Movies are rated on a 1-4 balls scale with 4 being a mouthful, enjoy.
Rols Balls Movie Review is back baby. After 10 long years its time to dip my balls back into a bucket of buttery popcorn.
We review Popcorn Movies, no Oscar winners here. Just fun times, so unbuckle that belt, sit back and enjoy.
Its good to be back writing reviews for the one person that has ever visited this website. I know he has been patiently waiting day after day for this re-launch.....enjoy Slapdog.
I do not have time to worry about spelling, puncuation or even having some type of flow to my reviews. I am not a writer or even a smart man but I do have time to go to the movies at 2:00 on a workday.
MORTAL KOMBAT II
The Plot Summary
Mortal Kombat II is a continuation of the Mortal Konbat from 5 or so years ago, picking up right where MK left off. Outworld has won nine tournaments in row and if they win this one they will get domination over Earth. With Kung Lao and his razor sharp hat dying in the last film Earth is one fighter short so they recruit a washed up actor, Johnny Fucking Cage. Johnny follows Raiden and Sonya Blade to Raiden’s temple and learns very quickly about this whole Outworld v Earth saga. The says fuck off and goes back to the bar to get drunk. But the tournament has started and Johnny gets teleported into the first round to fight against Kitana, who is a princess, and gets his ass kicked. What he does not know is that Katana is a spy for Raiden and she does not “Finish Him” in the battle.
Next fight is Sonya Blade v Sindel. Remember her? She yells really loud and blows her opponents up. She is also apparently Kitana’s mother that was turned into a zombie bride for Shao Khan. Sonya kills Sindel in the battle making the score 1-1. First team to lose 5 matches is out.
In the Outworld Shao Khan brings in Quan Chi. He brings Kung Lao back from the dead along with fucking Kano, hell ya. Kano had stolen a magical amulet from Raiden. The amulet will give Shao Khan immortality and drain Raiden’s powers. Kung Lao goes and slices Raidens throat but does not kill him.
The next round is Liu Kang v Kung Lao. Liu Kang wins in a great battle between the “brothers”. Liu Kang kills Kung Lao but promises to find a way to bring him back.
Next is Jax v Jade. Then Cole Young v Shao Khan. Jax and Shao Khan win. I was outside having a smoke.
The hero’s now travel to see Baraka for help. Liu Kang challenges Baraka to a fight to gain his trust. Baraka refuses until he is teased by Johnny Fucking Cage. Baraka and Cage fight and Cage earns Baraka’s respect so Baraka will go and help. Meanwhile, Jade told Shao Khan about Kitana's treason, so Khan has her tied up in an empty town square as an example for the people who aren't there.
Shao Khan goes to stop the four Earth fighters from getting the amulet and he kills Jax, but before Khan can kill them all, Liu Kang and Sonya are teleported “teleported for the next round, and a back from the dead Sub-Zero, is now a black ninja called Noob Saibot. He steals the amulet and goes to the Nether Realm where Kano then teams up with Johnny Cage as Kano doesn't want Earth to be overtaken and become a desert, and so the two best characters in this movie go to the Nether Realm to get Scorpion, to get the amulet.
Scorpion, Sub-Zero and Noob Saibot all fight. Meanwhile, the tournament continues. Liu Kang fights Shao Khan, but Liu Kang has little chance, so he then transforms into some kind of fire spirit that floats away, saying he'll save the heroes. I don't know how, as he's fallen himself. Sonya frees Kitana before she must fight Shao Khan.
“Sonya loses, and Outworld has won the tournament. But Kitana changes the rules and says she's now a fighter for Earth, meaning each side still has one champion. Kitana fights Shao Khan.
In the netherworld, Cage almost sacrifices himself to destroy the amulet, which makes Shao Khan mortal again.
Shao Khan is killed in combat by Kitana by the coolest “finish him” move of all time and she now becomes Queen of the Freed, Edinia people. Sonya, a fully healed Raiden, Kitana, Jade, Kano, and Bacara plan on making Quan Chi bring back their dead friends as credits roll.
