First of all, I could see what they were going for with this adaptation:
They were approaching Mortal Kombat as a superhero movie. This can be obviously seen with the concept of "arkana", and this to me automatically makes it inferior to the Paul W.S. Anderson (I know, right?) adaptation, which managed to keep its lore consistent with the games (despite no Kun Lao).
It also presents these fighters as "chosen ones", as opposed to how the original films depict more of them as "being chosen", but obviously don't believe it, or are more concerned with their own personal vendettas to even bother with the real stakes at hand. Here, it just feels like they just accept the importance of their position (and I know they spent quite a while trying to establish the gravitas of their predicament, but somehow it fails here) and focus on trying to gain their "superpowers". This really kind of sucks away at the motivations behind the Kontestants and I'd dare say the original film does a better job of characterizing the main cast, especially Goro.
I also can't help but feel that Raiden's and Liu Kang's roles are switched, with the latter being the mentor figure, only Raiden is now just an asshole leader that occassionally drops exposition. In the original, it was Raiden who gave the fighters a lecturing and it just feels weird for Liu Kang to be doing this seeing as he is a Kontestant himself.
I do like the moments with Scorpion and Sub-Zero, but Mr. Tonfa Do-the-uppercut and him gradually gaining his powers are...cringy at best.
I also think the movie suffers for lack of any actual tournament. Doing a pre-emminent sequel bait for the actual even also makes it kind of a lazy co-out.
It has a great fight in the beginning part, though. Kun Lao's Fatality was great, but the others do not feel as gratifying.
