chew on,
Speaker 1: Like I don't see what the problem is, Like, are
Speaker 1: we afraid to have a character with a little bit
Speaker 1: of baggage or a little bit of emotional like steaks
Speaker 1: in the thing, like the opening with Katana and her
Speaker 1: dad getting fucking murdered King Jared, Like that's about as
Speaker 1: much emotional kind of like resonance as we get with
Speaker 1: this movie, genuinely. And it's like in the first five minutes.
Speaker 1: And I'm not asking for much, but I am asking
Speaker 1: for a movie to understand, like, if you're gonna tell
Speaker 1: a film version of the video game story, people are
Speaker 1: gonna expect a little bit more character depth, a little
Speaker 1: bit more. I get more character depth out of the
Speaker 1: video games story. I know Johnny Cage in the video
Speaker 1: game is a much more well defined character. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying it's hard. I'm not saying it's easy or
Speaker 1: hard to do that here. I just don't think they're
Speaker 1: really engaged or interested in doing that.
Speaker 2: No, I totally agree, Yeah, And I really did want more,
Speaker 2: Like even before the movie starts, like when when we're
Speaker 2: introduced to Johnny Cage, like we get the one scene
Speaker 2: from the film, I would have liked to have seen
Speaker 2: like more of stuff. And I think even in that again,
Speaker 2: going back to that trailer. It was like, you know,
Speaker 2: the star of Cool Hand Cage and Far To Cage
Speaker 2: and all this stuff, and I'm like, okay, so he's
Speaker 2: kind of basically Steven Seagal kung you know mime.
Speaker 1: I think he's one of the ones in the video
Speaker 1: game he's kung fu mime. So it's like, yeah, like
Speaker 1: this is the character, like a Jean Claude van dam
Speaker 1: adjacent character, Like yeah, he's like Kasagall van Damn. But
Speaker 1: they just don't lean into it hard enough, Like no,
Speaker 1: they they they don't lean into it at all. Really,
Speaker 1: like one scene is not enough.
Speaker 2: No, no, it really should have been, like because like
Speaker 2: him going back to his car and putting the unsigned
Speaker 2: unsold posters down and putting his shit in his trunk
Speaker 2: and stuff, I'm like, yeah, this is I want to
Speaker 2: see this. I want to see I mean that kind
Speaker 2: of reminded me of Galaxy Quest, where it was just
Speaker 2: like okay, yeah, this is the sad life of these
Speaker 2: stars all these years later going to these conventions like
Speaker 2: it kind of reminded me a little bit of the
Speaker 2: Bruce Campbell movie where he basically played Bruce my name
Speaker 2: is Bruce. Yeah, kind of reminded me of that, just
Speaker 2: like sending himself up kind of thing. And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: this is pretty cool, you know, like when I saw
Speaker 2: him because even sorry I keep talking about the trailer,
Speaker 2: but the trailer was you know, see Johnny Cage in
Speaker 2: Uncaged Fury. Like I showed that to Andrea and she's
Speaker 2: just like, oh, yeah, let's see this. And I go,
Speaker 2: do you know what this actually is? And shit, no,
Speaker 2: no clue. And I'm like, this is a Mortal Kombat movie.
Speaker 2: She's oh, okay, like she doesn't know Johnny Cage. So
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, no, this is gonna be great, like
Speaker 2: Carl Urban and a Mortal Kombat movie. That's gonna be great.
Speaker 2: But it kind of gets lost in the sauce, like
Speaker 2: we spend a lot of time with Kaitana, we spend
Speaker 2: some good amount of time with Kano and with Jacks
Speaker 2: and all this. I'm like, I don't really Yang, yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't really care very much about these other people.
Speaker 2: Just you know, it's like, you know, it's funny because
Speaker 2: of course before the movie, they showed a trailer for
Speaker 2: a Street Fighter too, and I'm just like, okay, you
Speaker 2: know this, this is the exact same problem, like at
Speaker 2: least with the first one or all of its flaws,
Speaker 2: but at least with that one. You know, Jean Claude
Speaker 2: van Dam is the fucking lead of that movie. There's
Speaker 2: no if ans or butts. Sometimes he gets lost in
Speaker 2: that movie a little bit, but it's like, Okay, this
Speaker 2: is a JCDD movie, no matter what, Like everybody else
Speaker 2: can just like you know, Pat, go along, go along.
Speaker 2: And again, I'm like, I do hope we don't get
Speaker 2: lost in all of the fucking mythology of street Fighter too,
Speaker 2: because they've had so many versions of it. I'm sure
Speaker 2: they've built up that mythology so much. I don't need it.
Speaker 2: I just need fighting. I need a big green monster
Speaker 2: with yellow hair that can turn electric power on.
Speaker 1: Do you know who plays him in that movie? No?
Speaker 2: Is it Jason Malmala. Oh, jesus. I also saw the
Speaker 2: trailer for Supergirl and saw him show up as Lobo
Speaker 2: in that.
Speaker 1: I like Mama, I like him enough. I think when
Speaker 1: they let him just kind of be, he's good. And
Speaker 1: that's the thing with Carl Urban, Like when they just
Speaker 1: let him be, he's great.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's fantastic.
Speaker 1: It's almost like they they were forcing Carl Urbin into this,
Speaker 1: and I mean again, like I can think of at
Speaker 1: least Mike the Miz would have done better. I just
Speaker 1: got Carl Urban just what he brings to something is
Speaker 1: not this energy, and it never has been. And it
Speaker 1: was always like I was hopeful because it is Carl
Speaker 1: Urbin and he's such a good actor that like, even
Speaker 1: though this is against type for him, I still kind
Speaker 1: of hoped against hope, well, even if it's against type,
Speaker 1: he'll still be able to like elevate it because he's
Speaker 1: a great actor. But to your point, like I guess,
Speaker 1: I didn't also think, well, what happens if he just
Speaker 1: kind of isn't given anything interesting to do? And that's
Speaker 1: more or less what happens. Like you said, the focus
Speaker 1: of the movie is on actors and characters that aren't
Speaker 1: nearly as interesting or entertaining. And I know people want
Speaker 1: to say, like, well this has gotten better than Mortal
Speaker 1: Kombat Annihilation, Like it actually has the same fucking problem
Speaker 1: that that movie did, which is too many fucking characters.
Speaker 1: I will say, at least in this movie, they're not
Speaker 1: like isn't that right? Sub Zero? Right, isn't that right? Scorpion?
Speaker 2: It does feel a little less stunty and stuff because
Speaker 2: there are a lot of characters in that first one
Speaker 2: where I'm just like, uh, this must be a character
Speaker 2: added after I quit playing this, like the woman with
Speaker 2: the wings and stuff, and.
Speaker 1: That's like those Combat four or five creation yep.
Speaker 2: And again, don't give your character wings unless you can
Speaker 2: actually animate them to look like they are actually flying,
Speaker 2: because it looks bad.
Speaker 1: Like well, we're sitting right now in twenty twenty six
Speaker 1: in the Age of the Punisher and the bad VFX
Speaker 1: over at Disney, So are we really surprised.
Speaker 2: No, No, I'm not. I'm not.
Speaker 1: I guess I just hold these companies to a higher
Speaker 1: set of standards that they don't care.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, like the stuff with
Speaker 2: the you know, the fights with the uh sub zero
Speaker 2: and Scorpion and stuff like that looked fine, you know,
Speaker 2: because it was more about the actors and more about
Speaker 2: the choreography rather than the special effects. And the special
Speaker 2: effects were very limited when it came to like the
Speaker 2: whole chain the spike on the chain kind of thing
Speaker 2: didn't really mean more than that. And the ice effects
Speaker 2: I thought looked good. But yeah, it's just kind of strange.
Speaker 2: I don't know it's but yeah, I it's a very
Speaker 2: uneven marriage for me of the Katana story and the
Speaker 2: Johnny Cage story. It really feels like they are two
Speaker 2: different movies that are really vying for which movie is this?
Speaker 2: And somehow they they end up blending, but very roughly.
Speaker 2: But I again just had a lot of fun, man
Speaker 2: I I that Baraka fight actually worked for me. I
Speaker 2: liked Baraka, and yeah, he does feel like he's right
Speaker 2: out of a James Gunn movie, you know, like this
Speaker 2: whole thing of the whole village of Baraka's people and stuff.
Speaker 1: Okay, here's Peter, Where's Peter Quill? Where's he's gonna land
Speaker 1: on this planet?