The Overview
MORTAL KOMBAT ll, wow quite a bit of fun. I saw this movie in IMAX on the opening Friday and went to my favorite theater in Rochester. It was a 1:00 iMax showing and I would say there was about twenty others in the theater. When I arrived, the movie had already started, but I believe I only missed a minute or two. I sat down with my beer and raisinets and settled in. I don’t have any set guidelines when heading into a movie; sometimes I watch all the trailers and all the media I can consume including interviews or podcast going into the movie other times I watch nothing and pay attention to nothing so that I go in completely spoiler free. Typically, its somewhere in the middle, in this case I did watch all the trailers. I didn’t study them or watch them framed by frame, but I bet I saw them two or three times each, so I had a bit of an expectation going in. What first caught my attention at the start of this movie was right off the bat the opening scene the movie completely shattered my expectations from the trailers. From the trailers and using the knowledge of the first Mortal Kombat movie, my assumption was this movie was going to be centered around Johnny Cage as our main hero and the rematch between Scorpion and Subzero. We did get the Scorpion, Subzero rematch and it was great, but it was far from the best part of this movie and Johnny Cage was fantastic and chewed up every scene he was in but again that was not the main story here. The overlining character arc was Kitana, and it was done perfectly. The writers did a fantastic job. Creating this arc with emotion and heart. Seeing Katina as a child, watching her father killed, and her people enslaved instantly gives you sympathy and compassion for the young child. You immediately feel it and see it in her eyes, realizing she is going to conform to what she needs to be while all the while a fire will be burning inside her knowing someday she would have the opportunity to revenge her people and her father. The opening scene had tears running off my chin. Johnny Cage and Cano provided comic relief throughout the entire movie and both characters written very well. They both lit up the screen each time they were involved. I laughed, cried and cheered multiple times in this film.
The Notes
The Blue Balls
All right so this certainly is a Popcorn Movie. It won’t break my top 10 of the year, but it was fun. There were a lot of cheesy scenes with poor dialogue and bad CGI. Things like bringing somebody back to life instantly, Johnny Cage believing any of this and Sonia taking a hammer to head and still being alive really makes you roll your eyes. They tow this line of either being over the top and a joke or trying to be taken seriously and they don’t commit to either side. This creates poor synergy as you don’t really know what you’re supposed to be watching. My opinion would be to fully commit and just make this a joke movie with a ton of nostalgia and good fights instead they try to be serious at times. But my biggest blue balls are with Lord Raiden. At no time your are convinced that he is any more powerful than JAX. It’s not even about his power. It’s his demeanor and statue. And his voice is even worse. He looks week and he height is way too short. I’m not asking for him to be John Cena but they could’ve at least gotten an actor over 6 feet tall. Preferably 7 feet. And when he speaks, he should sound like a God not like Harry Steckle sucking on this third pack of cigarettes for the day. Some scenes in the CGI was absolutely brutal, especially in the background, although I didn’t notice much of that on the first viewing. The score was good, but I didn’t recognize any music from the video games which I feel is a miss. And seriously why is Cole Young even here. He can’t act, his character is shit and they really just shoehorn him into this movie.
The Cumshot
- This movie splats Nostalgia cum all over the place. The fights, the special moves and finishing moves are superb. The stages were also quite cool. They took the stage and updated making them even cooler than before. Dead Pool, The Portal, Kahn’s Arena, Armoy and The Pit. For example, in the Pit the spikes randomly came up through the floor.
- Some of the special and finishing moves. Some of these moves were subtle like the fan lift, blink and you miss it. Others like the Ball Breaker, quite obvious. Here are the ones I noticed. Ball breaker, shadow kick, fireball, bicycle kick (subtle), hat throw, fan throw, fan lift, Baraka blade throw, Scorpion spear, lightning, Shao Kahn shadow shoulder, Kano laser eye, Sonya ring toss. Some fun finishing moves as well. The finishing move Kitana puts on Shao Kahn is sick, using the blades to slice his head in half.
- Kitana’s acting and the child Kitana’s acting
- Every time Kano is on the screen
- Every time Johnny fucking Cage is on the screen
- The improvements made to Liu Kang and Kung Lao.
- Pretty much all the fights.
- Johnny Cage wobbling during the finish him scene while fighting Katina, classic!
- Kano having the amulent in his pocket.
- The way Kung Lao controls his hat was super cool. Even teleporting through it.
