Mehcad Brooks | Through the Shattered Lens

About ten minutes into Mortal Kombat, there’s a title card that reads, “Earthrealm is on the verge of catastrophe….”

As soon as I saw it, I shouted, “Oh my God, this is one of those films!”

And indeed, it is. Mortal Kombat is one of those films that has a lot of mythology that doesn’t quite make sense but which the audience is expected to blindly accept because it’s Mortal Kombat. The main idea here is that, of the last few Mortal Kombat tournaments, Earthworld has lost nine of them and, if it loses for a tenth time, the rules state that Outworld will then be able to conquer Earthworld. What I want to know is who agreed to those stupid rules in the first place? Were they drunk at the time? Who decided on the ten-victory arrangement? Does it have to be ten victories in a row or do they just have to win ten times? If Earthworld wins the next tournmant, does everything reset or are we now in a position where we have to win every single tournament until the end of time? The film tells us that Raiden, the God of the Thunder, is the protector of Earthworld. Can we get a new protector because Raiden obviously sucks at his job.

Anyway, with an opening like that, you would think that Mortal Kombat would be all about the tournament but we don’t actually get the tournament in this film. We get a lot of combat (or should I say, “kombat”) because the champions of Outworld keep trying to kill the champions of Earthworld before the tournament. That sounds like cheating to me but whatever. All of the fighters have a special power, though some powers are more impressive than others. Kano (played by Josh Lawson) may be loud and obnoxious but he eventually learns how to shoot a laser beam out of his eye, which seems pretty nice until you consider that Liu Kang (Ludi Lin) can do all sorts of cool stuff with fire and Raiden can turn his hat into a freaking buzzsaw. Jax (Mehcad Brooks) loses his arms early on but then he gets some replacement arms that he can use to tear people in half. “These motherfuckers really work,” Jax says after savagely killing an opponent. Excuse me, Jax, but that was someone’s child.

The main character is Cole Young (Lewis Tan), who is a washed-up MMA fighter who gets a chance to save the world. Cole is a boring characters and his powers kind of suck too. After watching the film, I checked and I discovered that Cole is apparently not a character in any of the Mortal Kombat video games so I guess he was created to give the audience someone to relate to. But I would think that the audience would want to relate to someone who can actually do spectacular things as opposed to just standing around and whining about how his powers are inadequate.

The film’s big attraction is watching Sub-Zero battle Scorpion at the end. I’ve never even played Mortal Kombat and even I know who Sub-Zero and Scorpion are. That’s how much they’ve become a part of pop culture. Sub-Zero (who is played by Joe Taslim) is actually portrayed fairly well in the film. Taslim moves like a confident killer and, visually, the film comes up with some striking images of his ice-covered existence. If you’re only watching for the big Scorpion/Sub-Zero fight, be aware that it doesn’t happen until the very end of the film and it’s a bit anti-climatic. But Scorpion does say, “Get over here!” He says it in English despite all of his other dialogue being in Japanese and he shouts it at a character who is also never heard to speak English but whatever. It’s Mortal Kombat. They might be able to get away with not showing the tournament but there’s no way they could have gotten away with not using the line.

Mortal Kombat is pretty forgettable. It gets bogged down in story when its should just be concentrating on combat and the fights themselves are pretty rudimentary. There’s a lot of blood but not much imagination. I’m going to write a movie called Moral Kombat, which will just be three hours of Benedictines and Jesuits arguing with each other. I think it’ll be a hit.

Let us take a few minutes to praise Tyler Perry.

Seriously, so much time and energy has been devoted to writing about the numerous flaws that can be found in the majority of Perry’s film that I do think we can spare a few minutes to acknowledge all of the goods things about Tyler Perry.

First off, though he undeniably has an ego, Tyler Perry appears to be a decent human being and he frequently puts his money to good use. At a time when we’ve gotten used to hearing terrible things about some of the richest and most famous men around, Tyler Perry is unique in that we don’t ever seem to hear anything particularly negative about him as a person.

Secondly, Tyler Perry has proven himself to be a far better actor than I think anyone originally gave him credit for being. Just check out his performance in Gone Girl, for instance. He took a stock role, the flamboyant attorney, and played it with such wit and intelligence that he become one of the most interesting characters in the film.

Third, Tyler Perry’s films — regardless of what the critics may think of them — have provided roles for a lot of talented black actors and actresses who often don’t get the type of roles that they deserve from Hollywood.

Fourth, Tyler Perry proved that there was a market out there for all sorts of films made for and by black people. Though many are still loathe to admit, Tyler Perry has played a huge role in changing the way the film industry views black audiences.

With all that in mind, it’s kind of tragic that, for all the good things that you can say about him, he’s still an absolutely terrible director. There’s nothing wrong with having an ego (and, as my fellow site contributors can tell you, I’ve certainly got a healthy one myself) but I sometimes think that the same ego that has allowed Perry to become a success and do so much good has also prevented him from growing as a director. How else do you explain that, after having directed over 20 films, Tyler Perry still often seems like a very enthusiastic film student who is just now making his first feature? How else do you explain that he’s keeps making the same rookie mistakes — i.e., boom mics slipping into the shot, continuity errors, and melodramatic tone changes that often seem to come out of nowhere — even though he’s been doing this for 16 years?

This brings us to A Fall From Grace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxLb3aLb5j4

A Fall From Grace was Tyler Perrry’s 21st film as a director. It was also the first film that he made for Netflix and he also apparently shot it in 5 days. There aren’t many directors, outside of Roger Corman, who can claim to have shot an entire film in 5 days. Most directors, of course, would know that you need more than 5 days to shoot a film, especially one that wants to explore a serious issue. Corman may have spent two days on Little Shop of Horrors but that’s a movie about a talking plant. A Fall From Grace takes on the criminal justice system.

Jasmine (Bresha Webb) is a public defender who doesn’t get emotionally involved with her clients and who almost always makes a plea deal. Her husband (Matthew Law) is a cop who is haunted by a recent suicide. Jasmine’s latest client is Grace Walters (Crystal Fox), who has been arrested for murdering her husband (Mehcad Brooks). Grace wants to plead guilty but Jasmine suspects that there might be more to the case than anyone realizes. Why Jasmine suddenly takes an interest in taking Grace’s case to trial is never really that clear but it does lead to a lot of melodrama and a lot of rather clumsy flashbacks. Eventually, Jasmine just kind of stumbles onto the truth and has to fight to reveal what really happened.

The story is nearly impossible to follow and the film’s action often seems to drag. Probably the best thing about the film is that Perry himself plays Jasmine’s sarcastic boss. Perry has a truly impressive beard and he seems to be having fun with the character. Crystal Fox gives an effective performance as Grace and Phylicia Rashad has some good moments as Crystal’s friend. Even Mehcad Brooks is convincing, even if he does get stuck with the film’s worst lines. But Bresha Webb and Matthew Law are boring as the main couple and the story gets bogged down with flashbacks. It’s just not a very good film.

Still, the film was reportedly one of the most viewed movies on Netflix during the weekend of its release. The critics may not have embraced the film but Perry has shown repeatedly that you don’t need the critics on your side to be a success.