Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins

1995

Action / Adventure / Animation / Fantasy

11
IMDb Rating 3.5/10 10 1103 1.1K

martial artist based on video game

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Plot summary

As the three chosen defenders of Earth travel to Shang Tsung's island, Rayden teaches them how to become the masters of their destinies, overcome their foes, and control their powers. Liu Kang, Sonya Blade and Johnny Cage must defeat Shang Tsung, Sub Zero, Scorpion and Goro in a tournament of Mortal Kombat if they are to survive and save the fate of the earth.

Director

Joseph Francis Photo
Joseph Francis

Top cast

Jim Cummings Photo
Jim Cummings as Shang Tsung
Jeff Bennett Photo
Jeff Bennett as Johnny Cage
Jennifer Hale Photo
Jennifer Hale as Sonya Blade
Ron Feinberg Photo
Ron Feinberg as Raiden
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
362.4 MB
954*720
English 2.0
PG
us  
29.97 fps
12 hr 39 min
Seeds 2
671.32 MB
1432*1080
English 2.0
PG
us  
29.97 fps
12 hr 39 min
Seeds 9

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by Vinicius Monteiro 2 / 10

Rewatching certain things from the past often proves

Rewatching certain things from the past often proves that nostalgia is just an illusion. When I revisited the animated prequel that was supposed to introduce the biggest arcade phenomenon of the nineties, I was immediately disappointed. What tried to be a technologically ambitious project ended up as a careless corporate cash grab, turning a franchise known for intense, organic action into something entirely lifeless. The 3D CGI sequences are an absolute disaster. The character models are basically geometric blocks with no textures or facial expressions, looking more like early studio test footage than a finished product. For a franchise built on martial arts, the fight scenes are incredibly frustrating. The primitive motion capture makes the combat feel slow, robotic, and floaty, completely lacking any real weight or physical impact. To make matters worse, the jarring transition between the decent 2D animation and the sterile 3D combat arenas completely ruins any sense of immersion. These flaws bleed into the most basic aspects of the animation. The lip-syncing is laughably bad—you'll see mouths moving long after a line is finished, or entire dialogues playing over frozen faces. It's obvious the studio rushed an unfinished product to market just to boost sales. The story itself drags on endlessly. Our supposed heroes—Sonya, Liu Kang, and Johnny Cage—are reduced to passive tourists in their own story. They just walk around asking redundant questions while Raiden dumps endless exposition on them. There's no character development, and their usual charisma is completely drained. On top of that, the movie completely sanitizes the action. By stripping away the blood and the iconic fatalities to make it kid-friendly, they destroyed the dark, edgy vibe that made the brand so popular to begin with. Ultimately, the whole thing feels like a cheap, agonizingly slow commercial meant to hype up the live-action film and push video game sales—they even flash *Mortal Kombat 3* promo codes during the credits. Today, watching *The Journey Begins* feels more like a digital archaeology experiment than actual entertainment. Still, it carries enough historical weight to be worth checking out. I’d actually recommend sitting through its forty-minute runtime just to form your own opinion. There’s undeniable educational value in seeing the awkward early days of CGI and how the industry struggled to adapt fighting games back in the nineties. Power through the slow pacing and the dated graphics, and see for yourself the starting point of one of the most impactful franchises in pop culture.
Reviewed by TedStixonAKAMaximumMadness 2 / 10

