Two Nerds watched both the 1995 and 2021 Mortal Kombat movies back to back, then sat down for a little chat. The 1995 Mortal Kombat was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, who also wrote all and directed most of the Resident Evil movies to date. (Apparently there’s a prequel coming out this year called Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, which he isn’t involved in.) The 2021 Mortal Kombat is much less goofy than the first iteration — it’s definitely going for a more naturalistic tone — but that’s not always successful. Partially because there’s only so much realism you can wring out of a movie based on a video game about an interdimensional kick-punching contest, and partially because why would you want to?