Mortal Kombat II and MVP MMA 1: Rousey vs. Carano

My wife and I watched Mortal Kombat II, and it was a fun movie. There were excessive violence, blood and gore, but that is a trademark of the Mortal Kombat video game franchise. Fatalities, great fight scenes, and a lot of them, and just the right amount of humor really made the movie just breeze by. The plot is nothing special, but it works, and while some background knowledge of Mortal Kombat lore would help understand what is going on, it is not necessary. It is not entirely necessary to watch the Mortal Kombat I movie from 2021, or the classic back in the 90’s, but it does give some context as to what is happening and who some of the characters are. Nonetheless, it is fairly easy to follow who are the good guys, and who are the bad guys. Karl Urban was well-cast as main protagonist Johnny Cage, playing a former action star, whose star has faded a long time ago, gets picked to be in the Mortal Kombat tournament to battle for the fate of Earthrealm. He was funny, cocky, arrogant, but can fight and eventually “finds himself” as the movie goes along. Everyone else played their roles well and has their own special abilities and fighting styles. The choreography was really well-done, and there were multiple set pieces where battles took place. Overall, I thought that this was just a lot of fun, and it looks like a third one will get made, which I will watch.

The first MVP MMA fight card happened, and the event was shown on Netflix. The main event has Ronda Rousey fight Gina Carano, in a fight that lasted seventeen seconds with Rousey winning by armbar. For me and many others, this was the predicted result, and it looks like both are retiring from MMA after this, which they probably should. For Carano, this was definitely a disappointing result, but I think that she is finding victory in just making that walk to the cage. Carano was fired from The Mandalorian not too long ago while being seemingly blacklisted from Hollywood, but she lost over one-hundred pounds and seemed to be in a good place in her life, so I think making that walk was the actual goal with the fight just being extra. Rousey gets to leave MMA off of a win after two KO losses in the UFC from Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes. They both got paid as well. Some fighters though did not have great nights on the card such as: Nate Diaz, Junior Dos Santos and Philipe Lins. Nate Diaz was a bloody mess fighting Mike Perry, and Lins and Dos Santos got knocked out in brutal fashion. Dos Santos especially needs to stop fighting in any combat sport. The production was really good, but the pacing was not that good. I would imagine that this got a good rating, but I do have to wonder about its sustainability. The card was fun overall though, and having a bunch of finishes does not hurt.