Speaker 2: Exactly? Well, yeah, I mean basically the stuff that Carl
Speaker 2: Urban does when he starts doing the Bruce Lee one
Speaker 2: hundred hand kind of thing, It's like, yeah, this feels
Speaker 2: very much like Dan's off bro.
Speaker 1: You know. Well, and I will say it made me
Speaker 1: laugh at the framing device of the movie is him
Speaker 1: telling this story. He's recounting the story to the Tarcattans
Speaker 1: Baraka included Zee. Those are the parts of the movie
Speaker 1: with Carl Urban that worked for me. Where he's like
Speaker 1: interacting with Baraka, and Baraka's is just kind of big,
Speaker 1: dumb like cotton, which I think is a little unfair
Speaker 1: to the character of Baraka because in the video games
Speaker 1: he's a much more interesting, kind of pitiable character, where
Speaker 1: it's like the people that got that disease were normal
Speaker 1: people and now they're like mutated and they're like sequestered
Speaker 1: away like leopards. That's the video game version of that.
Speaker 1: The movie is a lot more fun. The movie is
Speaker 1: a lot more upbeat, and nobody's in like pain and hurting.
Speaker 1: You know. This version of Baraka is pretty much just drax.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely, this.
Speaker 1: Is the mcuification of this is like pretty wild to me,
Speaker 1: even going as far as to not trusting female characters
Speaker 1: to be the leads of your movie.
Speaker 2: No, yeah, because it's like, Okay, she should be the
Speaker 2: leads of this movie. Maybe, like okay, should it be
Speaker 2: the Katana story, should it be the Johnny Kage story? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I guess we can't leave it up, because I mean, really,
Speaker 2: she's got them more compelling narrative, you know, and her
Speaker 2: whole question for revenge and all this kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: and like, you know, I get I get lost as
Speaker 2: a non Mortal Kombat guy when it's just like, oh,
Speaker 2: you can bring people back from the dead, like.
Speaker 1: All the time with Wanton Abandon, characters dying does not
Speaker 1: matter at all. Throw characters dying in this franchise out
Speaker 1: the window, like I mean completely, I'm not even kidding.
Speaker 1: Like one of the places they go is literally just
Speaker 1: hell where the characters are hanging out like.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah. When they go and find a scorpion
Speaker 2: and it's like, oh, okay, yeah, all right, but yeah,
Speaker 2: her mother being dead and everything, I'm like, all right,
Speaker 2: this is interesting. And they have like that head thing
Speaker 2: going on because she got her head split open, and
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, well, when you get brought back
Speaker 2: from the dead, do you get healed do you not?
Speaker 2: And I don't know, like it just felt very strange,
Speaker 2: and this whole thing that, like, well, the.
Speaker 1: Idea that.
Speaker 2: Lord Raydon is a god and they're stealing his power
Speaker 2: and all this and trying to make shau Kan immortal.
Speaker 2: I'm just like, Okay, this is interesting. I guess maybe very.
Speaker 1: Well just explained or defined and it just kind of yeah, yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: I actually find the scene where Cole and chaucandeby fight
Speaker 1: to be very funny, because holy shit, Like, I mean,
Speaker 1: what a repudiation of your first movie, like by oh yeah,
Speaker 1: why he gets the most brutals death in the entire movie.
Speaker 2: Oh, the audience in my theater went fucking crazy for that.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. Yes, I was laughing my ass off and
Speaker 2: people behind me were cheering. It was really nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they, I mean they they put a character into
Speaker 1: that first movie that was unnecessary. I don't understand why
Speaker 1: they didn't just do Johnny Cage. If you're gonna just
Speaker 1: do Johnny Cage anyways, why not just do him then?
Speaker 1: Like you don't have to create a character who's the
Speaker 1: eyes of the audience when you have a character that
Speaker 1: acts as the eyes of the audience already, Like he's
Speaker 1: an earth realmer and he's American, Like no, I don't know,
Speaker 1: Like it was funny hearing Carl Urban's Australian accent coming
Speaker 1: through from time to time.
Speaker 2: Oh in him versus Josh Lawson and I'm just like, now,
Speaker 2: be very ironic if Josh Launlasson sorry was not Australian,
Speaker 2: but he is. He's from Queensland, and like when he
Speaker 2: is over Australian, Oh my god, he is just like Rocky,
Speaker 2: you know, like putting some shrimp on the barberie kind
Speaker 2: of thing, going to out back in ordering a bloomin onion.
Speaker 2: And then you got Carl Urban just he does a
Speaker 2: good American accent, but you can tell he was kind
Speaker 2: of fighting, and I'm just like, man, this guy is
Speaker 2: the ultimate Australian versus Carl Urban who is just trying
Speaker 2: to be American higher but Dad bless him and Josh Lawson,
Speaker 2: like I said before, he seems to have a lot
Speaker 2: of fun in this movie and he makes it more
Speaker 2: fun for me. I'm like, oh okay, yeah, Like once
Speaker 2: he comes on to screen, I was like, this guy's
Speaker 2: actually pretty funny. Like I don't remember liking him at
Speaker 2: all in the first movie, and I have to say,
Speaker 2: like total cards on the table, I barely remember the
Speaker 2: first movie. I for sure saw it and I remember
Speaker 2: were loving that first like ten minutes of the movie
Speaker 2: whatever that Scorpion sub Zero part was. But after that,
Speaker 2: I'm just like, wow, this is this feels like really
Speaker 2: like straight to DVD or street to VHS dreck. That
Speaker 2: first movie. I just was like really.
Speaker 1: Screaming my friend it was it was vod especial.
Speaker 2: Well it was also during the pandemic, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: The joke I was gonna make at the beginning was
Speaker 1: whether or not people should pay to go see the movie.
Speaker 1: Pay to go see the movie you undoubtedly watched on
Speaker 1: HBO Max during the pandemic. Pay to go see the
Speaker 1: sequel to that movie, because I didn't pay to see
Speaker 1: the first movie. It was a fucking twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: you know, pandemic dump surprise, you know. Fuck Like That's
Speaker 1: the other thing, Like this movie feels like more of
Speaker 1: a movie than that movie did. That movie felt like
Speaker 1: pandemic entertainment.
Speaker 2: Like I didn't pay for the first movie, and I've
Speaker 2: still felt ripped off fair.
Speaker 1: I mean, that first movie is just so fuck self serious,
Speaker 1: and I don't I don't understand why, because Mortal Kombat
Speaker 1: is not a self serious franchise by any stretch of
Speaker 1: the air.
Speaker 2: No, not when you've got you know, people ripping out
Speaker 2: each other's spines and stuff and babacation and Babalitiah and
Speaker 2: animalities and all.
Speaker 1: Those rings, ships and everything else. Yeah, there's too much
Speaker 1: humor in Mortal Kombat for it to be taken this seriously.
Speaker 1: And I would go as far as to say this
Speaker 1: movie is a step in the right direction, but even
Speaker 1: it is too self serious still even now absolutely to
Speaker 1: self like having it open with Katana's dad. Yet it's
Speaker 1: more like nobody fucking cares, like this is not why
Speaker 1: I'm not here for this, and I do think it
Speaker 1: is a bit of a bait and switch again because
Speaker 1: the first movie was sold as Scorpion and sub Zero,
Speaker 1: in this movie is sold as Johnny Cage. Is like,
Speaker 1: it's neither of these neither of these movies are neither
Speaker 1: of these things. And shit, if you really want to
Speaker 1: get like really like like nitpicky about it, this movie
Speaker 1: is more of a Johnny Cage movie than the first
Speaker 1: movie is a sub Zero and Scorpion absolutely, because the
Speaker 1: sub Zero and Scorpion in that first movie is two
Speaker 1: fucking scenes and that's it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh you have you have helped me break the curse.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Se next movie, yeah, like okay, like I'm I'm sorry
Speaker 1: that we couldn't get you Hiroyuki Sonada away from Shogun
Speaker 1: for more than five minutes. Oh yeah, or West World,
Speaker 1: I guess season two or three, whichever, the one that's
Speaker 1: Samurai World he's in as well, so and he's so good.
Speaker 1: I love it as party fucking movie.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, he is fantastic and yeah, like the
Speaker 2: only reason I haven't talked about him because he has
Speaker 2: some fuck all to do in this movie. It's another
Speaker 2: one of those like like you're saying, like that first
Speaker 2: movie should have been his movie, Like he is a
Speaker 2: great fucking actor, and then you give me your Jackson's
Speaker 2: You're sown your blades all these people, and I'm just like,
Speaker 2: I give a shit about these will get me back
Speaker 2: to this guy. He's a real fucking actor.
