Street Fighter (1994) | Steven E. de Souza

August 13, 2021 ~ Vince Leo

In the Southeast Asian country of Shadaloo, where General M. Bison (Raul Julia) has been waging a war with the A.N. (the Allied Nations — a U.N.-like military force) after he has taken several dozen A.N. hostages, putting them up for a ransom of $20 billion dollars. Leading the A.N. counterattack is United States Colonel William F. Guile (Jean-Claude Van Damme), a headstrong and gifted fighter that Bison can’t wait to challenge in hand-to-hand combat. Many others would converge at Bison’s stronghold, including television reporter Chun-Li Zang (Ming-Na), arms dealer Victor Sagat (Wes Studi), and a couple of roguish martial artists named Ken (Damian Chapa) and Ryu (Byron Mann).

Mortal Kombat (2021) | Simon McQuoid

July 26, 2021 ~ Vince Leo

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MMA cage fighter Cole Young (Lewis Tan) is someone who usually takes a dive for money in the arena. Young doesn’t know his heritage is tied to the ancient ninja Hanzo Hasashi (Hiroyuki Sanada) and that his dragon-shaped birthmark means he is chosen to compete in the Mortal Kombat tournament for the fate of Earthrealm. Outworld sorcerer emperor Shang Tsung (Chin Han) is out to get Young, sending his best warrior, Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim), to snuff him out. Young finds out more about why when meets Jax, a major in the U.S. Special Forces with the same special dragon symbol. Jax directs Cole to seek out fellow special-ops soldier Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee).

They soon find themselves in the temple of Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano), an Elder God who is the protector of Earthrealm. Raiden provides sanctuary for all from Earthrealm who bear the sacred mark, including the fire-ball flinging Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), the metal-helmeted Kung Lao (Max Huang), and nasty-dispositioned crime boss Kano (Josh Lawson). Their mission is to prepare themselves through martial arts training to take on the evil warriors of Outworld, which is set to take over Earthrealm if they win one more interdimensional Mortal Kombat tournament. The training has the capability of unleashing each warrior’s arcana, or special power that emanates from their souls. Cole must not only save his family from harm, but also everyone on Earth.

Mortal Kombat: Devastation | Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge (2020)

June 15, 2021 ~ Vince Leo

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In this episode, Vince looks at the ill-fated attempts to release the third film in the original Mortal Kombat film franchise from the 1990s, followed by an in-depth look at the 2020 animated feature, Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge, an ultraviolent origin story to one of the game’s most popular characters. This one features a man named Hanzo Hasashi, a ninja of a sort who vows revenge as an undead warrior on Sub-Zero and the Lin Kuei, who wiped out Hanzo’s people, the Shirai Ryu, including his young son. Hanzo rises from the eternally torturous underworld known as NetherRealm as Scorpion, resurrected with wraith-like demonic powers bestowed by the dark sorcerer Quan-Chi, in exchange for his loyalty, the theft of a mystical key that will free the Elder God known as Shinnok, and representation in the once-in-a-generation tournament run by the evil Shang Tsung.

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997) | John R. Leonetti

May 17, 2021 ~ Vince Leo

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In this sequel to 1995’s Mortal Kombat, portals between Outworld and Earth are illegally opened by Outworld’s emperor Shao Kahn, who has decided the rules of “Mortal Kombat” need not apply to him. This leaves the world’s mightiest fighters only six days to vanquish this new threat and close the portals or lose Earthrealm to the powers of evil. They return to Outworld to fight for humanity’s fate.

Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins (1995) | Joseph Francis

May 5, 2021 ~ Vince Leo

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Mortal Kombat: The Journey begins was a direct-to-video animated video released in conjunction with the release of Mortal Kombat in theaters in 1995. It purports to be a sequel to the live-action film. For the story, producer Larry Kasanoff employed the services of his screenwriter for the live-action film, Kevin Droney. In Droney’s script, we learn that “Mortal Kombat” is a tournament where warriors from Earth and warriors from the alternate dimension of Outworld compete for domination. Three warriors from Earth are chosen by Raiden, the God of Thunder: Liu Kang, a monk who hails from the Order of Light Temple, Lieutenant Sonya Blade, a United States Special Forces officer, and Johnny Cage, a major Hollywood action star with actual martial arts skill. Their mission is to travel by boat to a mysterious island to fight the reigning champion of the “Mortal Kombat” tournament for five centuries, a half-humanoid/half-dragon named Goro. However, to get there, they must first get through evil sorcerer Shang Tsung’s minions, SubZero and Scorpio, as well as a horde of Nomads (aka Tarkatan warriors) protecting Goro. Along the way, Raiden describes the scenario and the backgrounds of the foes they are about to face for the benefit of those unfamiliar with the game.