Released by Turner Home Video and produced by Threshold Entertainment, "Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins" is a very peculiar 90's relic made to cash in on the video-rental market craze and the ever-growing popularity of its video-game source material. And while I will admit it does have a certain nostalgic "so bad, it's kinda good" charm for me as a man who actually rented the the VHS tape repeatedly from my local Video King as a kid... it's a pretty sad and obvious gimmick release looking back. Essentially an overlong commercial made to promote a massive media franchise.1995 was very much the year of "Mortal Kombat"- not only ushering in the release of the third game in the series, but also seeing the launch of various merchandise and tie-in media, including toys, a live-tour based on the games and the incredibly popular theatrical film adaptation by Paul W.S. Anderson. "The Journey Begins" is essentially a very crafty, trendy cash-in on the "Mortal Kombat" tidal-wave, produced as more of a marketing piece to promote the live-action feature than as an honest film in itself. Methodically pieced together to have as much appeal as possible without actually making much effort.The short film (accompanied on the original tape by some other franchise-related content to pad out the runtime) is presented as an "official prequel" to the feature film adaptation. It revolves around the characters of Liu Kang, Sonya Blade and Johnny Cage as they board a rickety old ship on their way to the Mortal Kombat tournament, in addition to some early adventures they encounter upon arrival. On their adventure, they learn the fundamentals of the tournament and what it represents, and we are also given a bit of backstory on several characters that the film adaptation had to leave under- developed due to the plethora of characters featured. So we finally learn more about fan-favorites like Scorpion, Sub-Zero and even Goro.Problem is... the short doesn't work as either a prequel or as a standalone project, and it's reliant solely on trendy, dated effects to snag a quick buck from kids. It's a wholly cynical affair. Despite billing itself as a "prequel" to the movie, it's barely connected. Characters not only look, sound and act differently... but even the story itself is radially altered at times. What makes it all the more confusing is that this is supposed to take place BEFORE the events of the film. (It's a "prequel" after all...) And yet, it portrays the same basic events we see in the first act of the movie. Huh? OK, so maybe it's better viewed as a sort-of child-friendly remake of the film? ...Nah! It doesn't work that way either, because it's only presenting part of the story and lacks resolution. (And that's not spoiling anything at all... they advertise it as such.) So on one hand... it fails as a prequel to the film. And on the other... it fails at being its own thing. Whose the target audience supposed to be, again? And I say that knowing I rented this at least two or three times growing up. But looking back... I can't see why I did that.A big part of the push of this release was also the then cutting- edge combination of classic 2D and modern 3D animation techniques. This was one of the first releases to really push the fact that the filmmakers used motion-capture technology- a technique that allowed real-world movement from actors and stuntmen to be mapped directly onto digital models. And, yeah... I guess it was kinda cool seeing a direct-to- video movie that incorporated about 10 minutes or so of purely- digital fight scenes, in addition to mapping 2D hand-drawn characters over 3D backgrounds. But the problem is... that's all the short really has going for it. The writing is incredibly shoddy, and characters are all pretty unlikable as presented here, with some of the lamest gags thrown in for cheap laughs and a lot of really cringe-worthy moments. A far-cry from the excellent casting and good humor of the movie this is supposed to precede. So the animation is to the service of really sub-par material, and thus feels flat and pointless. There's also the fact that the film came out at a time where digital effects were still in their infancy, so within a year of release, they looked instantly dated.This is also a very cheap experience despite the motion-capture and 3D animation technology being presented. Outside of sequences involving those techniques... the rest of the film looks rushed and patched together. Animations are often repeated 2, 3, 4 or more times. There's a lot of lazy padding with artificial slow-motion that's created by repeating frames and adding a vague blur-effect. And any time more than a few characters on screen, you'll notice that the majority of them won't move, or that they'll only move one at a time.Still... for fans of the overall media franchise titan that is "Mortal Kombat", I'd say it's worth watching once for laughs. Don't get me wrong... "The Journey Begins" is terrible from any conceivable standpoint. But it's still a piece of "Mortal Kombat" history, and it's got a certain kitschy charm to it, especially if you grew up watching it or the other movies and cartoons associated with it. Also, it has the wonderful Jim Cummings providing several of the voices. So there's also that.I give it a terrible but very mildly entertaining 2 out of 10.
Reviewed by TedStixonAKAMaximumMadness 2 / 10

"Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins"- An amusingly bad 90's relic.