Speaker 1: Well, and I was gonna say, Ludy Lynn as lu
Speaker 1: Kang is probably the least non charismatic of the main bunch,
Speaker 1: Like you know, you know, toddanobu Asano is not given
Speaker 1: much to do as Lord Raydon, Like he's effectively the
Speaker 1: Leonardo of the group. Lukang should be Leonardo, but he's
Speaker 1: less so he's kind of interesting from time to time.
Speaker 2: He is no Christopher Lambert, who is really I know, yeah,
Speaker 2: I means Christopher Lambert, so that move is he even
Speaker 2: James remark No, no, he's done not And like you know,
Speaker 2: he really doesn't have a character like does he find
Speaker 2: these people amusing? Is he very serious? Yeah? Like what
Speaker 2: is his personality? I could sit here for another five
Speaker 2: hours and have no idea how to describe this character
Speaker 2: because he just doesn't have a lot going on in
Speaker 2: the video game.
Speaker 1: He's much more clearly defined. But even in the video
Speaker 1: game they have they struggle with what to do with
Speaker 1: him because of the god aspect of his character. They
Speaker 1: struggle with what to do with him. I mean, there
Speaker 1: was a he had a heel turn in the video
Speaker 1: game for a while that kind of went nowhere. But
Speaker 1: he's kind of just a through and through good guy
Speaker 1: and like some of the I mean, like what's funny
Speaker 1: is Kano is not really ever a good guy in
Speaker 1: the video game. He's more or less always a villain.
Speaker 1: He's like a murk for hire. And I think it
Speaker 1: speaks to Josh Lawson as an actor that they were like,
Speaker 1: you know what, you need to be a good guy
Speaker 1: now in this franchise because you're clearly the part of
Speaker 1: the movie that people resonated with from the first one,
Speaker 1: So we need to have you on screen opposite Carl Urbin.
Speaker 1: That would be meta funny. Obviously we've talked about the
Speaker 1: Australian ness of it all. But like Josh Lawson may
Speaker 1: be the best part of this movie, like absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1: In terms of the actors that we are subjected to
Speaker 1: and see with regular frequency in the film, it's probably
Speaker 1: Josh Lawson by like a large.
Speaker 2: Marchin absolutely yeah, because again he's funny. He is light,
Speaker 2: you know, like once, especially when he has his turn
Speaker 2: to the like let's kill these fucking gullies or whatever,
Speaker 2: it's just like, all right, good, Like I really didn't
Speaker 2: need him back as a as a bad guy. And
Speaker 2: when he does this pretty immediate turn to being a
Speaker 2: good guy, I'm like, oh okay. And I'm he even
Speaker 2: somehow forgives Sonia Blade for killing him originally.
Speaker 1: But the movie ending like I'm gonna kill you again
Speaker 1: and he's like okay, all right, yeah sure, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again no offense to the actors. But just
Speaker 2: like she doesn't have anything to do, you know, like no,
Speaker 2: I seem to remember the Sonia Blade from the you know,
Speaker 2: the Paul W. S Anderson film way better than I
Speaker 2: remember this one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course you remember Bridget Wilson more, of course.
Speaker 2: You right, how did how did all the W. S
Speaker 2: Anderson find the balance of these characters so much better
Speaker 2: than what we're seeing now, you know, is it like,
Speaker 2: is it just the fan service, like, well, we have
Speaker 2: to put this character and we have to put this
Speaker 2: character in or is it just not knowing how to
Speaker 2: handle so many characters and not being able to decide
Speaker 2: who is what's the storyline that we should be following.
Speaker 2: I'm fine with abc D storylines obviously, but they really
Speaker 2: need to be ordered in descending amount of screen time
Speaker 2: and importance. And you know, it's even okay to switch tones,
Speaker 2: like you know, you and I are two of the
Speaker 2: biggest fans of The Lord of the Rings that I know.
Speaker 2: I mean, once once the fellowship is broken, we are
Speaker 2: going all over the place with all of these different characters,
Speaker 2: but it always feels balanced. And to your point about
Speaker 2: the Marvel movies, I mean, can you imagine if Infinity
Speaker 2: War and Endgame had been directed by somebody lesser than
Speaker 2: Some people hate the Russo Brothers, but I thought they
Speaker 2: did an amazing job and they knew when to cut
Speaker 2: to these different storylines and when to bring the characters back,
Speaker 2: because you're dealing with a shit kind of characters, but
Speaker 2: nobody feels.
Speaker 1: Lost to me, and I will say, Simon mccoyd has
Speaker 1: like no other credits to his name other than.
Speaker 2: He's a commercial director. I mean, I love them. You know, great,
Speaker 2: you made this big lead, you play it in the
Speaker 2: big leagues now. But it's just like, yeah, well, you've
Speaker 2: got to really work on the whole idea of like
Speaker 2: moon and balance.
Speaker 1: Yeah well, I was gonna say, like applause to him
Speaker 1: for being able to escape that world of commercial filmmaking,
Speaker 1: but also to your point, like I think I don't
Speaker 1: think that this is the best thing to cut your
Speaker 1: teeth on because there there is so much going on
Speaker 1: that they look, let's just get this fucking out in
Speaker 1: the open. This should have been a TV show, Like
Speaker 1: why totally, why are we doing this anyway? Like I
Speaker 1: just I failed to see why we're forcing things to
Speaker 1: be films when they could be much better resolved as
Speaker 1: an extended like media format of like a TV series
Speaker 1: or a mini series that then you can you know,
Speaker 1: limited series. If a limited series goes well, they can
Speaker 1: turn that into a full on series like Pretty Little
Speaker 1: Liars was one of those shows a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: and HBO was like limited series and it won awards
Speaker 1: for being a limited series that came back as a
Speaker 1: second season. Like in this day and age, anything can
Speaker 1: come back again, even if it's a limited series, So
Speaker 1: why not just do that? I just I don't understand
Speaker 1: the point of being driven by making films anymore if
Speaker 1: you're still working in the world of cinema and making
Speaker 1: things either TV or movies, I don't. I think the
Speaker 1: line is blurrier now than it's ever been in terms
Speaker 1: of what is real quality. You know, a show we're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about again, Ring of Power, the most
Speaker 1: fucking expensive thing ever made, and it's a show. It's
Speaker 1: not a fucking movie, like right, I don't understand why
Speaker 1: we have to look at the quality of things and say, well,
Speaker 1: this can't be TV show, this has to be in
Speaker 1: movies like this would have benefited from an extended narrative
Speaker 1: where we can have an episode about each character. I mean, God,
Speaker 1: Lost was doing it, for fuck's sake, We're kind to
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 2: If you have to give me an episode with two
Speaker 2: characters and then at the end they fight, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm okay, because honestly the fight stuff in this where
Speaker 2: it's like, oh, there's this contest and we have these
Speaker 2: five fighters and we have to do this, and we
Speaker 2: have to do that. It feels, to be honest, that
Speaker 2: feels kind of shoved in here too, where I'm just like, okay,
Speaker 2: what are we doing? Are we doing the whole relationship
Speaker 2: between Jade and Kitana and all this, like, you know,
Speaker 2: that's a very complicated relationship that they have. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: also some great fight choreography and stuff, and then it's like, okay,
Speaker 2: here's these five or ten diamonds up in the sky,
Speaker 2: and I'm just like, this feels really out of place.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, this is a Mortal Kombat movie, but
Speaker 2: the tournament fighting feels out of place. The other thing
Speaker 2: that felt out of place was just the insistence on
Speaker 2: you know, going back to Marvel pop culturizing things like
Speaker 2: all of the lines of like that loss and has
Speaker 2: as Kano where it's just like, god, I can't remember
Speaker 2: all of them. Like he makes lord of the Rings
Speaker 2: Lord of the Rings. I mean he calls somebody gandalf
Speaker 2: I think I.
Speaker 1: Know that's that's Johnny Cage called.
Speaker 2: And then Johnny Cage also has a line about, uh,
Speaker 2: doesn't he have like a one ring to rule them all?
Speaker 2: Kind of thing. Yeah something, Yeah, he's got another reference.
Speaker 2: But I think Lawson has like a squid game thing,
Speaker 2: and just like there's all of these like pop culture
Speaker 2: references and like this is not going to age well
Speaker 2: can no?
Speaker 1: Well? And I was gonna say, like for me, like
Speaker 1: I don't I feel like they gave all the choice
Speaker 1: lines to Cano and didn't give anything to Johnny Kate.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it was like once Shash Lawson shows back
Speaker 2: up in the film, it's just like, Okay, everybody, here's
Speaker 2: the guy that we're gonna put on screen the most,
Speaker 2: even though he's a resurrected character from the last movie.