Mortal Kombat (1995) | Paul W.S. Anderson

May 1, 2021 ~ Vince Leo

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The debut episode of “To the 90s and Beyond” podcast!

In the film, there is a gathering of Earth’s top fighters every generation to compete for the fate of the planet to keep the evil forces from Outworld from gaining dominion. It seems that if Outworld’s fighters defeat Earth in one more tournament, Earth will be theirs. The current generation’s elite are rounded up, including monk fighter Liu Kang (Robin Shou), Hollywood action hero Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby), and military operative Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson), to join forces with Earth’s defending thunder god Rayden (Christopher Lambert) in fighting to the death against the outlandish, deadly creatures from the planet of darkness, headed by the evil sorcerer Shang Tsung (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa). Paul W.S. Anderson directs.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021)

March 22, 2021 ~ Vince Leo

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The much-demanded and long-awaited release of Zack Snyder’s vision for what was meant to be his 2017 film Justice League. As with the 2017 version, the story follows the events of Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Superman is dead, leaving a vacuum as Earth’s protector. A hulking alien from the planet Apokolips named Steppenwolf comes to Earth to retrieve the three hidden Motherboxes, cubelike artifacts with mysterious, powerful energy, enough to destroy planets when combined. Batman can’t take on such a force alone, rounding up a team of superpowered beings from Earth to stop impending doom -the goddess-like Amazon Wonder Woman, the god-like Atlantean king Aquaman, the turbo-speed demon Flash, and the cybernetic wizard Cyborg. And yet, they will still need the power of Superman somehow.

The Hunt (2020) | Craig Zobel

January 21, 2021 ~ Vince Leo

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The Hunt is a violent satire in which liberals kidnap and hunt down “deplorables”, aka Trump supporters. These deplorables wake up in an undisclosed rural area gagged online bloggers and internet trolls claimed to expose online as “Manorgate,” but are left with keys, tools, and weapons to potentially defend themselves and get free. The private jet-flying, caviar-consuming liberal elites hunting them down like giving them a sporting chance, though the odds are heavily stacked against them. However, one of the captives is able to give the hunters a run for their money. Betty Gilpin, Hilary Swank, Wayne Duvall, Ike Barinholtz, Emma Roberts, Ethan Suplee appear in this film written by Nick Cuse and Damon Lindelof, directed by Craig Zobel.

Bad Boys for Life (2020) | Adil and Bilall

April 16, 2020 ~ Vince Leo

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In this third entry in the long-gestating franchise, Mike Lowery (Will Smith) gets gunned down by up-and-coming Miami crime kingpin Armando Armas (Jacob Scipio) who pops a few rounds into the cop at the direction of his ruthless mother Isabel (Kate del Castillo), getting revenge on all of those cops and lawyers who took down her drug-lord husband years before. Due to Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) making a pact with God to hang up the “bad boys” life if Mike pulls through, he refuses to join forces with his longtime partner on exacting revenge on Armando. To help supplement the cover, loose-cannon Mike teams up with the by-the-book ‘AMMO’ division of the force, a group of young guns with high-tech weapons. Of course, when tragedy strikes once again, Marcus gets off of his recliner for one more chance at the guts and glory of the “bad boys.”

Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) | Jeff Fowler

February 15, 2020 ~ Vince Leo

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Sonic the Hedgehog (voiced by Ben Schwartz) flees homeworld due to possessing powers that make him a fugitive carrying a bad full of rings that are portals to new dimensions, is typical road-movie adventure comedy we’ve seen many times in a variety of forms. Sonic ends up teleporting to Earth, specifically the flyspeck town of Green Hills, Montana, where he encounters a sheriff so bored with the town’s lack of crims that he’s taken to having conversations with his donuts, Tom Wachowski (James Marsden), who is hoping to not make another day a waste by waiting patiently to nail someone speeding. He gets it in Sonic, who clocks in at a speed that makes Tom question his radar gun. Tom dreams of doing some real crime-fighting, with a goal to move him and Maddie (Tika Sumpter), his ever-supportive veterinarian wife, to San Francisco to join their more active police department. It turns out when Sonic loses all of his other rings through an open portal atop the city’s Transamerica Pyramid, he’ll have to tag along as well.

However, when Sonic’s energy burst ends up causing a massive power outage to the entire Pacific Northwest region of the United States, the government sends in a secret weapon, Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey), a mad, megalomaniacal genius with an army of sophisticated flying drones who tenaciously will find a way to exterminate the blue alien thing once and for all. Robotnik chases Tom and his new companion Sonic as they make their way to California.