1. Very bad casting call on Shao Kahn, and his skull helmet was a complete joke. The dude mostly lacked the "awesomeness" (I'll use that term loosely here) of the video game version of Shao Kahn. No "you will die" comments, no finger waving, and he hardly used the hammer of doom at all.
2. Rayden, what the fudge happened to you?! You went from being a really cool dude that would always serve as a deterrent against Shang Tsung's rule breaking, to some complete pansy. To make things worse, the new Rayden becomes even more of a pansy when he becomes mortal! How is that even possible?
3. Some love story bits were attempted in this movie. That should be self-explanatory, but for those who don't get it, let me say this: The only "love" that should be in a Mortal Kombat movie is somebody who "loves" to pound the other person's face in. The only exception I'm willing to make is some sort of short smooch at the very end of the movie, for "ha ha, happy ending" reasons.
4. The costumes literally looked like something you would find at a cosplay convention. Enough said.
5. Johnny Cage is killed within the first few minutes of the movie, and he doesn't even put up much of a fight. He just does a special flying kick and then gets his neck snapped a short while after that. Who was the moron who decided to write that in there? Talk about getting off on the wrong foot...
6. Too many characters. Seriously, it's like they threw most of them in there for the sake of completion. Who needs character development? Not the people who made the movie, that's for sure!
7. The bad script did not help the mostly bad acting. One can only do so much when they have to say stupid things like "Find your animality" and "Shao Kahn is my brother." Robin Shou was about as acceptable as you'd expect him to be (he's a martial arts guy, so cut him some slack), but Shao Kahn had a William Shatner complex. Honestly, he would say quite a few of his lines like this: "Prepare for..........the final battle!"
8. Sonya fights (and wins against) Mileena in a mud fight. You don't get much more shameless than this, folks.
9. After winning said fight, a very large and poorly animated creature comes out of a statue and tries to eat Sonya. That is, until Jax shows up and...rapidly punches it in the left side of its body. This causes it to eventually go ARGH and slide back into the ground. Words simply can't do justice to how bad that scene is, so if you ever stumble across this movie, take a look for yourself. I guarantee you'll laugh in disbelief, and then die a little inside.
10. Animalities are things that are somewhat acceptable in a video game, but not in a live-action movie. The whole concept is stupid, but apparently the script writer was absolutely determined to add as much stuff from the game series as possible into one movie. Because of this, you get retarded things like Nightwolf's "three tests" (what is this, Zelda?) and the horrendous fight scene near the end of the movie.
11. As I just mentioned, there is a fight scene near the end of the movie where Liu Kang has to unleash his animality to have a chance against Shao Kahn. You already figure that you're in for some stupid stuff when you see his eyes change color, but then the crap hits the fan when he becomes a large and poorly animated dragon.
At this point, you're already in disbelief that they are seriously trying this, and then they see fit to make it worse. How can they make this any worse, you ask? That's right, by making Shao Kahn use his animality too, becoming a giant three-headed hydra. So here you are, watching two awful monsters fight each other. The movie title suddenly switched from "Mortal Kombat: Annihilation" to something like "Beast Wars: In 3-D!"
Thankfully, the scene is fairly short. They kick butt and then revert to human form for the rest of the movie. Huzzah, I guess.
Now, with all of this said, I should note that the movie does have some good points (as few and far between as they are):
1. The guy playing Jax was actually pretty good at times. I'd say that throughout a lot of the movie, the way he recited his lines sounded pretty natural. Certainly better acting than most other characters in the movie, at the very least.
2. Motaro was very well done, for a freaking live-action centaur. In fact, this is what I think centaurs (or creatures like them) should look like on screen. The approach was pretty simple: human body for the upper half, and use some fairly believable computer imagery (or was that a costume?) for everything else.
Compare this to garbage like the Scorpion King from The Mummy Returns, and Motaro wins any day of the week. If you don't believe me, watch both movies and laugh at how ridiculously stupid the Scorpion King looks.
For those who don't want to bother, here are two shots of Motaro from the movie (click the second picture for a larger version):
3. Kitana played her part pretty well, but there isn't much else to say.
As for the good points, those are about it. I seriously don't recommend watching this movie if you have to pay for it in any way, shape, or form. If you can bum it off a buddy or something like Netflix though, feel free to do so when you're in the mood for a laugh or two (or if you're a masochist). If anything, check it out simply for the Motaro/Scorpion King comparison.
I suppose I should assign a number to this movie to make it more of a real review, so I'll give it a 4/10. It's not an unbearable movie, but you likely will lose a few brain cells from the experience. If you really want to do yourself a favor though, you'll go watch Mortal Kombat instead and realize/remind yourself what a great video game movie looks like.