Speaker 1: Here's yeah. Well and again, like you know, like I
Speaker 1: said before, Mortal Kombat is as a franchise able to
Speaker 1: have characters come back with pretty large amounts of frequency.
Speaker 1: People rarely stayed dead even if they had their goddamn
Speaker 1: heads ripped off in Mortal Kombat. One of the jokes
Speaker 1: for Mortal Kombat for a while there when they had
Speaker 1: the X ray moves was how the fuck is this
Speaker 1: Mortal Kombat When people are having their spleens broken inside
Speaker 1: of their body? That would kill them alone, you know.
Speaker 1: And and then to go as far as you know, well,
Speaker 1: you know, finish him and we're gonna leave them be, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't. I think in Mortal Kombat there
Speaker 1: shouldn't be any sparing of people. That was kind of
Speaker 1: the point. And to then have this movie go, well,
Speaker 1: you spared one of our people, Like that's not yeah,
Speaker 1: that's missing the point once again of Mortal and.
Speaker 2: It goes against the words Mortal Kombat.
Speaker 1: Right right, like you you kind of just missed it.
Speaker 1: It's almost like this movie missed it at every chance
Speaker 1: that it took, but it didn't miss it that far.
Speaker 1: Like it's it's you know one, it has standard deviations away,
Speaker 1: not four. And the last movie I think was like
Speaker 1: four and it got closer towards the end once it
Speaker 1: like woke up and really it was a fucking fighting
Speaker 1: game movie. And this movie there are moments where it
Speaker 1: remembers what it is, but there are times where this
Speaker 1: movie is still very much stuck in that thinking of
Speaker 1: like let's not lean into the inherent silliness of this,
Speaker 1: Like can you have you watched the Fallout TV show?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: I have not yet. It's amazing. I mean for fans
Speaker 1: of Fallout, it might not be the best thing like,
Speaker 1: and I have some friends who my close friend that's
Speaker 1: a Mortal Kombat fan also likes fall Out a fair amount,
Speaker 1: and he does not like the Fallout show because it's
Speaker 1: very different from the video game. But the thing that
Speaker 1: the show does is it actually like acknowledges the goofy
Speaker 1: and silliness of the source material, and it doesn't run
Speaker 1: away from it like the guys making Game of Thrones
Speaker 1: did with all the supernatural and like dragons and magic
Speaker 1: of that franchise, Like, why are we pretending like these
Speaker 1: things are different than what they are? Like people resonate
Speaker 1: with them because of the tone as it is. Don't
Speaker 1: go fucking changing it just because you don't like it,
Speaker 1: or don't think it's gonna resonate, or you can't write it.
Speaker 1: If you can't write to this is, maybe you're not
Speaker 1: cut out for that job. I don't know, Like I
Speaker 1: just the tone is just kind of all over the place.
Speaker 1: It hits it from time to time. It hits it
Speaker 1: better than that first movie, but it's still a bit
Speaker 1: of a mess.
Speaker 2: It is, though, despite all of the negative things that
Speaker 2: we've just thrown at this movie. You know what, when
Speaker 2: a good copy of this comes out that I can download.
Speaker 2: I know that I'm going to be watching this. I
Speaker 2: know Andrew's going to be watching this. This is right
Speaker 2: up her street. She had a great time with this.
Speaker 2: I had a great time watching it. Yes, even though
Speaker 2: while I was watching it, I was like, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: totally confused. Yeah, I don't really care about this character
Speaker 2: this one, but whenever Urban's on screen, okay, yeah, I'm here,
Speaker 2: and even really, like I haven't said, but I did
Speaker 2: find the Katana stuff to be intriguing and very well done.
Speaker 2: I just don't it was. It was very Uh it
Speaker 2: wasn't peanut butter and chocolate. It was more like peanut
Speaker 2: butter and banana, while not bananas, peanut butter and pickles
Speaker 2: or something. It's just like two good tastes that don't
Speaker 2: necessarily go well together. And it was, like I said, uneven,
Speaker 2: uneasy marriage when it comes to this stuff. So it's like, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: but I'll still watch it and maybe at some point
Speaker 2: a fan editor will go through and make the Katana
Speaker 2: film and make the Johnny Cage film and never the
Speaker 2: Twain shall meet. But as it is now, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a rocky marriage, but it's it's fun to watch.
Speaker 2: It's definitely better than watching, you know, couples fighting.
Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say the other thing that
Speaker 1: this movie, you know, to the Carl Urban of it all,
Speaker 1: when he's on screen, he's great, shocking, said no one,
Speaker 1: it's Karl Urban. He's always exactly right. And there are
Speaker 1: other moments. I think the Katana storyline is serviceable. I
Speaker 1: mean again, you know, like you said before, but like
Speaker 1: I don't give a shit about the mythology, Like that's
Speaker 1: one of the things of the mythology is just like
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff like that's oh yeah, hard lean
Speaker 1: into the mythology. I mean, there's there's another character in
Speaker 1: the movie that's such a hard lean into the mythology.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised you have mentioned him. Damon Harriman as Kwan Chie,
Speaker 1: which mind blowing to me that he's in this He's
Speaker 1: a character from the video games that is at the
Speaker 1: level of Shao Khan and Shank Song in terms of
Speaker 1: like ability to do harm and damage to the characters,
Speaker 1: the hero characters. But Damon Harriman was in the last
Speaker 1: movie as Cabal. He did the voice for Cabal, and
Speaker 1: in this movie they have him in some of the
Speaker 1: most hilariously bad makeup I've ever seen, Like, I what
Speaker 1: God's name, like what he looks hilarious? Okay, it took
Speaker 1: guyliner and the lines over his head like wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they talk about it. It looks like somebody's nutsack
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 1: So at one point I think calls him or Carl
Speaker 1: Irvin calls him.
Speaker 2: He kind of reminded me of this character from the
Speaker 2: Old Buck Rogers TV show who had like not necessarily
Speaker 2: this same makeup, but yes, similar makeup and yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: Useless character, Like he's not in the video game. He
Speaker 1: helped him and Shang Sung murder lu Kang in the
Speaker 1: video game together. Oh yeah, that's the deadly alliance of
Speaker 1: the video games is them together. It's very funny to
Speaker 1: trivialize his character the way that they did.
Speaker 2: See when you talk about the video games, so like
Speaker 2: my frame of reference for the video games is you
Speaker 2: go in, you pick your fighter, your fighters fight, you
Speaker 2: kill one another, or you know, one wins, one loses.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 2: So like you know, like I have no frame of
Speaker 2: reference what you're talking about in the video game. This
Speaker 2: happens in the video game, that happens, like this must
Speaker 2: be like much more like modern video games where like
Speaker 2: there are scenes and things.
Speaker 1: So that's the thing. There was mythology in Mortal Kombat
Speaker 1: one and two. If you played through the story on
Speaker 1: the cabinet, if you played arcade mode on the cabinet
Speaker 1: and beat every person on that tower and got to
Speaker 1: the end, they gave your character an ending, and there
Speaker 1: was a character description screen that had you know, lu
Speaker 1: Kang and it said a thing about him, you know
Speaker 1: who he was, and then the end day gave a
Speaker 1: similar thing. Like there was the barest amounts of mythology
Speaker 1: in the video game for the longest time. And then
Speaker 1: when sub when Mortal Kombat Mythologies sub zero came out,
Speaker 1: when it transitioned to home consoles and away from the
Speaker 1: arcade you know experience, that's when they could start having
Speaker 1: a story mode or you know, a single player mode
Speaker 1: where you can examine the the mythology as where the
Speaker 1: original movie as a fair amount of mythology too. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know they talk about Earth realm and Nether realm
Speaker 1: in the world like it's still there. I think unfortunately
Speaker 1: living in the MCU times like they got to over
Speaker 1: explain everything now and it's just like things can be
Speaker 1: just left up to like this is just the way
Speaker 1: it is. We don't need to have everything explained, and
Speaker 1: I prefer when things aren't explained to death at this
Speaker 1: point in my life, any right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but no, Kwanchi is completely the useless because you
Speaker 2: have Shangsun there and Chin hand bless him, he can
Speaker 2: play a dickhead like nobody's business. I just see his face.
Speaker 2: Probably a very nice man, but I see his face.