Released by Turner Home Video and produced by Threshold Entertainment, "Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins" is a very peculiar 90's relic made to cash in on the video-rental market craze and the ever-growing popularity of its video-game source material. And while I will admit it does have a certain nostalgic "so bad, it's kinda good" charm for me as a man who actually rented the the VHS tape repeatedly from my local Video King as a kid... it's a pretty sad and obvious gimmick release looking back. Essentially an overlong commercial made to promote a massive media franchise.1995 was very much the year of "Mortal Kombat"- not only ushering in the release of the third game in the series, but also seeing the launch of various merchandise and tie-in media, including toys, a live-tour based on the games and the incredibly popular theatrical film adaptation by Paul W.S. Anderson. "The Journey Begins" is essentially a very crafty, trendy cash-in on the "Mortal Kombat" tidal-wave, produced as more of a marketing piece to promote the live-action feature than as an honest film in itself. Methodically pieced together to have as much appeal as possible without actually making much effort.The short film (accompanied on the original tape by some other franchise-related content to pad out the runtime) is presented as an "official prequel" to the feature film adaptation. It revolves around the characters of Liu Kang, Sonya Blade and Johnny Cage as they board a rickety old ship on their way to the Mortal Kombat tournament, in addition to some early adventures they encounter upon arrival. On their adventure, they learn the fundamentals of the tournament and what it represents, and we are also given a bit of backstory on several characters that the film adaptation had to leave under- developed due to the plethora of characters featured. So we finally learn more about fan-favorites like Scorpion, Sub-Zero and even Goro.Problem is... the short doesn't work as either a prequel or as a standalone project, and it's reliant solely on trendy, dated effects to snag a quick buck from kids. It's a wholly cynical affair. Despite billing itself as a "prequel" to the movie, it's barely connected. Characters not only look, sound and act differently... but even the story itself is radially altered at times. What makes it all the more confusing is that this is supposed to take place BEFORE the events of the film. (It's a "prequel" after all...) And yet, it portrays the same basic events we see in the first act of the movie. Huh? OK, so maybe it's better viewed as a sort-of child-friendly remake of the film? ...Nah! It doesn't work that way either, because it's only presenting part of the story and lacks resolution. (And that's not spoiling anything at all... they advertise it as such.) So on one hand... it fails as a prequel to the film. And on the other... it fails at being its own thing. Whose the target audience supposed to be, again? And I say that knowing I rented this at least two or three times growing up. But looking back... I can't see why I did that.A big part of the push of this release was also the then cutting- edge combination of classic 2D and modern 3D animation techniques. This was one of the first releases to really push the fact that the filmmakers used motion-capture technology- a technique that allowed real-world movement from actors and stuntmen to be mapped directly onto digital models. And, yeah... I guess it was kinda cool seeing a direct-to- video movie that incorporated about 10 minutes or so of purely- digital fight scenes, in addition to mapping 2D hand-drawn characters over 3D backgrounds. But the problem is... that's all the short really has going for it. The writing is incredibly shoddy, and characters are all pretty unlikable as presented here, with some of the lamest gags thrown in for cheap laughs and a lot of really cringe-worthy moments. A far-cry from the excellent casting and good humor of the movie this is supposed to precede. So the animation is to the service of really sub-par material, and thus feels flat and pointless. There's also the fact that the film came out at a time where digital effects were still in their infancy, so within a year of release, they looked instantly dated.This is also a very cheap experience despite the motion-capture and 3D animation technology being presented. Outside of sequences involving those techniques... the rest of the film looks rushed and patched together. Animations are often repeated 2, 3, 4 or more times. There's a lot of lazy padding with artificial slow-motion that's created by repeating frames and adding a vague blur-effect. And any time more than a few characters on screen, you'll notice that the majority of them won't move, or that they'll only move one at a time.Still... for fans of the overall media franchise titan that is "Mortal Kombat", I'd say it's worth watching once for laughs. Don't get me wrong... "The Journey Begins" is terrible from any conceivable standpoint. But it's still a piece of "Mortal Kombat" history, and it's got a certain kitschy charm to it, especially if you grew up watching it or the other movies and cartoons associated with it. Also, it has the wonderful Jim Cummings providing several of the voices. So there's also that.I give it a terrible but very mildly entertaining 2 out of 10.
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