The Closing
Let’s finish by spending a bit more time on Kitana. This movie belongs to several characters, but none of their character arcs hold a candle to Kitana. She holds all of the emotion in the movie from the start to finish and other than the enjoyment that you might have towards other characters, there is no one else you’re rooting for and no one else you have any type of emotional investment in other than her. And it’s immediately felt the moment you see the eyes of child Kitana after her father ‘s death. The acting brings you right into the emotional struggle and pain that she feels I can literally feel fire raging deep in her body and the restraint she must hold. Ther’s no foreshadowing to the blue sash she takes from her dead father ‘s body, but it’s clear. He either had that on him without her knowledge so that she would be with him or she secretly snuck it into her father ‘s fighting armor so that she could be with him during the fight. She ties the sash to her ponytail without a single millimeter of movement onto her face or change her eyes. You can feel a fire raging inside her as she tightens the knot. And you can feel her pain. Probably my favorite catch on second viewing what was the bracelet wrapped around child Kitana‘s wrist in the opening sequence. The bracelet has one of those Japanese folding fans attached to it, foreshadowing the weapon she will use to kill Khan.
Kitana’s boobs moving up and down every time she breathes was fun to watch and, oh yeah, have I forgotten to mention that she is smoking hot. Now yes, I do prefer my Asians north of the Yellow Sea, but I have no problem with this Hong Konger. Can someone please point me in the direction of the next Mortal Kombat cosplay?
Rating
Considering this movie for what it is, a popcorn film. It does check pretty much all the boxes. I was entertained and never disengaged, the writing was pretty good and the action was really good. Without the nostalgia factor I think viewers could have a difficult time with this movie, but Mortal Kombat has a large footprint in the youth of my age group. There probably wasn’t a single scene in this movie that didn’t bring back memories of playing Mortal Kombat in Shiloh‘s living room or at the Minuteman gas station with Skie. The Katina character arc along with the Kano and Johnny Cage dry humor makes this movie continue to be entertaining during multiple viewings. The set pieces were pretty good and the cinematography was also good.
As much as I would like to give this film three balls I just can’t go there. But I can add some hair, so I am rating MORTAL KOMBAT II…..Two Big Hairy Balls.
Thanks for reading and until next time, Finish Him!
MORTAL KOMBAT ANNIHILATION
Plot Summary
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Summary
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Rating
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melon Man
Introducing Melon Man. Earths next great hero. Fighting krime whenever he can.
Melon Man, born as retracted a.k.a. Lenny Lamar gained his powers after a horrifying event in which he almost drowned while lying in a vat of watermelon juice. While on the brink of death retracted saved his life by simply standing up. Undenounced to him, this event left him with superhero powers! The next day, on the first day of his third Senior year of high school retracted ate a melon for lunch and transformed into Melon Man! He gained superhero strength and the power to fly. His belt buckle contained watermelon seeds, which he can use to spit through brick walls. Often you will see Melon Man barefoot as he has the ability to control his shoes. Using them as flying weapons to fight off his enemies he seldom remembers to put them back on. Different varieties of melons give him distinct powers. For example, a cantaloupe allows Melon Man to hold his breath for extended periods of time and a muskmelon gives him x-ray vision.
Melon Mans intelligence is his biggest weakness. It is said he has muscles the size of a watermelon and a brain the size of a watermelon seed. Melon Man earns his spending money from buying cigarettes and chewing tabaco from the vending machine at a nearby gas station. Buying them for $10 apiece and selling them for $12 to his high school classmates, he earns a cool two dollars per transaction. Enjoying an occasional cigarette himself, Melon Man knows he should not get high on his own supply. Therefore, he purchases the cigarettes from the very people he has sold them to, for $13 a pack. Melon man sense of time is a bit skew, for days he continues to think every time he looks at his clock it is 12:00. Only to realize that he never plugged his new alarm clock into the outlet or peeled the transparent sticker that reads 12:00 off the face of the digital clock. retracted’s high school crush, Galia barely knowledges his existence, but surely now that he is Melon Man, he will be able to woo his crush.
Melon Man has much to learn about fighting crime and his powers. His first act of heroism came while walking home from school the day he learned of his powers. Seeing two men robbing his cigarette and chew machine retracted transformed to Melon Man to put an into the heist. While flying away, proud with a smile on his face, he does not notice the owner of the gas station furiously shaking his fist “they were filling the machine, not robbing it you idiot!!” he yelled.
Days later, changing his name to Lenny Lamar Mela man comes face-to-face with his biggest foe, Mr. Shue 207!! Mr. 207 believes in a world free from ashtrays…… Melon Man must put a stop to him.