Speaker 2: I just want to punch him right in the face
Speaker 2: because he just always plays such a prick every single
Speaker 2: time I see him. Like, of course I'm mostly thinking
Speaker 2: of the Dark Night, but like there are other things
Speaker 2: I've seen him where I's just like, this guy's a
Speaker 2: piece of shit. It probably is a wonderful man, loves
Speaker 2: his kids, all that kind of stuff, but he plays
Speaker 2: dickheads so well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say if there's another crime of this movie,
Speaker 1: it's that Shang Sung kind of gets lost in the shuffle.
Speaker 1: A lot of characters just get lost in the shuffle.
Speaker 1: Like you could probably make two or three movies off
Speaker 1: of what this movie is doing. Like there's a lot
Speaker 1: going on here. You know, we didn't even really talk
Speaker 1: about him, but Martin ford is show con is a
Speaker 1: relatively physically imposing presence.
Speaker 2: He's yeah, he's amazing, and I kept wondering is he
Speaker 2: a wrestler? Turns out that he is. I had no idea,
Speaker 2: and then I kept wondering, like, is that his voice?
Speaker 2: So they're getting somebody else to do his voice or not?
Speaker 2: Is that really his voice?
Speaker 1: I haven't seen him in anything else, so I don't know.
Speaker 1: It sure sounds like it was kind of monstered up,
Speaker 1: because shau Khan is not really a human. He's when
Speaker 1: they obviously, when they take his mask off, he's he's
Speaker 1: a little bit more of kind of a monster. So
Speaker 1: you know that, I think that's I would assume they
Speaker 1: kind of monstered his voice up a little bit.
Speaker 2: Mm hm oh God, that's right. I see chin Haan
Speaker 2: all the time The True Confessions of Mike's Wife. She
Speaker 2: watches bad movies a lot. He's also in Ghost in
Speaker 2: the Shell, so I have thus seen Ghosts in the
Speaker 2: Shell a bunch. He is not a dickhead in that one.
Speaker 2: He's kind of a nice guy in that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he's what's impressed. What a fucking movie to pull? Bro,
Speaker 1: What God's name? Ghost in the Shell, the movie, the
Speaker 1: movie that was so all over the place. It took
Speaker 1: Rupert Sanders another seven years to make another movie that
Speaker 1: was also all over the place, That fucking Crow movie. Dude,
Speaker 1: my lord, oh boy, is that is your wife watched
Speaker 1: that one?
Speaker 2: No, we've never actually seen that.
Speaker 1: Independence Day Resurgence.
Speaker 2: Nope, Nope. I haven't seen that one either, So I actually,
Speaker 2: you know what, I think I have seen that, but
Speaker 2: I just kind of blocked it out of my head
Speaker 2: because it was just a fucking.
Speaker 1: Bad I thought you were gonna say that your wife
Speaker 1: likes to watch Skyscrape. You know.
Speaker 2: I don't know if we've ever seen that one. That's
Speaker 2: the one with the rock and the fake leg, right.
Speaker 1: And he like jumps from the crane onto the Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: That seems like we should have seen that, just because.
Speaker 1: That's like I mean, I always say this, like you
Speaker 1: and your wife and my folks would get along so well.
Speaker 1: They love the bee keeper and the leg and the
Speaker 1: meg too, all this shit. I'm just like, this is
Speaker 1: the same stuff that.
Speaker 2: We saw a trailer for a new Stathum film, and
Speaker 2: we're like, yep, we're gonna go see this one too.
Speaker 1: He's gonna be in the new season of Jack Reacher apparently,
Speaker 1: like you really go figure so oh raw, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the state.
Speaker 2: The state of preview was so bad. I was just like,
Speaker 2: is this a this a parody? Like I couldn't tell yeah,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, and its.
Speaker 1: Just again the one where he's killing people on the island.
Speaker 2: No, he's on a boat on this one.
Speaker 1: Great, Yeah, we know what you mean there, Jason.
Speaker 2: Shelter.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, the Shelter is the one where he's
Speaker 1: on the island killing the people.
Speaker 2: Okay, what I'm trying to look at, not killing sharks.
Speaker 1: It is mutiny.
Speaker 2: It was mutiny. It is the name of it one
Speaker 2: word titles too, and it kind of it reminded me
Speaker 2: of the beginning of The Meg two where he's on
Speaker 2: that boat with all the containers and he's, you know,
Speaker 2: he's fighting the good fight at that point. So guess
Speaker 2: what his character's name is in Mutiny?
Speaker 1: Oh? Read, wasn't he in? Was he? Was he in
Speaker 1: a remake of one of those Michael Caine movies or
Speaker 1: was that Sylvester Stallone?
Speaker 2: That was Sylvester Stallone and get Carter. He was in
Speaker 2: the remake of a mechanic which I actually really liked.
Speaker 1: You know what, could we recast this movie with real actors?
Speaker 1: Like would real actors ever touch this with a ten
Speaker 1: foot pole? Would they have touched it with a ten
Speaker 1: foot pull if it had been a TV show? Like
Speaker 1: what do we have to do to get a Pedro
Speaker 1: Pascal to be part of Mortal Kombat? But it'd still
Speaker 1: be fun, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Or even fucking Jason Stathum.
Speaker 1: But I'd be like, why not cast Jason Stathum as Cato.
Speaker 1: He's fucking balld like I don't know, and he's an ass,
Speaker 1: Like he could play an ass pretty well, Like I
Speaker 1: don't know if he is an Australian accent, but that's
Speaker 1: as a British guy. Yeah, that's his character in The Fast.
Speaker 2: And the Furious movies or another movie that we've seen
Speaker 2: too many times, which is that fucking Fast and if
Speaker 2: you're a spinoff? You know, I'm still waiting for another
Speaker 2: one of those team.
Speaker 1: Ups with the rock that he oh Hobbs and Shaw Hobbs.
Speaker 2: And Shaw Baby. I still want to know why Ryan
Speaker 2: Reynolds was doing both the Handler character but also his
Speaker 2: voice is the voice of the bad guy in the
Speaker 2: movie that we don't see, like, why on earth is
Speaker 2: he doing both of these roles? And then fucking Idris
Speaker 2: Elba is the black Superman. I mean that line brought
Speaker 2: down the house.
Speaker 1: Does Idriselba have a allergic reaction to being in good movies?
Speaker 2: Well, hey, he was in Pacific Rim, So.
Speaker 1: Does Idraselva have an allergic reaction to being in good movies?
Speaker 2: I fucking love that first Pacific Room.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I cannot abide any of those movies. Maybe if
Speaker 1: I were to rewatch him now in my older, more
Speaker 1: mellowed out age, I wouldn't hate it so much.
Speaker 2: I bet you. He's really good in Beasts of No Nation.
Speaker 1: Uh that's the one where he plays one of those
Speaker 1: like African drug lords.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, And he was in I
Speaker 2: haven't seen the Mandela movie that he was in. I'm
Speaker 2: much more about his stuff, like his role in four
Speaker 2: or his role in The Losers with his fellow Marvel
Speaker 2: cast member Chris Evans.
Speaker 1: So I love him from Atheus like I love him
Speaker 1: in pro I love I don't care, does defend.
Speaker 2: I have an allergy?
Speaker 1: Good movie for Methus is a great movie. You're right,
Speaker 1: It's not a good movie. It's a great movie.
Speaker 2: He's really good in the Zootopia movies.
Speaker 1: So oh right, yeah, I really cut in those, you
Speaker 1: know what, and I think the conversation needs to end.
Speaker 1: He's not going to be James Bond. We've we've missed
Speaker 1: the boat so far. It's going to be some little
Speaker 1: pithy wipe bitch. Probably we'll be lucky if it's not
Speaker 1: Timothy Shallomy.
Speaker 2: I feel like ninety pounds soaking wet. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: to defend elbaw Like talking about James Gunn. He was
Speaker 2: really good in the Suicide Squad, basically picking up doing
Speaker 2: the almost exact same thing that Will Smith was doing,
Speaker 2: but probably for less money and less pain in the
Speaker 2: ass on set.
Speaker 1: And well compared to him. Yeah, oh god, how about
Speaker 1: disinterested it? At first?
Speaker 2: I was disinterested as an audience member.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, like, where is the version of
Speaker 1: this movie where we got like big name actors to
Speaker 1: be this, Like I don't understand why this isn't treated
Speaker 1: the same way as like Last of Us or other
Speaker 1: video game properties, like this is a legacy video game property,
Speaker 1: Like why is this not? I means, I guess maybe
Speaker 1: because it is a movie that is the extent of
Speaker 1: it being treated as such. But to have a bunch
Speaker 1: of TV actors and then a random smattering of a
Speaker 1: ton of Australian actors as well. Uh, it doesn't. It
Speaker 1: doesn't live up to the promise of Mortal Kombat. And
Speaker 1: there's not even enough like blood being spilled. Can you
Speaker 1: imagine like a movie that is more ricky oh in
Speaker 1: terms of like the bloodshed, Like that's oh, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: kind of what I want from a Mortal Kombat movie.
