Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle Of The Realms

I liked it, but I don't think I liked it as much as the first one. Liu Kang's mother getting brutally murdered in the opening scene REALLY turned me off, and the movie never fully won me back. Seriously gruesome and downright loathsome stuff.

Stryker's horrible death was not a surprise, but perhaps but Kung Lao and Raiden's deaths were. I think what bothered me most about Kung Lao's death is that it was comically gruesome. You want to play Stryker's death that way, that's one thing. To do that to Kung Lao is too much.

Joel McHale as Johnny Cage remains the franchise's MVP. As dark as things get, McHale is always making things tolerable. Cage died at some point in the games, but if the animated franchise is smart, they'll ignore that bit of canon history for the cartoon movies. I don't think any of these movies could work without him.

I am always fascinated by the fact that Scorpion is a good guy in these movies, and was really pleasantly surprised he made some sort of peace with what turned out to be the real Subzero. It was really cool.

The opening WB logo with Shaggy was fun too. Matthew Lillard was even billed in the credits.

Liu Kang turning into the Mortal Kombat dragon at the end sort of made me say "Aha!"

It was good, but it made some choices that I was not on-board with. 3 1/2 stars.

Kombat Gags: Gag Reel:

It's not an animated gag reel (which I would have loved) but animated outtakes of Joel McHale riffing. Him mentioning Community is weird because it seems like he's name-dropping it. His career is hardly dead enough that he needs to do that. He's not Mickey Rooney. Yet. 3 stars.