Speaker 2: Like they basically do. Yeah, they totally do a ricky
Speaker 2: oh like, especially in that first movie when I think
Speaker 2: is a Jacks that smacks his hands together brushes the
Speaker 2: guy's skull. That's that's the thing that you want in
Speaker 2: these movies. And was this PG thirteen, I I hope not.
Speaker 2: That guy getting caught in half could not have been PEG.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming it's R because that guy the when Kano
Speaker 1: or when Shao Kan has his head split into pieces, like,
Speaker 1: that's got it. That's gotta be R.
Speaker 2: And if you're doing R, then go all the way, baby.
Speaker 1: This is should be dropping f bombs and doing all
Speaker 1: kinds of shit. Oh, make it fun. And that's the thing,
Speaker 1: like this movie feels This video game movie feels caught
Speaker 1: in the like the before not the before times the
Speaker 1: video game movies, but a antiquated way of making video
Speaker 1: game movies that video game movies have moved past, like Fallout,
Speaker 1: Last of Us as TV shows, even that Super Mario
Speaker 1: Brothers movie showed us like, you can be fun in
Speaker 1: the universe that's already been created. You don't have to like,
Speaker 1: don't assume nobody knows what the fuck this is, Like
Speaker 1: it's fucking Mortal Kombat, like the Street Fighter movie. The
Speaker 1: trailer for it makes it like it knows what it is.
Speaker 1: This movie, I don't think on that first Mortal Kombat
Speaker 1: movie felt like it didn't want to be perceived as
Speaker 1: a video game movie, and this movie once again feels
Speaker 1: like it's having a hard time being perceived as a
Speaker 1: video game movie when it fucking is, like, just lean
Speaker 1: more into it, just like heavily lean into it.
Speaker 2: Have fun, commit to the pit, have as much fun
Speaker 2: as Carl Urban and Josh Lawson seem.
Speaker 1: To be having so because they seem to be the
Speaker 1: only ones.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, they're having a great time.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, genuine and like nobody else is really having
Speaker 1: as good of a time as they are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I had a great time watching it. So
Speaker 2: despite all of that, I mean, god, people just accuse
Speaker 2: us of hating any new movie that comes out, But
Speaker 2: I found this.
Speaker 1: Did you just see The Bride? Mike? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I did see The Bride? Yeah, I sure did.
Speaker 1: Was this more fun than The Bride was?
Speaker 2: As? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well yes, this is something that I will be watching
Speaker 2: a second, third, fourth, fifth time. So definitely not that I.
Speaker 1: Would agree, you know, for as much as we kind
Speaker 1: of had our things to say about it. Look, my
Speaker 1: my bar is relatively low with video game movies even
Speaker 1: to speak to like The Again, The Last of Us
Speaker 1: or The Fallout of It All, like those still don't
Speaker 1: raise the bar that high. They've only raised it higher
Speaker 1: than like Subterranean, barely, Because for the longest time, video
Speaker 1: game movies were seen as the worst of the adaptation films,
Speaker 1: like they were derided and dragged. Uva Bowl made a
Speaker 1: career odd of directing them. Like we're in a relatively
Speaker 1: like bucolic period now where video game movies are expected
Speaker 1: to be better than they used to and it's disappointing
Speaker 1: when they're not. And this movie is better than pretty
Speaker 1: much any video game movie that came out for the
Speaker 1: most part in thirty years prior to like the last
Speaker 1: five years worth of video game movies, like it still
Speaker 1: hangs together better than Annihilation or in a lot of
Speaker 1: ways that first Mortal Kombat movie. But it's Moratal Kombat.
Speaker 1: Have some fun with it, seriously, Like, yeah, it should
Speaker 1: have a sense of fun. Like that fucking song at
Speaker 1: the end of the movie is so prenetic and energetic
Speaker 1: that they've been reusing it every time they do one
Speaker 1: of these things, like ex usually that music as a
Speaker 1: starting point for the energy that this series needs to
Speaker 1: have imbued into it, because it really needs to live
Speaker 1: up to the level of fun that one has by
Speaker 1: playing the video game.
Speaker 2: You're talking about those bucolic age of video game movies,
Speaker 2: and I'm just like, all right, I haven't seen Five
Speaker 2: Nights of Freddy.
Speaker 1: Pretty good, pretty good.
Speaker 2: Minecraft movie was pretty good. I enjoyed it really well.
Speaker 1: It was essentially just Jumanji with Jason Momoa.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, you're not wrong, You're not mean.
Speaker 1: You know, like it was retreading old ground, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't retreading ground that wasn't somewhat fertile ground. It's not
Speaker 1: like they went, We're like, we're gonna redo it. We're
Speaker 1: gonna essentially use the the form and mold that Double
Speaker 1: Dragon did, like no, no, no, no, no, we're gonna
Speaker 1: rip off too much is ripping off other things and
Speaker 1: of itself.
Speaker 2: So oh yeah, well, and to your point, I mean,
Speaker 2: speaking of interse Elba, I mean, I haven't seen the
Speaker 2: Sonic movies, but I hear that they're very fun.
Speaker 1: They're probably the if we're talking the pinnacle of video
Speaker 1: game movies. I think it's Sonic, like genuinely Sonic two.
Speaker 1: They were just like, hey, Jim, just do your thing again,
Speaker 1: and and Jim Carrey goes for it in a way
Speaker 1: that he has not in a very long time, and
Speaker 1: he really like shows up in a way that that
Speaker 1: movie needed him to. I think that the character of
Speaker 1: Sonic is fun, like James Marsden is in those movies
Speaker 1: and he kind of is just there, like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I Sonic. You would like the Sonic movies. They're may
Speaker 1: be a little aimed for a younger audience, but still
Speaker 1: pretty good. Yeah, the Minecraft movie is not bad. Like
Speaker 1: say what you will about Jack Black showing up in
Speaker 1: every video game movie, but between border Lands or Minecraft,
Speaker 1: I know what's one I'm taking, or Super Mario Brothers movie.
Speaker 1: I would actually take Minecraft over the Super Mario Brothers
Speaker 1: movies even because like I just it's I don't know Jason.
Speaker 1: It was the first movie I saw where I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: Jason Momoa can kind of be fun and things like
Speaker 1: when given the opportunity to just be a dork, like
Speaker 1: Jason Momoa, I think can just be a dork. And
Speaker 1: I found him endearing in that movie in a way
Speaker 1: that I really hadn't before.
Speaker 2: Well, he's totally supposed to be like a Billy Mitchell.
Speaker 1: Type right in yeah in Minecraft?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was interesting with Minecraft. I
Speaker 2: downloaded a version of that where the effects weren't complete
Speaker 2: at all, Like it was wild to see, like you
Speaker 2: could actually see them standing in front of green screens
Speaker 2: at times, you could see green coming through their hair
Speaker 2: when stuff was going on. When it came to the
Speaker 2: main bad Pig character, her mouth never moved. It was
Speaker 2: just a still mouth. They added all that animation of
Speaker 2: her talking later, so I was just like, this is
Speaker 2: so weird, what's going on? Why is her mouth not moving?
Speaker 2: And it was just like her face perfectly still and
Speaker 2: you hear the voice coming out of it. It was
Speaker 2: kind of it. I haven't deleted that just because it
Speaker 2: was so fun to see how the effects were done.
Speaker 1: That's wild.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I mean that was kind of same
Speaker 2: thing with the original Wolverine Origins movie.
Speaker 1: Remember that one. I had that one on my computer
Speaker 1: back in the.
Speaker 2: I still have that on my computer. I've never watched
Speaker 2: the real version of it. I only watched that fucked
Speaker 2: up version with that weird like the animatics of Logan
Speaker 2: getting hit by that truck and stuff. Yeah, that for me,
Speaker 2: that's more entertaining than the actual movie itself.
Speaker 1: That is a funny point of thing that we share here.
Speaker 1: I've never seen Origins I either, other than that version,
Speaker 1: like the version I saw in my college dorm room
Speaker 1: on my my little like eight to ten inch whatever
Speaker 1: the fuck it was, black MacBook, sitting there just being
Speaker 1: like wow, like what the well, that was the first
Speaker 1: time we ever saw Deadpool, Like you know, that was
Speaker 1: a oh yeah, I know.
Speaker 2: You're absolutely right, this is a really good like well,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I was kind of mixing up video games
Speaker 2: and comic books because I was just to give that
Speaker 2: Nightcrawler origin story. I mean, Jake Jillen Hall really played
Speaker 2: the shit out of that role.
Speaker 1: Funny enough that the wolf for as bad as the
Speaker 1: Wolverine movie is, the Wolverine game based on the movie
Speaker 1: is amazing And it's the first time they ever allowed
Speaker 1: you to rip dudes apart as Wolverine and like the
Speaker 1: game was rated M so you could cut dude's arms
Speaker 1: off and jam your claws into their heads and rip
Speaker 1: their heads off, and it was like, well, if the
Speaker 1: movie had been that, we might've been out a more
Speaker 1: fun of a time.
Speaker 2: There are moments in that movie that are really good,
Speaker 2: like him and Sabertooth when they're growing up together and
Speaker 2: all that. I thought that was really fun. And the
Speaker 2: whole bone claws and stuff, like all the pre WEAPONEX
Speaker 2: stuff I thought was actually pretty entertaining. It just like
Speaker 2: kind of puts you in mind of like, yeah, this
Speaker 2: guy's hundreds of years old, Like right, he and his
Speaker 2: brother can't die really because of the regeneration. And what
Speaker 2: does that actually imply?
Speaker 1: We should have had Hugh Jackman as Johnny Kate.
Speaker 2: That would be fun to I mean, why do you
Speaker 2: want Australians all the time?
Speaker 1: You got some Australians. I think Simon mccoyd wants Australian,
Speaker 1: Like half of the cast of this movie is just Australian.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he is Australian, right, Yeah, he coiled.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I mean, come on, that name. That
Speaker 1: name sounds like a dead giveaway, doesn't it. Wow?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Wow, not the McCoid.
Speaker 2: Next thing, you're going to start talking about his accent
Speaker 2: and you know how big his nose is, those kind
Speaker 2: of things. Yeah, the gay Oh god, Yeah, you can
Speaker 2: tell he's Australian by the name.
Speaker 1: Simon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you just yeah what Simon Steen. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I would equate this movie in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: And I was thinking about this because of just like again,
Speaker 1: just why you would have the audience being treated stupidly
Speaker 1: in this day and age about things. This movie reminded
Speaker 1: me a lot of hell Boy, the way hell Boy
Speaker 1: two was after hell Boy. It's like, where was that
Speaker 1: character from the first movie? He is gone now he
Speaker 1: puocied away? Like, yes, same thing here, Like, just trust
Speaker 1: the audience. I think we're in a time now where
Speaker 1: either trust the audience or stop making things, because I
Speaker 1: you know, fuck, they trusted the audience enough with Spider
Speaker 1: man to not give us another another another another origin story.
Speaker 1: If you just gave us lu Kang and Kung Lau
Speaker 1: kicking the shit out of people and got people to
Speaker 1: get on board with that and interested in that, you
Speaker 1: don't have to like, oh, here's this character from the
Speaker 1: video game and there's this character, Like, you don't have
Speaker 1: to do that anymore. Like we're past We're so far
Speaker 1: past it that this is a convention of a time
Speaker 1: gone past. This reminded me a lot of ways, like
Speaker 1: Morbius with comic book movies, like we're past this, we
Speaker 1: can do we can do better. So yeah, to your point, still,
Speaker 1: we've done a lot worse. And I would put this
Speaker 1: in the top third of video game movies. And to
Speaker 1: your point, I think from before it's much better than
Speaker 1: the first one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, yeah, talk about tonally just sit
Speaker 2: in the bad that was That was rough man. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this one I'll watch again. The first one, No, no, thanks,
Speaker 2: don't ever need to see.
Speaker 1: That they meet me either. And you know, if they
Speaker 1: give us a Johnny Cage spin off, for a Kaitana spinoff,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised. I would implore anybody who's a
Speaker 1: mortal Kombat fan to go watch the cartoons that they have,
Speaker 1: the feature length cartoon. One is based on Scorpion and
Speaker 1: one is based on Johnny Cage. Those are very entertaining.
Speaker 1: I believe Joel McHale voices Johnny Cage and the cartoon
Speaker 1: uh one that focuses on his character, which, you know,
Speaker 1: physically maybe not the right pick, but like.
Speaker 2: Attitude, attitude.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, there's a universe where Ryan Reynolds could have
Speaker 1: played Johnny Cage, like I'm just gonna you know, like
Speaker 1: that's the character that I kind of expect from Johnny Cage,
Speaker 1: that conceited asshole.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, Well, Joel McHale played a great guyle in
Speaker 2: that Pete Holmes skit. So those Pete Holmes skits of
Speaker 2: him arranging the travel for the Street Fighter Tournament are great.
Speaker 2: Not as good though, as him as Professor X firing
Speaker 2: all of the X men. That's fucking comedy gold, especially
Speaker 2: him firing what's the creole guy? Oh Gambit, Gambit, him
Speaker 2: him firing Gambit. That is so good. Well, I could
Speaker 2: throw him a sandwich.
Speaker 1: How could you forget Channing Tatum's great return as Gambit?
Speaker 2: Oh God, that fucking accent man well, I'm all stuck
Speaker 2: on Wolverine Origins. I forget that there is in another
Speaker 2: gambit we o oh.
Speaker 1: Oh right, oh man, oh yeah, like core memory on Luckman,
Speaker 1: we should do a podcast in Wolverine Origins at some point.
Speaker 1: What a weird ass movie that just like got made existed?
Speaker 1: They referenced it in Deadpool two? Do they reference it
Speaker 1: in Deadpool too? Is that where they referenced it? It
Speaker 1: kills him where Deadpool shows up and shoots him in
Speaker 1: the fucking head?
Speaker 2: Like, oh wow, I just saw what you were talking about.
Speaker 2: I had no idea what you meant about the unassure
Speaker 2: being bad CGI. Holy shit, it just came up on
Speaker 2: my Reddit just like, this is the CGI they actually used.
Speaker 2: I am stunned by this. In the Sopranos, it is
Speaker 2: not this looks like it's fucking like Wolverine Origins was
Speaker 2: better CGI.
Speaker 1: Holy shit, I've seen better CGI in video games. Wow, speaking,
Speaker 1: how did they let this go out? It's the TV show, Mike,
Speaker 1: that's why. Oh it's a one shot. Who cares, right,
Speaker 1: nobody's gonna watch it that closely?
Speaker 2: Euble. Wow. I mean they were complaining about those effects
Speaker 2: in thor Love and thunder. This is worse.
Speaker 1: Man, it's bad.
Speaker 2: Wow, is the whole movie like this. I'm just watching
Speaker 2: the scene of the Punisher falling on like a container
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know if it's all like that, but
Speaker 1: that's the worst part for sure. Wow. Yeah, yeah, I uh,
Speaker 1: you know, there's no excuse anymore when these big budget
Speaker 1: studios came put out good CGI, Like what what are
Speaker 1: you Are you working them too hard? Are you not
Speaker 1: giving them enough time? Are you not paying them enough? Like?
Speaker 1: What are we doing here? Like it's it. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying it should be embarrassing, but I don't I don't
Speaker 1: know how else to interpret it. Like if you're trying
Speaker 1: to make something that looks realistic, you failed, So that's
Speaker 1: a failure. Like you know, there's a moment in this
Speaker 1: movie where Johnny Cage does a flip and it's clearly
Speaker 1: just like a guy with Carl Urban's head like cgi'ed
Speaker 1: on it. I'm like, man, that doesn't look right like
Speaker 1: and they showed it in the trailer even and I
Speaker 1: was like, this doesn't look good, Like what are we
Speaker 1: doing here? Like why are we not like pay these
Speaker 1: people some money? You guys make enough money off these
Speaker 1: goddamn movies. Like, you know, I don't know if this
Speaker 1: movie's gonna be a rounding air for Warner Brothers or not,
Speaker 1: but it might be you know, five million off the
Speaker 1: books whatever, ten million off the books whatever. We're getting
Speaker 1: a third one, no, mic, that's for certain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean this kind of ruled the box office.
Speaker 2: So I guess we're.
Speaker 1: Gonna be talking about Mortal Kombat three in what's how
Speaker 1: many years that this movie took to be made plus
Speaker 1: two more to be delayed again? Right right? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well what's really frustrating for me, Chris, is I'll
Speaker 2: just kind of pull back the curtain a little bit,
Speaker 2: since this is a shared episode between us. I was
Speaker 2: reached out to by a PR guy. Oh gosh, when
Speaker 2: was the first time. I mean, I'll sorry to do
Speaker 2: quick math here, but the first time I heard from
Speaker 2: this PR guy was August twenty fifth, twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: reaching out to you about upcoming film Wortal Combat. The
Speaker 2: film stars Carl Urban playing Hollywood has been Johnny cage
Speaker 2: a ton et cetera, et cetera. Yep, Martin Ford, and
Speaker 2: it's like, okay, we're you know, we're still firming up
Speaker 2: our New York LA screening schedule, but please let us
Speaker 2: know if you're interested in taking a look. And when
Speaker 2: I was like, Hey, I'm not in New York or LA,
Speaker 2: but I would love to interview some folks, he was like,
Speaker 2: oh cool, who do you want to interview? And I
Speaker 2: said this like long list of all these people, and yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm going down to like fucking I'm like, I'll talk
Speaker 2: to anybody about this because I know we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about this, like no matter what I want to
Speaker 2: talk about. Right, Well, you've heard all of the interviews
Speaker 2: that we played during the break on this episode, and
Speaker 2: so yeah, I'm glad that this really ate off very well.
Speaker 2: And I'm glad that that they did such a stellar
Speaker 2: job of blicicity quoting this film Jesus christ Man. So
Speaker 2: I reached out to the guy again like a month ago,
Speaker 2: and I was like, hey, dude, like after he had
Speaker 2: to tell me like, this movie's being delayed, but we
Speaker 2: don't know where it's coming out. October twenty four, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five is when it was supposed to come.
Speaker 1: Out, right, So okay, Oh god, damn, that's almost eight
Speaker 1: months ago now, yes, yes.
Speaker 2: So okay, cut to like two months ago. Hey, dude, like,
Speaker 2: let's rekindle this. I would love to know who I
Speaker 2: could talk to. I want to do this episode, you know,
Speaker 2: all this kind of stuff. And it's like, okay, great, yeah,
Speaker 2: we're working on it. And then I reached out to
Speaker 2: him again two weeks ago, maybe three, three weeks ago.
Speaker 2: He's like, oh great, I'm turning you over to this
Speaker 2: other team because this is my last week here. So
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh my god, it's us. I'm like, is
Speaker 2: it your last week here because you've done such a
Speaker 2: piss for job or is it your last week here
Speaker 2: because the rest of the company is doing such a
Speaker 2: fucked up job and you're going over to better pastures.
Speaker 2: I hope it's the latter one. Like, if so, more
Speaker 2: power to you, buddy. They screwed the pooch when it
Speaker 2: came to this, And I don't even understand some of
Speaker 2: the marketing of this. Obviously we talked about the Johnny
Speaker 2: caged ness of it, but like I was watching an
Speaker 2: Instagram reel and they're talking about it was this this
Speaker 2: kid with these sunglasses and he's like, these are my
Speaker 2: grandfather's sunglasses or something like Carl Urban takes them. It
Speaker 2: just obviously blatantly breaks them and is like, oh, I'd
Speaker 2: give you mine, but the prescription. And I'm like, is
Speaker 2: this supposed to be funny, because this is not funny
Speaker 2: at all, and this is so staged, Like this is
Speaker 2: just really stupid. I didn't know what they're doing with this.
Speaker 2: So despite the marketing of this film, I still had
Speaker 2: a good time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the marketing for this movie did it no favors.
Speaker 1: I did not see a lot of marketing for the film.
Speaker 1: I did not see Carl Urban on hot ones with
Speaker 1: Sean Evans eating chicken wings, like, I didn't see any
Speaker 1: of that, Like.
Speaker 2: You, bloody son of a bit.
Speaker 1: I know, I was waiting for it, and you know what,
Speaker 1: I get the distinct feeling street Fighter is probably gonna
Speaker 1: do all of it. And street Fighter has a leg
Speaker 1: up because and that was the other thing. Street Fighter
Speaker 1: knows its audience because it has not one but two
Speaker 1: and who knows, possibly even three, there might be more.
Speaker 1: And I just am forgetting wrestlers from the WWWE in
Speaker 1: their film. So they have automatic like advertising, like Cody
Speaker 1: Rhodes is playing Gyle, like, yes, he's one of the
Speaker 1: biggest superstars in the w W, and he's one of
Speaker 1: the main characters in that movie ostensibly like free advertising,
Speaker 1: free eyes on the product, like.
Speaker 2: And I only know him as the bartender from Naked Gun.
Speaker 1: Well, the funny thing is his scene in Street Fighter
Speaker 1: looks like it was filmed in the same club from
Speaker 1: Naked Gun. So the lighting looks fucking identical.
Speaker 2: I mean, they really went insane with his hair too.
Speaker 2: That's the That's the thing I'm afraid of. And I'm
Speaker 2: gonna put this out in the universe right now. I'm
Speaker 2: afraid that this is all going to be the Ken
Speaker 2: and Ryu story. And I never played Ken or Ryu.
Speaker 2: I could not care about those characters whatsoever. I did
Speaker 2: find it funny that Ken is beating up a car
Speaker 2: in the trailer. I'm like, okay, yeah, it looks like
Speaker 2: a publicity stunt. I'm like, yeah, yeah, that makes it.
Speaker 2: It makes us much sense as when they had to
Speaker 2: beat up a car in the game.
Speaker 1: So what I like that again, it seems just visually
Speaker 1: that the Street Fighter movie understands the source material like exactly.
Speaker 1: And maybe I'm wrong, and I'm putting this out into
Speaker 1: the universe myself, like I hope that the Street Fighter
Speaker 1: movie understands the tone of the source material and that
Speaker 1: it is wacky and weird and it is not self serious.
Speaker 2: Loez. Yeah, and just line about and Chunley's thighs in
Speaker 2: the trailer. I was like, okay, good, I'm glad you
Speaker 2: were bringing that up, right.
Speaker 1: Like I want that so badly, and I hope, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe that won't be it, maybe it'll flop harder than
Speaker 1: this movie, but fingers crossed, you know, I just don't know.
Speaker 1: It's it's wild that Mortal Combat and Street Fighter both
Speaker 1: having films coming out in the same year. It once
Speaker 1: again adds further fuel to the fire of these two franchises.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I'm sure we're gonna cover Street Fighter.
Speaker 1: If we weren't going to before, we are going to
Speaker 1: now obviously. And I hope when we're done with that
Speaker 1: episode we are having had a better time tonally with
Speaker 1: that movie than we did with this movie. But I
Speaker 1: to your point, like, I'll rewatch this movie and I'll
Speaker 1: probably rewatch it again in the next week, like you know,
Speaker 1: Carl Urb And thank god for you as an actor,
Speaker 1: my friend.
Speaker 2: Seriously, absolutely, yeah, yeah, you made what could have been
Speaker 2: a pretty shitty movie into something really enjoyable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, he one of the few things the
Speaker 1: film really has going for it. So so yeah, until
Speaker 1: I guess we do another one of these crossover episodes.
Speaker 1: You can find me over at wordingwaymedia dot com, where
Speaker 1: this show and all the other shows I work on
Speaker 1: can be found, other than Ranking on Bond, which is
Speaker 1: coming to a close very quickly at the beginning of June,
Speaker 1: but we will be transitioning to a non Patreon exclusive
Speaker 1: show after that. It will be on Patreon a month
Speaker 1: early ad free, but the next show that we are
Speaker 1: doing will be a show that is not on Patreon.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's where you can find all the things
Speaker 1: that I work on. What about you, Mike.
Speaker 2: Ironically, it's the same thing all the way down the line,
Speaker 2: Weirdingwaymedia dot com Patreon exclusive, just a different Patreon address.
Speaker 2: But everybody who's listening to this should hopefully know you
Speaker 2: go to patreon dot com slash Projection Booth or patreon
Speaker 2: dot com slash culturecast, give us your heart in cash,
Speaker 2: give us your heart earned cash, and yeah, enjoy some
Speaker 2: some free entertainment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and as always, like rate and review the show
Speaker 1: wherever you get it. If you get my Show on
Speaker 1: iTunes or Spotify, or Mike Show on iTunes or Spotify.
Speaker 1: That's the easiest place to make a difference with your voice.
Speaker 1: And you know, let us know how we did. You know,
Speaker 1: some of you do, some of you don't. But we
Speaker 1: try to engage if you engage with us, and as always,
Speaker 1: we'll catch on the next episode.